MAM
Bollywood Star Akshay Kumar lends his ‘Signature’ to the liquor brand
NEW DELHI: Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar is the new brand ambassador for McDowell Signature’s campaign “Success is living in the spotlight”.
The brand campaign epitomizes the Signature’s core values. Kumar will feature in an extensive 13-week TV campaign going on air this month onwards as the manifestation of “The Signature Man”.
The campaign will resonate with the youth, as this definition of success has evolved over the years. Today’s youth believe that success is not complete without fame and public adulation.
Said United Spirits president and managing director Ashok Capoor,“Signature has been built as a brand that resonates with the successful; therefore we have adopted the new tagline – ‘The sign of success’. We are pleased to welcome the remarkable Akshay Kumar into our fold. Akshay brings with him talent, a distinctive charm, his own unique style statement and oodles of success, which, we at Signature, believe to be a true reflection of our brand values. “
“I am delighted to be a part of the Signature Brand campaign as it wonderfully captures the key facets of a successful man,” said Akshay Kumar. “Like the Signature man in TV campaign, my life is always in the spotlight due the success I have achieved in my profession over the years. Therefore I urge my fans to dream big but to not lose their individuality and leave their own Signature on the world. The results and success will follow.”
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.
