MAM
Sahara does a media blast for ‘Mission Fateh’
MUMBAI: It was a virtual call to arms today for Sahara India as it put in action an elaborate and innovative multimedia campaign across nine cities to push its big ticket show Mission Fateh that kicks off tonight at 9:30 pm.
The channel is sparing no effort to make sure Mission Fateh gets maximum attention. Promo activities reached a high point this morning with huge half page advertisements in most major newspapers in metros and most of northern India.
The ads are scheduled to appear every Friday (the day the one-hour weekly airs) for the next few weeks. Hoardings at strategic locations in Mumbai and nine other cities have been pressed into service to push the new show as well as the news channels that debuted today.
The channel has also roped in FM radio stations Radio City and Win to promote Mission Fateh every Friday. A plethora of other activities have also been planned in nine major TRP cities across the country to capture the attention of the viewer on the the day of launch, says an official spokesperson.
Sahara targeted suburban railway commuters with an elaborate campaign plan to tune in both Central and Harbour line commuters in Mumbai by promoting their fare at Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) between the peak hours 4:30 pm and 8:30 pm. Four “army jawans” along with ammunition were ‘stationed’ at a specially fabricated army bunker created inside the station, along with two promoters clad in Mission Fateh T-shirts, distributing leaflets.
Another set of 14 promoters in army fatigues were placed at three entry/exit points outside the station distributing the leaflets. Twenty people in army fatigues were also placed at five entry/exit points outside Mumbai’s Churchgate station on the western line, to distribute leaflets. Eight people in Mission Fateh T-shirts were stationed at Churchgate as well as the CST platform entry/exit points inside the station. Besides, there will be free distribution of T-shirts to cobblers and vendors at both stations.
In Kolkata, 10 people in army costumes were to distribute leaflets at Tollygunge and Shyambazar Metro railway stations.
In an innovative initiative, a march-past was conducted on an important route in each of the nine cities, Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Indore, Ahmedabad and Pune this evening. In Mumbai, four batches comprising 40 people in soldiers’ costumes were scheduled to participate in an army like march past from Nariman point NCPA to Girgaum Chawpatty, holdingMission Fateh banners, between 5:00 -7:00 pm, while two batches consisting of 50 “jawans” were to march in Delhi.
In Kolkata, two batches of 80, while in Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bhopal, Ahmedabad and Pune one lot of 50 jawans each were promoting the hour long weekly based on the lives of real life army heroes. Another group dressed in army fatigues distributed leaflets at other key traffic signals cities between 4:30 and 8:30 pm. In Mumbai, the traffic signals targeted were Bandra junction, Andheri’s SV Road, Haji Ali, Chowpatty, Vashi Toll Naka and Sion Circle.
Sahara isn’t sparing cinemas either. Around 100 cinema houses across the country will be screening the promos of the show. Almost all the leading cinema houses in Mumbai, including Cinemagic, Cinestar, Starcity, Regal, Imax and Fame ad labs, have been roped in for the campaign.
In the northeast region of the country, Mission Fateh will be introduced to the locals via a unique promotional campaign – a video-on-wheels. An automobile will tour different cities screening snippets from the show and organising on the spot contests and distributing freebies.
Media planners estimate that a whopping Rs 35 million has gone into this massive campaign that kicked off a few days ago.
The show itself is high on class and content, according to initial reports. Now it remains to be seen whether the viewer will join Sahara’s marching band.
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.
