MAM
ICICI Prudential promotes Bhatia to head of marketing
NEW DELHI: ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has appointed Abhishek Bhatia as the head of marketing. The 28-year old, whose career has spanned six years, was previously working as marketing manager with the same insurance company.
Bhatia, an alumnus of IIM Calcutta started his career with SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare , where he was responsible for handling brand Boost. Bhatia decided to move on after a two and a half years stint there and joined ICICI Prudential Life Insurance as a brand manager.
Bhatia is pleased with his sojourn so far. “The main challenge is to think beyond convention. There is hardly any FMCG company with advertising plans looking beyond TV. Almost of all them seem to be missing out on impact. One of the reasons why I joined ICICI Prudential Life Insurance was the fact a new industry and a new company gives freedom and opportunity to do something different. Over here, the challenge was to start a brand from scratch. Having done that with the corporate brand, we also created categories like Retirement Solutions from a zero base. So it’s been quite challenging and satisfying as well,” said Bhatia.
Reminiscing his stint at SmithKline Beecham, he said, “The high point there was creating a 360 degree marketing plan around Sachin Tendulkar. Rather than distributing conventional freebies, we decided to go for memorabilia of Sachin. The idea was not only to reach out to mothers but kids as well, creating pester power.”
Bhatia and his team at ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, which is currently reviewing the media planning and buying account (currently with Initiative Media), has already worked some innovative campaigns. For instance, a tie-up with the Dabbawalla Organisation in Mumbai for a direct marketing exercise, to talk to the customer through a non-cluttered route, and thereby have a higher impact. Also, introducing a tax planner by the name of Chintamani on radio, who would answer consumer’s queries about the role of insurance in financial planning.
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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.
