MAM
Kantar launches Global Analytics Practice to fuel business growth
MUMBAI: Kantar, WPP’s data investment management division, has launched a new global analytics practice that unlocks deeper insights to fuel business growth. Integrating analytical capabilities from across the company, Kantar Analytics Practice will combine the world’s most in-depth understanding of consumers with a deep analytics toolkit developed over four decades of solving the most difficult sales, brand, media and marketing problems. In India, WPP has combined the analytics teams from Kantar and GroupM to form one combined practice.
Kantar Analytics Practice unifies a global network of over 1500 data scientists, analytics consultants, technologists and data designers from across Kantar. It will encompass existing highly regarded businesses such as MaPS, Analytics Quotient, GroupM’s analytics team in India and connect them with specialist analysts from Kantar’s operating brands in sales, retail and shopper, media, health and public affairs. The new practice integrates Kantar’s unique consumer insights, based on the world’s largest first party data sets, with clients’ own customer data and a broad range of third party sources. By combining behavioural and attitudinal data, the outcome is actionable customer analysis to inform every brand, marketing and sales decision.
Kantar Analytics Practice offers capabilities across five areas of expertise. Its brand and media ROI helps in maximising value creation from brand and media investments, by balancing short-term sales performance with long-term brand valuation and profitability.
The customer analytics helps in making the right operational and strategic investment decisions in customer experience and loyalty marketing, to maximise the value of each and every customer relationship. The segmentation and activation helps in targeting the highest potential customers and prospects with personalised content, to drive profitable growth with maximum efficiency. While Innovation Analytics is used for optimising customer-led innovation lifecycle for long-term growth, from spotting new trends before your competitors, to optimising the profitability of your product launches, Retail and Shopper Analytics can be used for maximising the commercial return from investments in sales, retail and e-commerce via optimising decision-making in channel choice, assortment, promotions and pricing.
Kantar CEO Eric Salama says, “Less than half of advertisers believe they have the right, actionable data. Clients feel data rich but insights poor and impact short. Kantar is unique in having the most complete view of consumers across the entire demand cycle: the way they live, feel, shop, watch and post. Combining our insights with data from across any client’s organisation can unlock deeper insights that fuel growth. “
GroupM South Asia CEO and WPP India country manager CVL Srinivas mentions, “The new practice addresses the clients’ ask for data driven transformation for better ROI from marketing investments in the digital era. GroupM and Kantar have been working closely together in India, co-creating services for our clients. The launch of the Kantar Analytics practice is another step in this direction and demonstrates the ability of our group to come together to provide enhanced value for clients.”
To this, Kantar South Asia CEO Preeti Reddy adds, “The practice formalises the connected journey with GroupM in bringing data driven products to the markets like Campaign Watch (for during campaign ROI management) and consulting services on TV audience measurement data. Proprietary assets like SAAS platform Athena (built in India) will offer marketers a predictive and near real time opportunity to add up to 20 per cent improvement in ROI from marketing investments including those in e-commerce. And, in Sunder Muthuraman, who will take over as CEO APAC and global chief client officer, we have a great leader for the practice.”
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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.
