MAM
DDB MudraMax realigns biz units; announces new leadership structure
MUMBAI: In line with the changing consumer, market dynamics and the imperative need to offer seamless consumer engagement solutions to clients, DDB Mudra Group has realigned its media, OOH, experiential and retail businesses that are offered under the DDB MudraMax brand.
DDB Mudra Group executive director and DDB MudraMax Media (including digital) president Sathyamurthy Namakkal will now additionally take charge of the DDB MudraMax OOH business.
This consolidation bolsters the multi channel media offerings of the group and will help clients benefit with access to the entire gamut of services in data analytics, media planning and buying across all media touch points. Both units have grown aggressively over the past three years and this consolidation is the next step in achieving exponential growth.
DDB Mudra Group executive director and DDB MudraMax head of ideas Aneil Deepak (popularly known as Andee) will now take charge of the DDB MudraMax experiential business as well.
Deepak has taken the lead in delivering path breaking campaigns for clients in the experiential and engagement space viz. Health Cha Shree Ganesh, The Misunderstood Scoreboard, Eye for an Eye. With the experiential business added to his portfolio, the group looks to build innovative and engaging brand experiences that deliver business growth for all clients.
TracyLocke head business and operations Sameer Mehta will take independent charge of the business and will now report directly to DDB Mudra Group CEO and MD Madhukar Kamath. He has been instrumental in delivering technology led solutions for clients to help grow their business in the field marketing, shopper marketing and the retail space.
Kamath said, “Partnering our clients in solving their business challenges and rewarding top performers in the group have always been top priority for us. Realigning the DDB MudraMax business helps us achieve both these objectives. We will also see several young and deserving talent in the group grow into positions of responsibility aligned to our constant endeavour of building an agile organisation.”
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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.
