MAM
Digital ads: TAG verifies Zapr for transparent biz practices
MUMBAI: Zapr, partly owned by Star India’s Hotstar, has now been verified by Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) for transparent business practices in the digital ad space. Compliant companies include Google, Comscore and GroupM.
TAG, an advertising industry initiative to fight criminal activity in the digital advertising supply chain, recently awarded Zapr Media Labs for being a legitimate participant in the digital advertising industry through a proprietary background check and review process powered by Dun & Bradstreet.
WPP estimates that $16.4 billion of global advertising revenue will be spent on fraudulent ad traffic in 2017. However, through the murky swamp that the ad-tech industry has become, the global media and advertising industry is fighting back and demanding greater transparency.
Comprising over 200 registered companies worldwide including Google, Comscore and GroupM, TAG aims to eliminate fraudulent digital ad traffic by ensuring transparency in the digital advertising supply chain. Global marketing leaders are increasingly insisting that all participants in the digital ecosystem comply with TAG guidelines.
“Our industry’s efforts to fight fraud, combat malware, stop piracy, and improve transparency are building overwhelming momentum, as hundreds of companies agree to join TAG and take part in our certification programs,” TAG (TAG Today) CEO Mike Zaneis.
“In an industry where clients want to be assured that their brands and digital components are safe, Zapr remains committed to upholding the highest industry standards, Zapr CEO Sandipan Mondal said.
Zapr’s TAG verified status claims to reinforce its adoption of transparency and global best practices with clients and publisher partners.
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.
