MAM
David Mayo is bates Asia CEO
MUMBAI: David Mayo will take over as bates Asia CEO later this month. This was announced by the agency network‘s chairman in Asia Tim Isaac, who retires by the end of October.
Mayo‘s stint in Asia started in 1994 as he came from London to join bates in Hong Kong. He was then hired by Isaac to join Ogilvy & Mather in 1997 to run Guinness, among other regional business. He has been instrumental in founding creative boutique, RedCard and after 2005 went on to hold several key senior roles at Ogilvy, including Ogilvy & Mather Advertising president and later as of Ogilvy & Mather ASEAN president.
Isaac said, “David is one of Asia‘s most experienced and creative agency leaders with a very strong track record in building brands and driving creativity. He is a born entrepreneur and has put many of our clients‘ brands firmly ahead of their competitors. He is the right person to build on the good work and the platform that has been established and to take bates to the next level in its long history in Asia.”
Mayo‘s track record with clients in Asia such as Guinness, Nike, Gillette, The Economist, Motorola, Coke and Diageo will bring added impetus to Bates as the agency model changes in Asia. His brief will be to galvanize the agency leadership, develop the bates brand and establish a new network model.
When I originally came to Asia in 1994, it was to work at bates, said Mayo. “It has a very strong track record as a maverick and creative brand in Asia and it has a unique place in a region of the world where more and more clients are asking for the bespoke and the personal. We will take bates to the next level. I am returning to take this heritage and fashion a fresh new agency offer for ambitious brand owners across the region.”
Ogilvy & Mather Asia Pacific chairman Paul Health said, “David‘s verve, energy and drive will be the perfect tonic for bates. David has done a brilliant job at Ogilvy across the region for more than a decade. I will miss him personally but am delighted he remains part of the broader family.”
Bates‘ major clients in Asia include HSBC, Shanghai General Motors, Diageo, Philip Morris, Cheong Kong, Colgate, Castrol, P&G, Disney, Nokia, Singapore Government, Marico, Kraft and Yum Restaurants. They have 12 offices in Taiwan, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Vietnam, KL, Singapore, Manila, Jakarta, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Delhi.
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.
