MAM
Madison bags Kotak Mahindra group’s media business
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MUMBAI: Madison Media, part of the Rs 5.5 billion Madison Communications, has bagged the media account of Kotak Mahindra, one of India’s leading financial institutions that offers diverse finance solutions, with immediate effect. Madison Media emerged winner in a hotly contested pitch in which leading media specialists such as Starcom and Mediacom participated. Madison Media’s CMD Sam Balsara states: ” The finance sector has seen a surge in advertising activity and the need to stretch the rupee and get more bang for the buck has never been felt more, in this sector. I am particularly pleased that Madison Media has been chosen to meet this challenge.” The release also states that Kotak Mahindra Group is expected to foray into a new area which is likely to take its media spends substantially. Sources claim that the new area is Kotak Mahindra group’s transition into a universal bank. In February 2002, Kotak Mahindra Finance (KMFL) received Reserve Bank of India’s clearance to convert itself into a full-fledged universal bank before March 2003. The company will begin operations as a commercial bank soon with an initial capital of Rs 2 billion. The non-banking finance company has no plans to raise fresh capital after becoming a bank. Kotak Mahindra group’s net worth is over Rs 9.3 billion and it services a customer base of nearly 5,00,000. Kotak Mahindra offers several services: corporate finance, retail finance to investment banking, mutual fund, to life insurance. Madison Media’s COO (West) Punitha Arumugam who led the pitch says that her team will make media a key driver to build the various brands of the Kotak Mahindra Group.  Media reports indicate that the company will have a net worth of Rs 5.50 billion All the companies in the Kotak Mahindra group that offer allied financial services will become subsidiaries of the new bank. The subsidiaries include Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co, Kotak Mahindra Primus, which is a car-finance joint venture between Kotak Mahindra and Ford Credit, Kotak Mahindra Capital Co, Kotak Mahindra Securities, both of which are joint ventures between Kotak Mahindra and Goldman Sachs. The company’s core businesses will be the focus of the bank too. KMFL is also active in commercial vehicle finance, personal loans and asset reconstruction. The new bank will be an important channel for the distribution of Om Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance’s products.
However, the insurance business of Om Kotak Mahindra is scheduled to move to Madison Media from 1 April 2003. Om Kotak Mahindra had a budget in excess of Rs 150 million. Kotak Mahindra has international partnerships with Goldman Sachs (one of the world’s largest investment banks and brokerage firms), Ford Credit (one of the world’s largest dedicated automobile financiers) and Old Mutual (a large insurance, banking and asset management conglomerate). Madison Media already handles a number of prestigious clients such as Coca Cola, P&G, Godrej Consumer Products, Godrej Sara Lee, Kinetic, Maruti Udyog, BPL, Zee’s Playwin, Ozone Pharma, Top Ranen and IFB. Madison Communications has specialised units in creative, media, public relations, rural, outdoor and merchandising. |
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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.
