MAM
Leo Burnett snaps up Indigo Consulting to grow in India market
MUMBAI: The Publicis Groupe has swallowed full-service interactive and technology agency Indigo Consulting as part of its strategy to double the size of its India business by 2015.
Publicis‘ aggressive stance comes at a time when the growth in the matured markets is slowing down and global agencies are working out strategies to gain market share in India, the world‘s 16th largest advertising market.
Indigo Consulting will operate as a unit within the Leo Burnett Group in India and retain its name. Its founder, Vikas Tandon, will remain as managing director and will report to Leo Burnett chairman Indian subcontinent Arvind Sharma.
Sharma told indiantelevision.com that this is part of a broader plan to make digital Leo Burnett‘s core strategy. Over the next two years, digital will no longer be a specialised function at the periphery and for this Leo Burnett was looking to acquire an agency with scale. Through this move, Leo Burnett plans to reorient its staff of 450 professionals across the country to think of digita.
“In the next two to three years, we believe that digital will become central to marketing plans as TV and print are today. It is apparent that in the future brands will need to be ‘always on’ on the digital medium. As a preparation for that and to synergise the media, Leo Burnett decided to acquire Indigo,” he averred.
The induction of Indigo will be carried out in a four phased manner. The first step will be to integrate the Indigo offices in Delhi and Mumbai with the Leo Burnett offices over the next few weeks. The second phase, stretching for a whole year, will include mutual sharing between the entities.
Indigo will then be completely integrated with the Leo Burnett group over the next 18 months. The fourth phase will see the two working towards planning and executing digital efforts.
Leo Burnett Worldwide chairman and CEO Tom Bernardin said, “From a global point of view, the potential and opportunities that India offers are massive. Over the years we have increased our efforts into this important market. Indigo Consulting, with its strong track record as a full-service interactive and technology agency, is the perfect strategic fit for our aspirations in India and around the world.”
The alignment means that Leo Burnett will offer Indigo Consulting‘s digital marketing capabilities to its clients. There will also be cross-training and collaboration between the two entities.
Said Tandon, “We wanted to join hands with an ad agency that understands human insights. With Leo Burnett we found that not only do they understand human behaviour, but there is also a meeting of minds between us and them. It was important for us that combined with size and scale, the people from both sides gelled and we did not feel lost in a global conglomerate.”
Indigo Consulting provides website design and development, search engine optimisation, usability research and testing, and marketing online, on mobiles and in social media.
Leo Burnett Asia Pacific president Jarek Ziebinski said, “Our growth strategy for Leo Burnett in India and Asia Pacific is based on two core pillars: digital and shopper-marketing. India is a key market for us, and it’s reporting explosive growth in the digital sector. We want to make sure Leo Burnett has the right infrastructure in place to meet the needs of tomorrow. I also see Indigo Consulting developing beyond India, to become an important player within our network in Asia Pacific and globally.”
Currently advertising and marketing online represents less than three per cent of overall ad spend in India but the sector is expected to boom, according to ZenithOptimedia. The agency estimates that over the next three years, India’s digital ad spend will increase by roughly 30 per cent a year, driven by the spread of smartphones and the youth culture of social networks.
Founded in 2000, Indigo Consulting has been involved in developing websites, software solutions and digital marketing programs for clients around the world, including Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, HSBC (India, Asia-Pacific and Middle East), Loop Mobile, Tata AIG Insurance and South Australia Tourism. The agency currently employs a team of 160 at its Mumbai headquarters and Delhi office. Their work has been recognised with Webby awards, W3 awards and Abbys.
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.
