MAM
EaseMyTrip ropes in Vijay Raaz & Varun Sharma as brand ambassadors
Mumbai: Homegrown online travel platform EaseMyTrip has announced the appointment of actors Vijay Raaz and Varun Sharma as brand ambassadors. This is the first time that the travel portal has onboarded any brand ambassadors.
The actor duo will be part of the nationwide new campaign launched by the brand and with their mass appeal and connect with the audience will complement the brand’s image, said EaseMyTrip.
“We are thrilled to associate with Varun Sharma and Vijay Raaz as the faces of our brand. Similar to EaseMyTrip, they are the epitome of great performances. They have a unique mass appeal that cuts across all audiences and geographies,” said EaseMyTrip CEO & co-founder Nishant Pitti. “EaseMyTrip has revolutionised online travel by introducing initiatives such as a hassle-free booking experience, zero convenience fee and full refund due to medical reasons. Now is the right time for us to let more people be aware of such initiatives by EaseMyTrip through our brand campaign with Vijay Raaz and Varun Sharma.”
Vijay Raaz and Varun Sharma are known for their impeccable comic timings and both actors have created a niche in the market basis their unique performances. The association is in sync with the brand’s image where EaseMyTrip has established itself and gained market share purely basis performance to date, while being 100 per cent bootstrapped and profitable since inception, said the company.
Sharing his excitement on the partnership, Varun Sharma said, “I am absolutely honoured and delighted to be partnering with one of the fastest-growing brands in the world. They have revolutionised the way we travel and looking forward to working closely with EaseMyTrip to create an exceptional brand connect.”
Vijay Raaz added, “My best wishes to EaseMyTrip as the brand is well known for its customer centricity and consistent performance. Wish to work together and create something memorable.”
EaseMyTrip has aggressive plans to grow its business with a slew of customer-centric initiatives including the zero-convenience fee, full refund on medical grounds, train waitlisted feature to offer discounted airfares to users with unconfirmed train tickets, among others, said the company in a statement.
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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.
