MAM
Bajaj Allianz maintains #AwkwardSilence on WATConsult idea
MUMBAI: Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has launched a digital campaign titled “Awkward Silence”, to create awareness about the importance of having insurance amongst consumers.
Conceptualised and executed by WATConsult, India’s leading and most awarded digital and social media agency, part of the Dentsu Aegis Network, the campaign was unveiled with a series of short videos that showcase conversations between a group of objects.
The videos feature objects from daily life like a motorbike, travel bags, television and others, which explain how awkward it got for them that their owners, even today, in this day and time, have missed out on taking an insurance for them.
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance SVP and head of technology, digital sales & marketing Sourabh Chatterjee said, “Most of us are not completely aware of the benefits of Insurance. Therefore, our intent is to focus on the real tangible benefits of insurance and use a relatable context and message to drive awareness. When mishaps occur, it’s an unexpected trauma and a big expense. We are there for you to take care of you during these times, that’s the simple message we’re looking to put out there.”
WATConsult CEO Rajiv Dingra said, “Video consumption is expected to grow at a rate of 50% this year. Bearing this in mind, we decided to use a series of video to tackle the awkwardness around the topic of Insurance. To make the videos more impactful, we took a creative call to feature objects from daily life and personified them with quirky characters.”
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.
