MAM
MagnonTBWAawarded digital duties for Ebro India
MUMBAI: The digital agency has acquired digital strategy mandate for the Indian arm of the Spanish food major Ebro Foodsfor its brands – Panzani India, Puroma and Ultimate.
The job involves conceptualizing and executing social media strategy for the group’s brands in India. The account was the result of a multi-agency pitch process that witnessed participation of various agencies.
Ebro Foods is the world’s largest trader/miller of rice and the second biggest producer of pasta. With its headquarters in Spain, the food brand enjoys a remarkable presence in more than 80 countries across America, Europe, Asia and Africa.
Peter Walker, Managing Director, Ebro India said, “Digital has become main media for us to reach out to our target audience. Panzani Pasta is encouraging young people to express themselves and try new things. Digital media is opening up the world of endless possibilities to our consumers in the same way as Panzani Pasta is. We aim to create a digital community for our consumers to share ideas and experience in a fun and dynamic way to engage with our product. We feel that the young professional and dynamic team at MagnonTBWA are well aligned with our culture and brand values.”
“We are happy to welcome MagnonTBWA as our new digital partner and look forward to a positive and successful partnership,” said Puneet Kapoor, Marketing Head, Ebro India. “We are confident about their ability to deliver strategic digital communication that aligns with our business objectives.”
On winning the mandate, Nitin Naresh, Managing Director, MagnonTBWA, said, “The Panzani brand is counted among the most recognized French brands. We are very excited to handle the digital mandate for such an iconic food brand, and help it scale new pinnacles of success in 2019 and beyond.”
MagnonTBWA, part of the Fortune 500 Omnicom Group, is trusted as a creative and digital partner by brands like Haier, UNICEF, Sony, Etihad, Valvoline, Standard Chartered Bank, Hyundai, Daikin, Adidas and many more.
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.
