AD Agencies
DAN, a friend in need
MUMBAI: InDeed, Dentsu Aegis Network’s newly launched CSR Advisory, will facilitate corporate investments by companies in Corporate Social Responsibly, through insights & a brand-led approach.
InDeed, will provide best-in-class expertise and capabilities in Creative, Media, Digital, OOH, Activation and PR communications services, which will help brands build a truly Integrated and a Brand-Led CSR journey in India.
InDeed will work with clients to infuse brand purpose into their CSR strategies. The aim is to integrate branding and CSR in order to build a corporate culture around responsibility, leading to business sustainability and thereby reap reputational rewards. This will, in turn, make Corporate Social Responsibility into an opportunity that is accountable, measurable and scalable across several CSR areas of development. (eradicating hunger, poverty & malnutrition, education, gender equality, rural sports, rural development projects, measure for the benefit of armed forces, ensuring environmental sustainability, contribution to the prime minister’s national relief fund and contributions or funds provided by technology incubators).
InDeed is building a repository of India’s most credible and reputed NGOs and will connect them to corporates on the basis of thematic and geographical priorities – to create the best possible match. It will also be involved in conducting employee engagement activities and volunteering programs that result in a meaningful engagement of the staff in innovative social initiatives that are grounded in business practices.
Indeed has also invested in best brand led CSR case studies to link it to NGO / Brand / CSR activity. More than 2500 case studies are mapped by geography, cost, product, NGO and CSR activity to make sure the best brand-led CSR is delivered.
Commenting on the launch, Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO – south Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “Today several of our clients are making a huge investment in CSR but in an adhoc manner. Many corporates want to give back to the society but often don’t know how to go about it in a consistent and meaningful manner. Indeed will act as a catalyst in this entire process and Haresh and his team have really done pioneering work in this area. Feels great to be able to give back to society via a socially relevant business.”
Indeed mentor and MD Haresh Nayak will lead this initiative from Dentsu Aegis Network. He strongly believes that brand building should be seamlessly combined with CSR strategies. He said, “It is not enough for brands to just ‘Greenwash’ their actions to provide PR-able fodder. Mostly such acts of philanthropic projects are short lived and rarely build a brand connect. However, if implemented in the right manner and with the right approach, brand building and CSR can perfectly complement each other.”
Being a part of Denstu Aegis Network, InDeed will not only work with their existing clients but will also look at fresh collaborations.
Currently the InDeed team will be based out of Dentsu Aegis Network’s Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore offices. Dentsu Aegis Network’s presence in India comprises the global network brands Carat, iProspect, Isobar, Posterscope, Vizeum, MKTG, Amnet and mcgarrybowen along with the Dentsu branded agencies – Dentsu Impact, Dentsu One, Dentsu India, Dentsu Media, Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney. Also, newly added to the group are the recently acquired local brands Milestone Brandcom, WATConsult, Fountainhead MKTG, the Perfect Relations Group, Happy mcgarrybowen and Fractal Design Studio.
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.
