AD Agencies
Abbys 2022 onboards five more jury chairs
Mumbai: The jury chair at Abbys 2022 has roped in five more eminent jury chairs on Thursday. It is being assembled gloriously with stalwarts of the advertising industry, both national and global. The five new Jury chairs will be judging the awards along with international judges.The jury comprises:
Ayappa KM
Early Man Films director and partner Ayappa is an accomplished writer and director of commercials, documentaries and television series. His work has been highly awarded at both Indian and international festivals including Cannes and D&AD. Ayappa is known for his offbeat directing style and unusual casting. Other awards won by Ayappa include Spikes, AdFest, Abbys and Kyoorius.
Devika Prabhu
Disney Star business head, kids & infotainment Devika is also onboarded. She oversees the content and communications initiatives across the bouquet of six kids and infotainment channels- Disney Channel, Hungama TV, Super Hungama, Disney Junior, Disney International HD, National Geographic, Nat Geo Wild and Fox Life. She is responsible for shaping the overall creative vision and driving the content and communications strategy.
ALSO READ: Abbys 2022 onboards six adland executives as jury chairs
Geet Rathi
TBWA design & creative director Geet heads design duties for TBWA Design By Disruption. She is Campaign Brief 2020 Asia’s eighth most awarded creative in India. Geet has been on the jury at One Show Design in 2021 and the Cannes Young Lions & Clio Health and Cannes Lions Jury in 2019. Geet is the founder of Blink To Speak TBWA India Design Lab.
Megha Tata
Discover South Asia-Warner Bros managing director Megha spearheads several marquee brands for the Discovery network in India including the country’s largest aggregated real-life infotainment OTT platform. In 2020, Discovery India retained its position as the ‘Most Trusted Real-Life Entertainment Brand’ by TRA Research Pvt Ltd for the 10th year in a row. Megha is also the second woman ever to become the president of the India Chapter of the International Advertising Association.
Raj Kamble
Famous Innovation founder and chief creative officer Raj Kamble who is one of the most awarded and globally recognised Indians in advertising. He has over 150 awards including several Cannes and One Show Golds. Famous holds the title of seven-time winner of South Asia Independent Agency of the Year in a row. Raj is a frequent lecturer at the Kellogg Institute of Management and Columbia University. He is also the director of Miami Ad School in India.
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.
