MAM
EM2: Brand connect and the entertainment business
MUMBAI: The Film and Television Producers Guild of India’s entertainment, media and marketing forum EM2 was held in Mumbai today. The seminar was targeted toward marketers, film and television producers, media and marketing companies.
The inaugural session was presided over by Film and Television Producers Guild of India president Amit Khanna, Film & Television Producers Guild of India vice president Yash Chopra and Film & Television Producers Guild of India vice president and Sony Entertainment Television (SET) India CEO Kunal Dasgupta. The keynote address was given by Star India CEO Peter Mukerjea.
Hungama.com CEO and managing director Neeraj Roy, who also conceptualises EM2 said, “Entertainment marketing will be an integral part of every marketers budget in the coming months and years ahead. India at the cusp of a retail and entertainment revolution with consumerism booming and an association with movies and entertainment will go a long way in breaking the clutter for brands.”
Khanna added, “At a time when the entertainment and media industry in India is catching global attention it is important to create forums like EM2. The Guild which represents the who’s who of the film and TV production, hopes to get a meaningful dialogue going between creators, media, advertisers and other professionals to leverage each others’ strengths leading to a win-win for all.”
The first session of the conference titled Film and Television Programme Marketing was chaired by Walt Disney Company India MD Rajat Jain.
Among the speakers were Star India COO Sameer Nair, who spoke on the marketing of KBC2, which was re-launched on 5 August. Nair traced KBC2’s success story and dwelt on the various factors that contributed in building a show that created the phenomenon of “appointment viewing” on television in India when it was launched in 2000.
Producer of the Aamir Khan starrer Mangal Pandey – The Rising, Bobby Bedi spoke on the amount of pressure on the cast and crew of the film, which was a big film with big expectations.
The second session was titled – Live Events and Promotions – Taking the route of Experiential Marketing. The consumer is no longer in front of the television screens alone. They are in shopping malls, in cinema halls and they want to experience entertainment live. From large format live events to consumer promotions and road shows, entertainment companies have still a long way to go. This session dwelled on the opportunities and challenges that lay ahead as this segment of entertainment evolved.
The speakers were McCann Erickson president Santosh Desai who spoke on the power of experiential marketing. Wizcraft director Sabbas Joseph spoke on the potential for live Indian entertainment globally and threw light on the kind of entertainment that worked internationally.
SET India head marketing Nina Jaipuria, on the other hand, spoke on the marketing of Indian Idol.
Indiantelevision.com founder Anil Wanvari pondered over the question as to whether some television stars attract more euphoria than even Bollywood stars in some markets. He also threw light on the power of television.
The third session was titled Digital and Mobile Entertainment – The New Media has finally arrived. the Digital and Mobile Entertainment – The New Media has finally arrived. India has over 50 million people who are digitally connected. By 2010 this number is expected to grow to 300 million. Mobile Entertainment, broadband and interactive TV are the future of digital entertainment.
The speakers of this session were Reliance Infocomm president – content and applications Mahesh Prasad, Hungama Mobile managing director Neeraj Roy, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd deputy director general marketing Anil Jain and exchange4media.com managing director Anurag Batra.
The fourth session was on – The Big Entertainment Opportunity – Going beyond the obvious and was chaired by Zee Television president Pradeep Guha. The speakers for this session were producer director Mahesh Bhatt, Percept Holdings MD Shailendra Singh, NDTV Media CEO Raj Nayak, General Motors India vice president marketing Amit Dutta and Coca-Cola India general manager marketing D Mukherjee.
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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.
