MAM
Dabur Chyawanprash onboards Nagarjuna as South India brand ambassador
Mumbai: FMCG major Dabur India has roped in South superstar Akkineni Nagarjuna as the new brand ambassador of its flagship health supplements brand Dabur Chyawanprash for the South Indian market.
A new ad campaign, conceptualised by McCann World Group, will soon be aired across media platforms in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. With this association, Dabur aims to reach every household in south India and create awareness about the importance of strong immunity and the role that Dabur Chyawanprash plays in building immunity to fight illnesses, said the statement.
“We are happy to have superstar Nagarjuna on board as the face of Dabur Chyawanprash for South Indian markets. Being a philanthropist and brand ambassador for HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns, Nagarjuna has been a prominent face for several community development initiatives,” said Dabur India regional business head – South JP Victoria.
“With Nagarjuna on board as the face for Dabur Chyawanprash, this campaign is expected to have a very good reach and connect with consumers in South Indian markets. With this communication, we are also establishing our strong sense of pride about ‘Made in India, by Indians, for Indians,’ and caring for every household’s immunity and well-being in South India,” Victoria added.
Commenting on this association, Nagarjuna remarked, “The times we are living in today have underlined the importance of immunity more than ever before. Strong Immunity is the need of the hour. Dabur has relentlessly nurtured the country’s health and fitness through the science of authentic Ayurveda. As a consumer, I have been associated with the brand for years now. I really believe that together, Dabur and I, will take Dabur Chyawanprash to every household in South India and work towards building the nation’s immunity.”
The campaign uses the south Indian martial art form Silambam as a metaphor to emphasise on the need to build immunity to fight illnesses.
“Creative storytelling is all about making a product proposition more engaging for people to take notice of it. So, when we were tasked with introducing Dabur Chyawanprash for the South Indian markets, we struck upon the idea of using the ancient Southern martial art of ‘Silambam’ or stick fighting as a theme,” shared McCann World Group creative head – South Sambit Mohanty.
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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.
