MAM
Bang in the Middle gets Knoxx Global’s India biz
MUMBAI: Delhi-based ad agency Bang in the Middle has won the creative and media duties for Australian integrated security and management services provider, Knoxx Global.
The company from the land of down under is set to launch in India. Bang in the Middle will manage the entire spectrum of services for Knoxx Global‘s India plans.
Knoxx Global MD Ajay Pal Singh said, “I am delighted to announce that we have found like-minded partners in the Bang in the Middle team. We have very ambitious plans for our services. We, along with Bang in the Middle team, will create a brand that India will aspire for.”
Bang in the Middle MP Prathap Suthan said, “This just reaffirms our collective calibre and ability to launch and grow a brand within India and globally. We are very proud to have been chosen by Knoxx, and I am pretty sure we will help Knoxx become the marquee global brand they can become.”
Bang in the Middle was started in 2011 as an in-house creative division of global tech support provider iYogi and went independent on 1 May 2012. The team at Bang in the Middle boasts of industry veterans like Prathap Suthan, Naresh Gupta, Viral Pandya, Manoj Deb, and Sabu Paul.
The agency provides services across verticals such as brand advisory, campaign design, and advertising across platforms and customer touch-points and aims to assist brands in creating holistic communication approaches that will reduce dependency on traditional media and leverage digital to get better results.
Knoxx Global is in the process of introducing GPS tracking services and devices for both commercial and individual vehicle owners.
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.
