MAM
Everest Integrated reinvents itself as Everest Brand Solutions
MUMBAI: Is 59 years a good age to be given a face lift and a new lease on life? Most of us would answer in the affirmative. Even the management of the Rediffusion owned Everest Integrated Communications said da-da to this. After a long drawn-out surgery, the agency has re-emerged with a spanking new face- Everest Brand Solutions (EBS).
Its leitmotif: going beyond the regular creative brief and becoming a custodian of brands, hence fulfilling all brand objectives, says a press release. EBS will have its hq in Mumbai with a branch in New Delhi and a representation in Bangalore.
Says EBS chairman Arun Nanda: “It has been a great year for Everest, beginning with the new management catapulting it to be the second most creative agency at the Abby Awards. I see in them a bunch of mavericks who have a vision with the passion, talent and energy to actualise it. Everest today is geared to define the next paradigm in the evolution of the communication business.”
And what is that? EBS president Mahesh Chauhan explains. Says he: “Retrofitting an ad campaign as a panacea for all marketing ills just doesn’t work. Now more than ever before, clients need partners to help resolve their marketing problems. Identifying brand problems first and then delivering media-independent solutions is what the client seeks and Everest is geared to just that. Or else, the likes of brand consultants are circling above to carve out their pound of flesh from our industry.”
The agency has designed a new structure where there are ‘idea initiators’, ‘idea leaders’ and ‘idea managers’ replacing the whole system of client servicing, planning and creative terms in the agency.
EBS COO Anirudda Banerjee points out that the agency is doing away with the traditional agency functional roles of client servicing, planning and creative. “There is no reason for these obsolete roles to continue. We are revamping our entire organisation to align with the way we arrive at solutions. Silo-type watertight departments are passé, in fact, they are dysfunctional. What works far better are cross-functional teams working at what they do best.”
In simple language this means that EBS will set up teams handling one or more brand depending on each of their requirements. Within each team, ad professionals will in all likelihood be multitasking donning different hats, depending on their capability and aptitude. “The traditional roles will blur. Our focus is on offering clients effective brand solutions and bringing in the skills of the entire team for one goal, that is success,” say EBS executive creative director Milind Dhaimade.
The new sobriquet apart, the EBS management has also done away with the familiar mountain peaks in a circle Everest logo. The new corporate identity essentially consists of a squiggle or as the agency puts it – three continuos loops. The looped line is set on a yellow backdrop; yellow signifying; ‘bringing – light into darkness, warmth to the cold, health wealth and happiness and youth to the old’.
Interestingly, the agency has also allowed every employee to add to the bare basic identity by giving it their own character. So, every individual will carry their personalised logo on their card and stationary giving the logo their own interpretation of what it stands for.
Says Dhaimade,”We are re-emerging with a child’s perspective. We are empowering our people at a fundamental level to bring about the revolution that we are looking at.”
EBS execs in its previous avatar had been known for the pirate costumes they used to wear at the various award functions. And in fact the agency had positioned itself as the pirates’ agency. With a new vessel to sail in and new clothes, will we see them at their rapacious best, pillaging the brand terrain? While the EBS team is sanguine that it will, only Long John Silver knows!
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.
