MAM
Maxus is “Most Dominant Agency” 4th year in a row as per RECMA 2013
MUMBAI: The year 2013 has been an exciting one for Maxus in India. From winning new clients like Tata Global Beverages, Nestle India, Musafir.com to name a few to dominating industry awards.
Continuing with the winning steak, Maxus India has retained the title of the most “dominant” agency profile for the fourth year in a row as per the RECMA 2013 report.
They were the only agency to be rated as “dominant” as per the ratings. The RECMA report is the Qualitative Assessment for 2013 for all leading media agencies in India on the basis two parameters – vitality & structure. This is the highest level of ratings awarded by the agency RECMA, for the agency that demonstrates a balance between the two parameters.
Speaking on the new RECMA Ratings, Maxus south Asia managing director Kartik Sharma said, “2013 has been an exciting year for us. We won 17 new businesses, worth over Rs.600 crores. We made substantial investments to strengthen our offering across core media, digital, branded content and activation. This is also reflected in the number of industry awards the agency won during the year.” He added, “From a people point of view, the new RECMA ratings are an indicator of the 10/10 vision that drives us to delight our clients and customers. We are governed by Passion, Agility, Collaboration and an Entrepreneurial spirit (PACE), a mission statement that drives us to deliver the very best and meet challenges head on.”
Late year, Maxus India also saw several high profile talent related milestones, with Ajit Varghese moving into a new role at as CEO, APAC, Maxus and Kartik Sharma taking over as the new managing director, Maxus India.
Maxus India also began 2014 on a high note with several breakthrough campaigns like “Power of 49” for Tata Tea, a senior management promotion with Sanchayeeta Verma as head, Maxus South and Anand Chakravarthy joining as head Maxus, West.
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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.
