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iProspect India strengthens creative team with two new hires
MUMBAI: iProspect India, the digital performance agency from Dentsu Aegis Network has announced two new additions to its creative team; Bobby Thomas and Dhanesh MS, both of whom will join as creative directors.
Based out of Bangalore, Bobby and Dhanesh will report to iProspect India VP—South Krishna Kumar Revanur.
Bobby, who has worked with agencies such as Ogilvy and McCann Worldgroup, has over 13 years of experience in advertising. He has worked across a variety of brands including TVS, BharatBenz, Suzuki, Britannia, ITC, Indiamart, Tata Teleservices, Myntra, Jabong, Infosys, Lenovo, IBM, and Ola amongst others.
On joining iProspect India as creative director—south, Bobby Thomas said, “iProspect is digitally evolved and it caters to market leaders in the digital space. My stint here will help me further enhance my talent in digital as I foresee a great deal of opportunities coming my way.”
With a career spanning over 14 years, Dhanesh started his career with FCB Ulka, Cochin. He has worked with Ogilvy, Grey Worldwide, RK Swamy BBDO, Star,k and Method Advertising.
On joining iProspect India, Dhanesh MS, creative director – south said, “The digital marketing world has evolved to a point where brands have realised that optimising customer experiences in a manner that is relevant to them with an unwavering focus on ROI is probably the only way to succeed in today’s overcrowded marketplace. I am excited to be a part of iProspect India because as an organisation, we too practice this mantra to stay ahead of the curve.”
Commenting on the new appointments, iProspect India CEO Rubeena Singh said, “At iProspect, we are focused on building experiences through data and insights, optimised on performance. Dhanesh and Bobby will further drive iProspect’s capabilities of ‘data-driven creative’ as we want to give our clients a holistic solution.”
MAM
JioStar unveils ‘The Winning Edge’ playbook for live cricket advertisers
Data-led guide shows multi-screen, sponsorship strategies drive higher impact
MUMBAI: JioStar has launched ‘The Winning Edge’, a data-backed advertising playbook aimed at helping brands maximise impact on live cricket, positioning the sport as one of the most powerful marketing platforms in India.
Built using billions of impression-level data points across marquee cricket properties and validated through studies by Kantar, the playbook offers practical insights into how brands can drive measurable outcomes such as awareness, recall and purchase intent.
The findings make a strong case for live cricket as a growth engine for both new and established brands. According to the report, new advertisers on live cricket campaigns saw up to 6.9 times higher brand awareness and up to 10.8 times higher purchase intent compared to industry benchmarks. Established brands also recorded gains, with up to four times higher awareness and nearly five times higher purchase intent.
Speaking about the initiative, JioStar head of sales sports Anup Govindan said, “The Winning Edge, developed in partnership with Kantar, is built on rigorous, data-backed analysis of how real brands have performed on our platform across categories, objectives, budgets, formats and tournament phases. The study reaffirms that when it comes to driving real outcomes such as awareness, consideration and purchase intent, nothing matches the intensity, scale and impact of live cricket. The depth of attention and emotional engagement during live moments creates a multiplier effect that non-live environments simply cannot replicate.”
One of the standout insights is the advantage of multi-screen strategies. Campaigns that ran simultaneously across linear TV, connected TV and mobile delivered up to seven times higher purchase intent than single-platform campaigns, with minimal audience overlap ensuring incremental reach.
The playbook also highlights the impact of combining formats. Brands using both video and display formats saw up to 7.4 times higher brand awareness compared to those relying on video alone.
Sponsorships emerged as another key lever. Brands with formal sponsorship deals recorded up to nine times higher purchase intent and up to eight times higher ad awareness than those opting only for standard inventory buys. Adding pre and post live studio programming further boosted aided awareness by up to 2.1 times.
Crucially, the report identifies high-impact in-match moments such as Super 4s, Super 6s, DRS and fall of wickets as prime opportunities for brands. Campaigns aligned with these moments delivered uplifts of up to 10 times in awareness and up to seven times in recall, reinforcing the value of contextual advertising.
Echoing these findings, Kantar managing director and chief client & solutions officer Soumya Mohanty said, “Numerous Kantar Brand Lift Studies have demonstrated the incremental impact of live cricket advertising, with results consistently ranking at the top end of Kantar’s Brand Lift database. This playbook distils those insights into actionable media planning and creative recommendations to help advertisers drive stronger outcomes in live cricket environments.”
With live cricket continuing to draw massive, highly engaged audiences, JioStar is positioning ‘The Winning Edge’ as a blueprint for brands looking to move beyond visibility and towards measurable impact.
As the competition for consumer attention intensifies, the message is clear. In the world of sports marketing, playing smart may matter just as much as showing up.
