MAM
HLL-MindShare Fulcrum bags Gold in Amsterdam
HLL-MindShare Fulcrum team India have been awarded the highest honour at the Unilever Global Communication Channel Planning (CCP) awards – winning the Gold for their Fair and Lovely entry, the flagship skin care brand of HLL.
The show took place in Amsterdam on 12 June. The Unilever Global CCP Awards are an annual event which recognise and reward brands and agencies that have used Communication Channels (Media) innovatively and effectively to build brands. MindShare also won the Silver and Bronze for their entries on Dove (USA) and Lipton Cold Brew (USA).
CCP is a strategic process that starts with a brand’s marketing goals and joins budgeting, channel mix and a 360 degree plan. All these meet the consumer where it matters most. The Indian entry for Fair and Lovely won the ‘Gold’ for outstanding targeting of different audiences through the use of unique and innovative channels. The Mumbai team provided 360 degree communication channel solutions encompassing print innovation, rural events, television innovation, PR and customised TV programming for growing the brand.
Launched in 2001, Mindshare Fulcrum is part of WPP Marketing Communications, India’s largest media investment management group with billings in excess of Rs 1,500 crores. MindShare Fulcrum is the sole media investment management group for Hindustan Lever limited, providing media planning and buying services. Specialist services are provided through its Advanced Techniques Group, M Digital, MindShare Consumer Insights Group, Broadmind and WPP Outdoor.
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.
