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Hero Motors to sponsor Karthikeyan at Indian GP in October
MUMBAI: Hero Motors has announced its association with F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan and his Formula One team.
Hero Motors will be sponsoring Narain Karthikeyan and his team for the inaugural Formula One Grand Prix to be held in India in October. Hero Motors has agreed to display its logo on Narain‘s racing car in the Grand Prix as a token of its association with the event.
Hero Motors MD Pankaj Munjal said, “Hero Motors is committed to be amongst the first Indian corporate houses to compete in the Indian Grand Prix and we are indeed very proud to be associated with Narain Karthikeyan and Hispania Racing Team (HRT). The alliance with the HRT will provide a unique platform for the group to communicate its extensive competencies to a global audience.
“The association with Narain Karthikeyan and HRT team has a lot of synergies in our core values for which we are known for and truly reflects our commitment towards excellence, speed, growth and innovation.
“We operate in global markets as a truly home grown global corporate house and it gives us immense pleasure to endorse Narain Karthikeyan who is also the first Indian F1 driver who has made his presence felt at an early age of 19 years” Formula One the company says is one of the few sports in the world which has a global audience of millions and enjoys the same recognition in India as anywhere in the world. The upcoming Grand Prix in India provides the precise opportunity for Hero Motors to reinforce its core values. Formula One is a game of speed and passion. The sport is set to make its debut in India this October and the association with Narain Karthikeyan and his team gives Hero Motors the perfect opportunity to present itself to the global audience.
“The maiden Indian Grand Prix has given us an opportunity to represent ourselves in the international platform promoting the fastest Indian in the world. We are proud of the fact that we will be a part of the historic event when F1 makes its debut in India. Hero Motors always believe in achieving the best and achieve the highest standards in performance, quality and relationships. Narain‘s personality and passion towards speed and adventure perfectly syncs with what we want to achieve” adds Munjal
Karthikeyan said, “Hero is one of the oldest and most prominent Indian brands and I am pleased to be associated with it. Today is a very important step in the right direction for motor sports in the country. The sport has come a long way since the day I started racing. Viewership has gone up a lot, and corporate support is now more forthcoming. Formula One is in its nascent stage in India with great potential waiting to be explored. I hope with the support from Hero Motors we will be able to scale new milestones in the times to come”.
The Indian Grand Prix will be held in Greater Noida, India from 28 – 30 October 2011.
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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.
