AD Agencies
FCB Kinnect welcomes storytelling maestro Abhinav Tripathi as national creative director
MUMBAI: FCB Kinnect has appointed Abhinav Tripathi as its national creative director, securing a creative heavyweight with over two decades of industry experience to spearhead its Delhi operations.
Tripathi, who joins from McCann Worldgroup where he served as creative head of digital & McCann Content Studio, brings a stellar track record of crafting compelling narratives and a knack for turning creative briefs into gold.
“We’re absolutely delighted to have Abhinav on board,” said FCB Kinnect on linkedin. “His storytelling prowess and tech-savvy approach will help us push creative boundaries whilst delivering forward-thinking work that cuts through the noise.”
The appointment marks something of a homecoming for Tripathi, who previously had a brief stint as national creative consultant at FCB Ulka in 2016, before taking the creative reins at TBWAIndia as managing partner creative.
His impressive CV includes stints at advertising powerhouses including Leo Burnett, Ogilvy, and a substantial five-year tenure at McCann Worldgroup as executive creative director prior to his most recent role.
Industry insiders suggest the hire signals FCB Kinnect’s ambition to bolster its creative firepower in the fiercely competitive Delhi market.
Before his advertising journey, Tripathi dabbled in entrepreneurship, running SunTours.com from 2001 to 2004, before earning his MBA in Marketing from FORE School of Management, New Delhi.
As FCB Kinnect looks to make waves in the integrated marketing space, they’ll be banking on Tripathi to craft campaigns that don’t just spark conversation, but set the advertising world alight.
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.
