AD Agencies
Dentsu Creative launches ‘Future Mandala’ in India
Mumbai: Dentsu Creative, a global network within the Dentsu Group that consolidates various creative, digital, and branding agencies, has introduced ‘Future Mandala’ in India. This tool is designed to provide brands with insights and foresight to innovate and develop new business ecosystems. Originally developed by Dentsu Tokyo in 2011, the tool has already made an impact in global markets and is now set to guide Indian brands toward sustainable growth and market leadership.
Unlike traditional trend reports that offer limited insights, Future Mandala provides a deeper understanding of socio-economic shifts, third-party research, and demographic trends. It delivers brands a blueprint to stay ahead of the market by identifying opportunities for product innovation and developing communication platforms and business models. This dual capability enables businesses to anticipate changes and take decisive action.
Dentsu Creative South Asia CEO Amit Wadhwa emphasised that understanding the future is essential to shaping it. Future Mandala helps brands move beyond short-term trends and focus on long-term innovation. It reflects Dentsu’s commitment to “Innovating to Impact” by helping clients lead the market with strategic clarity.
Dentsu Creative India chief strategy officer Sumeer Mathur added that the tool assists marketers in understanding how current trends will influence the future. It helps shape business ecosystems, from product development to consumer communication, providing an actionable roadmap for the next five years. Drawing on data from government reports, industry insights, and trends, Future Mandala enables brands to drive innovation in a changing economy.
Offered as a premium service to Dentsu’s clients, Future Mandala has a proven track record of driving business transformation globally. Developed by experts including Takuya Kagata of Dentsu Consulting Inc., it equips Indian brands to be future-ready and achieve long-term growth.
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.
