MAM
Kantar IMRB sweeps three awards at MRSI seminar
MUMBAI: Kantar IMRB has won all of the three prizes at the 26th Annual MRSI seminar, the marquee industry event held every year in the country. The Annual Market Research seminar titled “Looking Beyond” was held in Bengaluru on 20 & 21 February.
This year’s theme focused on Technology & Data, and especially the role that big data plays in powering meaningful insights that impact marketers’ business decisions and strategy. Kantar IMRB’s win once again reaffirms its mark of excellence, the quality of thinking and insights that it brings to the industry.
Kantar IMRB is a pioneer of market research services in Asia. Kantar IMRB’s suite of solutions is designed on frugal, agile innovation and adds value, real value, to help clients make impactful decisions.
Kantar IMRB president & Kantar Insights CEO – South Asia Preeti Reddy said, “A win at MRSI is particularly gratifying because it is a platform that showcases the best and the brightest minds in our industry. While I would like to congratulate all the winners, this year stands out for us for our robust participation as a Kantar family: Kantar TNS presented two invited papers, 11 of the 16 presenters in the session reserved for young researchers were from Kantar, and Kantar IMRB swept all the awards.”
A panel of distinguished marketing executives and research experts judged and selected the best entries on the basis of comprehensive evaluation criteria.The panel shortlisted most innovative, cutting edge, modern and thought-provoking papers that showcased the forward thinking of market research fraternity.
Kantar IMRB won all the three awards as follows:
- The Jury Award for Overall Best Paper was given to “Navigating the Net” presented by Debjyothi Sen Sharma and Abhinaba Neogi
- The Audience Award for Most Popular Paper went to Debjyoti Sen Sharma for “Reading Your Mind”
- The Best Presentation – Brave New World titled “Taste the Test” by Adityo Sanyal
The winners were felicitated at the event attended by over 350 professionals from India’s research fraternity, analytics companies and client partners. In addition, over 1000 delegates viewed the event through live streaming.
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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.
