MAM
Gupshup launches conversational OOH ads across Mumbai
Mumbai: Conversational Messaging platform Gupshup has launched conversational out-of-home (OOH) ads across Mumbai city. These phygital ad formats take traditional physical advertising surfaces like billboards, bus shelters, airport terminals, cabs and metro stations, and trains and convert them into interactive surfaces with the addition of a QR code.
The code, once scanned, opens a chat interface that connects the viewer with the branded bot in a two-way conversation. This works on any device and needs no app download. The conversations are powered by Gupshup IP Messaging (GIP) which leverages Conversational AI to create interactive experiences.
Gupshup aims to make OOH ads interactive and measurable for brands in order to increase advertising effectiveness and ROI. For media companies owning and selling advertising inventory, this technology can drive more inquiries and also help them offer more to brands than just inventory space, it said in a statement on Wednesday.
As a part of the campaign, Gupshup placed advertisements on financial literacy which, on scanning the QR code, take people to a chatbot that can offer customers access to financial literacy guides, education material, and more. Another set of ads help provide people information on COVID 19 and vaccination (COVID 19 chatbot). All information was sourced from Government of India websites.
“Brands that invest in OOH Advertising are looking for ways to make them interactive and measurable. Agencies that own and sell advertising inventory need to provide more than space to brands and leverage conversational technology to generate more enquiries for unsold inventory,” said Gupshup co-founder & CEO Beerud Sheth. “Our Conversational OOH Ads make physical surfaces interactive. With a simple QR-code scan, chatbots powered by conversational AI improve customer engagement and make ads more measurable. It’s the perfect way to transition a physical 1-way customer experience to a digital 2-way conversation. We are committed to helping brands and media agencies leverage the power of conversational messaging to improve advertisement engagement and effectiveness.”
Gupshup’s API enables over 100,000 developers and businesses to build messaging and conversational experiences delivering over six billion messages per month across 30+ messaging channels.
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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.
