MAM
IAMAI gears up for 10th India Affiliate Summit in Gurugram
Mumbai: The internet and mobile association of India (IAMAI) is poised to host the milestone 10th edition of the India Affiliate Summit (IAS), set to unfold on 7-8 November 2024, at The Leela, Ambience, Gurugram. With vCommission as the title partner, IAS 2024 will bring together top marketers, thought leaders, and innovators to explore the latest trends and growth strategies in affiliate marketing.
This two-day event will feature a dynamic lineup, including keynotes, masterclasses, panel discussions, and networking opportunities. Sessions will spotlight new insights and cutting-edge strategies across affiliate marketing, e-commerce, and D2C sectors. Industry heavyweights such as NP Digital, founder, Neil Patel; vCommission, CEO, Parul Bhargava; India Today Group CMO and IAMAI digital advertising council chairman, Vivek Malhotra; Indian Express Digital, CEO, Sanjay Sidhwani; and Adani Group, chief digital officer, Nitin Sethi will lead discussions on topics ranging from affiliate success strategies to influencer marketing and building resilient affiliate ecosystems.
IAS attendees can expect valuable, actionable insights to optimise their strategies in affiliate, performance, and programmatic marketing. To mark the occasion, IAMAI will release a significant document on ‘Best Practices for Affiliate Marketing in India’ on 7 November.
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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.
