MAM
Madchatter goes global with Worldcom PR pact
MUMBAI: From Bandra to Berlin Madchatter’s next brainstorm could be worldwide. Mumbai-based integrated communications agency Madchatter Brand Solutions has joined the Worldcom Public Relations Group, becoming part of a 40-country-strong alliance of over 80 independent PR firms. The move signals a strategic leap for the young firm as it gears up to build campaigns that are globally informed and locally resonant.
“This partnership is a huge milestone, especially at a time when regional boundaries are blurring fast,” said Madchatter founder and CEO Rachna Baruah. “It gives us access to a global brain trust of PR experts while ensuring that Indian narratives get the international spotlight they deserve.”
Worldcom, which vets every member through a rigorous operational and cultural compatibility check, says India remains a market of growing strategic significance. “Madchatter’s regional depth and forward-thinking approach are a strong value-add,” said Worldcom recruitment chair Bjorn Mogensen.
Founded with a focus on both Web2 and Web3 sectors, Madchatter has made a name for itself in storytelling across verticals like enterprise tech, fintech, real estate, wellness, crypto, and impact ventures. Its full-stack services include crisis comms, digital strategy, multilingual content, and policy-sensitive media training, a mix now poised to go global.
With this partnership, Madchatter will co-create multi-market campaigns, exchange real-time insights with international partners, and offer on-ground India expertise to global clients expanding into the subcontinent.
From local stories to global strategies, it’s chatter that now speaks many languages.
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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.
