MAM
CBS, Chevrolet to create a multi-platform ad challenge around the Superbowl
MUMBAI: US broadcaster CBS and car brand Chevrolet have joined forces to create a multi-platform event about the final stages in the “Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge.
The campaign includes reality webisodes to be featured on CBS.com, a presence in CBS’s primetime special Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials 2007 where the winning team from the Challenge will be announced, and culminates with the winning commercial airing during the Network’s broadcast of Super Bowl XLI on 4 February 2007.
As part of the challenge Chevy has given students the chance to compete for the opportunity to have their idea for a Chevy ad produced for the 2007 Super Bowl which is one of the most coveted advertising spots on television with, on average, 90 million viewers tuning in to watch.
Chevrolet GM Ed Peper says, “Consumer-generated ads, in the age of the Internet and YouTube, have truly come front and center. Chevy is proud to be a leader in this area. We were thrilled to host the finalists in Detroit and are eager to share what we taught them and what they taught us that weekend with the public through this partnership with CBS”.
“TMarketers are looking to creatively engage audiences across multiple platforms, and this deal accomplishes that through online components, network television sponsorship and viewer interaction,” said Jo Ann Ross, President, CBS Network Sales. “This is a unique package that taps into many different audiences while delivering great value for the client, and is an exciting way to engage both viewers and advertisers.”
The online component of the campaign is comprised of eight Chevy-sponsored webisodes which premiere on 22 January 2007 on CBS.com. The webisodes will take viewers behind the scenes of the challenge, in which more than 820 college teams registered for the opportunity to have their ad concept made into one of Chevrolet’s Super Bowl commercials.
The webisodes, produced by Juma Entertainment, will range from three to eight minutes in length, and follow the five finalist teams as they travel from their hometowns to Detroit to make “the pitch.” The webisodes will show them driving the Chevy vehicles featured in their ads — the Aveo, Cobalt, Equinox, and HHR, refining their presentations with Chevy’s advertising agency Campbell-Ewald, and presenting their ad concepts to Chevy executives.
The challenge then goes primetime in CBS’ annual Super Bowl’s Greatest Commercials 2007 special which airs on 2, February. The winning team of the Chevy College Challenge will be revealed during the special and viewers will be able to see more behind the scenes footage of the competition. Chevy is the exclusive automotive sponsor of the special.
And two days after the winning team is revealed — their concept will be seen by roughly 90 million viewers during one of the commercials Chevy has created for Super Bowl XLI.
The final two webisodes, showing the actual process of the making of the commercial, as well as other behind-the-scenes footage from the competition, will air following the primetime show and Super Bowl, on CBS.com.
AD Agencies
Abhay Duggal joins JioStar as director of Hindi GEC ad sales
The streaming giant brings in a seasoned revenue hand as the battle for Hindi television advertising heats up
MUMBAI: Abhay Duggal has a new desk, and JioStar has a new weapon. The media and entertainment veteran has joined JioStar as director of entertainment ad sales for Hindi general entertainment channels, adding 17 years of hard-won revenue experience to one of India’s most powerful broadcasting operations.
Duggal is no stranger to big portfolios or bruising markets. Before joining JioStar, he spent a brief stint at Republic World as deputy general manager and north regional head for ad sales. Before that, he put in three years at Enterr10 Television, where he ran the north region for Dangal TV and Dangal 2, two of India’s leading free-to-air Hindi channels. The north alone accounted for more than 50 per cent of total channel revenue on his watch, a number that tends to get attention in any sales meeting.
His longest stint was at Zee Entertainment Enterprises, where he spent over six years rising to associate director of sales. There he commanded the Hindi movies cluster across seven channels, owned more than half of north India’s revenue across flagship properties including Zee TV and &TV, and closed marquee sponsorships across the Indian Premier League, Zee Rishtey Awards and Dance India Dance. He also handled monetisation for the English movies and entertainment cluster and the global news channel WION, a portfolio that would stretch most sales teams twice his size.
Earlier in his career Duggal closed what was then a Rs 3 crore single deal at Reliance Broadcast Network, one of the largest in Indian radio at the time, before that he helped launch and monetise JAINHITS, India’s first HITS-based cable and satellite platform.
His edge, by his own account, lies in marrying data and instinct: translating audience trends, inventory signals and client demands into long-term partnerships built on cost-per-rating-point discipline rather than short-term deal chasing. In a media landscape being reshaped by streaming, fragmented attention and AI-driven advertising, that kind of rigour is increasingly rare and increasingly valuable.
JioStar, which blends the scale of Reliance’s Jio platform with the content firepower of Star, is doubling down on its advertising business at precisely the moment the Hindi GEC market is getting more competitive. Bringing in someone who has spent nearly two decades doing exactly this, across some of India’s most watched channels, is a pointed statement of intent. Duggal has spent his career turning audiences into revenue. JioStar is clearly betting he can do it again, and bigger.
