MAM
CoinSwitch ropes in Havas Media Group India as media AOR
Mumbai: Following a highly competitive multi-agency pitch, Havas Media Group India has bagged the integrated media mandate of India’s largest crypto investing app, CoinSwitch. This is the first major win for Havas Media Group India in the Southern market this year.
The mandate includes both offline and online duties of CoinSwitch and will be handled out of the Bangalore office, led by Havas Media managing partner – South Saurabh Jain, said the statement.
“Crypto assets are a gateway to the future decentralised world, aka Web 3.0. Today’s digital-savvy Indians are willing to experiment with this emerging asset class,” commented CoinSwitch chief business officer Sharan Nair. “At CoinSwitch, as part of our mission to ‘make money equal for all,’ we are committed to improving user awareness and helping them make informed investment decisions using various mediums. We are delighted to partner with Havas Media. Their strategic, audience-centric, meaningful media approach will strengthen the effectiveness of our investor education initiatives, as we evolve into a wealth-tech destination of choice for Indians.”
CoinSwitch has raised $260 million in Series C funding from Coinbase Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) in September 2021, to become India’s most valued crypto unicorn at a valuation of $1.9 billion. In January, the company crossed 15 million registered users and now plans to deliver diverse investment options to its growing customer base.
“We are proud to add a leading wealth tech unicorn CoinSwitch, that is helping users on their investment journey with crypto,” stated Havas Media Group India CEO Mohit Joshi. “We look forward to partnering the brand in their next phase of growth and building awareness, and reaching the right audiences using Havas’s proprietary tools, Meaningful Brands & Media Experience (Mx).”
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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.
