MAM
Dentsu Aegis Network forms ninth global network brand MKTG
MUMBAI: Dentsu Aegis Network has formed its ninth global network brand, MKTG, the lifestyle marketing agency it acquired in August 2014 headquartered in New York.
The agency’s transition towards operating as one global brand, MKTG will grow from 450 full time employees and 7,000 brand ambassadors in the United States, to nearly 1,000 full time employees in 14 countries, providing a truly global lifestyle marketing solution for clients.
The realigned agency will provide clients with an integrated through-the-line service offering including sports and entertainment consulting, experiential marketing, sponsorship identification, negotiation and activation, hospitality, strategy, research and insights, custom measurement, digital and creative capabilities, content development, design and retail marketing.
“The tremendous growth and importance of lifestyle marketing made it clear that strategically it was time to unify our like-minded businesses as one single brand. As a network, we are constantly evolving to meet the demands of our clients, to be responsive to the needs and desires of consumers and to remain pioneering in the evolution of our industry,” said Dentsu Aegis Network CEO and Dentsu Inc. executive officer Jerry Buhlmann.
In addition, out-of-home agency posterscope’s experiential arm, psLIVE’s offices across Europe and Asia Pacific, South Africa’s crimson room, Australia/New Zealand’s Apollo Nation and US-based sports and entertainment consultancy team Epic will be realigned as part of MKTG over the next 12 months.
Dentsu Aegis Network chairman & CEO South Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “In India, the lifestyle marketing solutions market is growing at twice the rate of the ATL market. With Fountainhead, a leading player in India and MKTG, a leading global player, we now will have the best offering of global standards, through Fountainhead MKTG, which will make us the best lifestyle marketing solutions agency in India. This is another big step forward in helping us achieve our mission of being the second largest agency group by end 2017 in India, overturning for the first time the existing ranking which has historically been in place for over 80 years in India.”
“We are truly excited about this next chapter and the opportunity to work across the network to deliver unrivalled lifestyle marketing solutions for brands. The realignment will also greatly benefit our current long-standing client base and our employees who now have the ability to plug into resources and opportunities around the globe,” said MKTG global brand president and MKTG USA CEO Charlie Horsey.
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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.
