MAM
Fido Dido takes on Yana Gupta in 7 UP campaign
MUMBAI: Pepsi’s lemon-lime brand 7UP has kicked off its new campaign for 2005, co-starring brand mascot Fido Dido with Bollywood star Yana Gupta.
According to Pepsi Foods executive director (marketing) Punita Lal, “While reinforcing the refreshment cues, the advertising brings out the core of Fido’s persona – fun, wit & out of the box thinking. The brand proposition ‘Refreshingly Imaginative’ is best reflected in this advertising and the new baseline ‘Andaaz sabse cool’.
The new 30 second TV ad has been produced by Farah Khan who last year directed the box office hit ‘Main Hoon Naa’. Excited about the new campaign Farah said, “It was wonderful putting Fido in the typical Bollywood quawaali setting, giving him a little koti & gale mein rumaal. He added a lot of fun and fizz on the sets. He is every director’s dream, no starry hang ups, bilkul bindas.” The music has been composed by Anu Malik.
In this TVC, created by J Walter Thomson, Fido matches his wits in a Bollywood style quawwali muquabla with popular model Yana Gupta.
Says Yana of her co-star Fido: “I had so much fun shooting this spot with Fido. He is just so cool. In fact I love how he always finds a smart and witty way to get his favorite drink 7UP”. The sign off for the campaign: “Andaaz sabse cool!” is also the new tag line for 7UP.
The campaign breaks in Hindi, Tamil, Kannada & Telegu across TV channels in India on 22 February. Besides television, this campaign will also be visible on billboards across the country and at all soft drink stores. The sound track will also be on high rotation on FM radio channels, informs an official release.
A series of “Fido Chowks” (Fido Square’s) which are fun hang outs, are also being put up around the country.
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.
