MAM
Grey Group to acquire majority stake in ArtM in China
MUMBAI: WPP‘s wholly-owned global communications network Grey Group has agreed to acquire a majority stake in China based full service integrated communications agency ArtM Communications Group. The investment is in line with WPP‘s strategy to expand its services in the fast growing markets around the world.
ArtmM was founded in 1999 and has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzen and Guangzhou. It offers services ranging from advertising, branding, digital marketing, public relations, events, retail marketing and merchandising to channel promotion. It employs around 180 people and its client list includes companies like Intel, Microsoft, TCL and China Mobile.
ArtM‘s unaudited revenues for the year ended 31 December 2011 were approximately RMB 45 million, with gross assets at the same date of approximately RMB 157 million.
Greater China remains one of the fastest growth markets for the company and is currently WPP‘s third largest market with revenues of US $1.3 billion. The group currently employs over 14,000 people (including associates) across Greater China. In 2011, Asia-based agency research consultancy R3 estimated that WPP‘s revenues in mainland China were US$813 million, with the next biggest competitors Publicis and Omnicom at US$236 million and US$219 million respectively.
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.
