MAM
Havas Media Group India wins digital mandate of Caterpillar India
NEW DELHI: Havas Media Group India has started 2015 on a positive note. The agency has won the digital media mandate of Caterpillar India after a multi-agency pitch, which included leading digital agencies.
This is the second digital win of the year after Ranbaxy and further strengthens Havas Media Group’s presence in Bangalore.
Caterpillar marketing and business strategy manager – South Asia Deepak Aggarwal said, “In Havas Media we saw a perfect partner. Their passion was outstanding. Their ‘Digital at Core’ philosophy was impressive and that translated seamlessly in their strategic approach and category understanding. We are keen to utilize the power of digital marketing for our growth, and Havas Media has demonstrated the right direction.”
Havas Media Group India and South Asia CEO Anita Nayyar added, “We are delighted at the win. We believe in creating meaningful brands and Caterpillar is an excellent example of such a brand, which shows devotion to the customer. It gives us further scale in our southern operations – specially Bangalore. Look forward to a great partnership.”
“Digital is the future and Havas’ ‘digital at core’ philosophy provides us the capability of driving this growth in the Indian market. We are proud of the win and look forward to working with Team Caterpillar,” said Havas Media India managing director Mohit Joshi.
“Caterpillar is a great brand to be associated with. It operates in a category that will drive us hard to constantly innovate and execute unique digital marketing tools and avenues. We look forward to this opportunity,” emphasized Havas Media India head of digital Ranjoy Dey.
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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.
