MAM
Free Nivea Creme tins, to thank frontline workers
Mumbai: As the world continues its fight against COVID-19, it is the indomitable spirit of the frontline workers, who risk their lives to ensure our safety that has kept us going. Keeping close to its purpose of Care Beyond Skin, Beiersdorf and Nivea India have partnered with United Way India to distribute special Nivea Creme blue tins as a gesture of appreciation towards hardworking frontline workers in hospitals and the police force.
While Covid-19 created unprecedented challenges over the past few months, hospital staff and police personnel worked hard to selflessly extend care towards others. Their extraordinary efforts continue even during the second wave of the pandemic. With COVID-19 cases on the rise in some states, medical care centres are being revived as the vaccination drive is also being executed at an unparalleled scale. With lockdown restrictions being eased, police personnel are working hard to ensure that citizens adhere to the norms of social distancing and wear masks.
Understanding that care goes beyond the skin, Beiersdorf, Nivea India and United Way India will distribute over 2 lakh Thank You Nivea Creme tins. These will be given to the hospital frontline staff and police personnel to help keep their skin and hands well moisturised as they go about saving lives. Being on the frontline, their hands require extra care, protection and moisturizing since frequent hand-washing and sanitizing can lead to extra dryness. The tins will be sent to various hospitals across the districts of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, West Bengal, Punjab and Delhi.
Nivea India managing director Neil George said, Care Beyond Skin is the purpose of our company through which we express our commitment to reach beyond our core business – taking care of people’s skin – and maximize our contribution to society. With our global aid program under the same name Care Beyond Skin, we are offering our support during this pandemic. Our donation of over 200,000 Special Thank you Nivea Creme tins across the country is an expression of our gratitude for the tireless work that medical professionals and police personnel have been doing in this difficult time.”
Nivea India had previously donated hand sanitizers to government healthcare facilities in Gujarat. They are also partnering with United Way India to support one of the most affected Indian states due to the pandemic – Tamil Nadu. Through their recent Covid Aid Program, the company aims to help the marginalized communities by providing relief for a variety of diverse needs ranging from nutrition to hygiene.
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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.
