MAM
Digitas India bags digital communication mandate for Matter
Mumbai: A vertically integrated product tech start-up, Ahmedabad-based Matter has appointed Digitas India as the agency for its digital communication mandate following a multi-agency and multi-phased pitch process.
Digitas will handle Matter’s digital marketing mandate, the scope for which will encompass communications, media, customer experience & digital assets and community engagement across its mobility and energy business verticals.
The Matter e-motorcycle will be introduced in the second half of 2022. According to Matter, the yet-unnamed motorcycle will be the first electric two-wheeler in the country to have a battery pack with active liquid cooling. While there aren’t many specifics about this brand-new bike at this moment, it will be released in the third quarter of 2022.
Commenting on the association with Digitas India, Matter COO & co-founder Arun Pratap Singh said, “At Matter, we are embarking on a journey to revolutionise electric mobility and energy storage space. Our innovative offerings will be represented through highly creative digital marketing and we’re glad to have partnered with Digitas, as they follow the philosophy of thinking new and leveraging the creative nuances to deliver highly compelling digital innovations, we are excited to start this journey with Digitas India by connecting with our customers creatively and helping them to transition to clean energy.”
Welcoming Matter to its fold, Digitas India COO Sonia Khurana said, “It is our privilege to partner with Matter and to introduce the brand and product in the market. It is exciting to be a partner to the brand right from the incubation stage itself of the product. Our aim will be to stay true to our connected marketing philosophy and use the right mix of insight-driven creativity, technology, and media to drive brand love and adoption.”
Since its inception, Matter has invested extensively in technology development with the “Innovate in India” approach for the development of futuristic electric vehicle platforms and for energy storage applications.
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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.
