MAM
eComm players among top 10 television advertisers in BARC week 40
BENGALURU: Quite like their brick and mortar counterparts, eCommerce players in India offer discounts galore during the run-up to Navratra-Duhserra. This year also, the three big payers – Flipkart, Amazon India and Snapdeal ran television campaigns to grab as much of the online rupees as they could during the five or six special days. Flipkart’s sale’s moniker was ‘Big Billion Day 2016, Amazon called it ‘The Great Indian Sale’, while Snapdeal called its offering ‘Unbox Sale’
Note: This paper is on the changes in the pecking order in terms of television ad spots among the top 10 brands, and does not reflect the performance of a particular industry or genre per se.
As per Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC) data top 10 brands *Across Genre : All India (U+R) : 4+ Individuals,for week 39 (24 to 30 September 2016), of the total 164,881 television ad spots shared by the top ten brands, as many as 119,314 (72.4 percent) spots were by the seven FMCG brands that included beauty,oral care and healthcare, food beverages and confectionary;27,390 (16.6 percent) ad spots were booked by two automobile players – Honda and TVS; and 18,177 spots (11 percent) by one eComm player – Snapdeal.
Comparatively, in week 40 (1 October to 7 October 2016), the number of television ad spots by the top 10 brands increased 12.6 percent to 185,593. The break up in week 40 was: 108,088 (58.2 percent) spots by six FMCG brands (down 9.4 percent in terms of absolute numbers); 23,554 ad spots or 12,7 percent were by the sole representative from the auto mobile industry – TVS; and 53,951 (29.1) spots by the three eComm players mentioned above.
In week 39, Patanjali was numero uno with a massive28,949 in terms of spots, which fell 24.7 percent to 21,785 spots in week 40 and brought the brand down to fifth position in the pecking order of ad spots. In week 40, it was healthcare brand Dettol that moved to pole position with 25574 spots. Please refer to Fig A for ad spots for week 39 and 40. Please refer to Fig A below for the top 10 ranks in terms of TV ad spots.
Snapdeal has another mini festival sale in the period between 12 and 14 October, while Amazon has announced 17 to 20 October as the Great IndianFestival days. Ad blitzkrieg’s by these two eComm players are on and data for next few weeks could yet see some interesting movements among the top ten brands in terms of ad spots on television.
MAM
Gurpreet Singh named President of DishTV Alumni Network
Former Dish TV executive to lead community building and collaboration.
MUMBAI: Back to the dish, but this time it’s about connections, not channels Gurpreet Singh is returning to familiar territory with a new mandate that swaps subscribers for relationships. Singh has been appointed President of the DishTV Alumni Network, a move aimed at strengthening ties among former employees and building a more engaged professional community around the Dish TV ecosystem. The initiative reflects a growing trend among large organisations to formalise alumni networks as platforms for collaboration, mentorship and business opportunities.
The appointment draws on Singh’s deep-rooted history with Dish TV, where he held multiple leadership roles over nearly a decade. As National Business Head between June 2019 and September 2020, he oversaw profit and loss as well as operations, managing revenues of Rs 6,000 crore and leading a team of around 1,250 employees across the country. His tenure included working alongside two regional business heads and 16 circle heads, underscoring the scale of operations he handled.
Prior to that, Singh served as Executive Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue from 2016 to 2019, and earlier as Senior Vice President and National Head for Sales and Revenue. He also briefly led international operations as Country Head for Sri Lanka, further expanding his exposure across markets.
His broader career spans leadership roles across telecom and consumer businesses, including a stint as Chief Operating Officer at Bharti Airtel’s Malawi operations, senior leadership roles at Reliance Communications, and earlier positions at Hindustan Sanitaryware and Kodak India, where he spent over a decade.
In his new role, Singh is expected to focus on reconnecting former employees, fostering collaboration, and building a structured alumni ecosystem that leverages shared experience and industry networks. As companies increasingly recognise the long-term value of their extended workforce, the DishTV Alumni Network appears set to turn nostalgia into a strategic asset, one connection at a time.
