MAM
Cards on the table as adland laughs at itself with a very knowing deck
MUMBAI: When the brief goes sideways and the pitch deck grows by 47 slides overnight, sometimes all you can do is laugh preferably with a deck of cards. Enter Cards Against Advertising, a new parody party game from Mumbai-based independent creative agency Motley that shuffles the chaos of adland into a sharp, self-aware pack of 150 cards.
Inspired by the irreverent format of Cards Against Humanity, the game leans into the clichés, contradictions and quiet toxicities of the advertising world, using humour not as a punchline but as a pressure valve. Developed under Motley Orgnls, the agency’s internal platform for crew-led ideas, the game draws directly from lived experiences across advertising, marketing and creative services.
Advertising may be one of the world’s most influential industries, but it is also one famously fuelled by long hours, high stakes and cultural burnout. Cards Against Advertising does not attempt to diagnose or fix these issues. Instead, it acknowledges them openly, collectively and with a wink. From last-minute presentation changes and endless alignment calls to pitch panic and jargon-heavy conversations that rarely make it into meeting minutes, the cards reflect moments most industry insiders recognise instantly.
“This is more than just a game; it’s an advertising-specific party experience,” said Motley founding partner and creative head Priyanka Surve. Designed by people who live the industry’s realities daily, the deck turns shared frustrations into satire rather than sermon.
The project also reflects Motley’s approach to creative ownership. Conceived through Motley Orgnls, the initiative allows team members to pitch independent ideas beyond client briefs. Selected projects receive production backing from the agency, with profits shared with the creators over time, a model that treats creativity as equity, not just output.
“In an industry powered by ideas, ownership should extend beyond billable work,” said Motley founding partner and business head Jason Menezes. “Creativity should build pride and participation, not just pay cheques.”
Written collaboratively by creatives, strategists, account managers and interns, the game is designed for groups both small and sprawling. Sessions typically run between 30 and 90 minutes and are intended for players aged 18 and above including current agency folk, former adlanders and even clients with a sufficiently self-aware sense of humour. Expansion packs focused on specific roles such as copywriters, designers and social media teams are already on the cards.
Arriving amid ongoing conversations around burnout, mental health and sustainable work cultures, Cards Against Advertising positions itself neither as a solution nor a critique. Instead, it offers something rarer in the industry: a shared laugh that feels a little too real and perhaps that’s precisely the point.
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.
