MAM
Mindshare launches emerging markets growth hub – FAST
MUMBAI: Mindshare APAC has launched FAST Hub (Future Adaptive Specialist Team) in Singapore, supported by EDB, to enable brands to benefit from the growth opportunities appearing in emerging markets.
FAST brings together the best of WPP as well as industry leading companies and products including GroupM, Kantar, WPP Data Alliance, CrayonData and Jivox, to build sector specific solutions to enable marketers to use real time insights to drive real time marketing and media actions, including hyper-targeted content creation and distribution.
The launch is a response to the increase in data availability and the parallel rise in data and technology led marketing opportunities such as programmatic and performance advertising that leverage this data.
Targeting the consumer packaged goods (CPG), banking, consumer healthcare, telecoms and automotive sectors, FAST will allow clients to adopt and implement adaptive marketing strategies covering programmatic, performance marketing, customised data alliances, digital analytics, data management platforms (DMP) and real-time marketing.
The Singapore FAST hub is anticipated to grow to a 63 members outfit over the course of the next three years, and the six teams will lead the product development for this suite of services for all growth and emerging markets for Mindshare’s clients, wherever they are in the world.
Mindshare Asia Pacific COO Gowthaman Ragothaman said, “The industry is still grappling with a deluge of data. We want to help simplify this for our clients and provide them a bespoke solution that solves their business problems. The role big data plays for a CPG company is totally different to the influence it has on the banking sector or auto industry. Our ability to provide customisation is one of the key differentiators for FAST.”
Mindshare AMEA, Russia & Emerging Markets chairman & CEO Ashutosh Srivastava added, “The talent to drive these services is scarce, but Singapore provides FAST with a thriving ecosystem for learning and development. Together with EDB’s support, this will immensely benefit Mindshare and our clients, help brand marketers find more effective and profitable opportunities for growth, and also develop young Singaporean talent for the data-driven marketing world. For the young talent, this is a great opportunity to work together with some of the brightest minds in the business, and do the best work of their career.”
Commenting on this partnership, Singapore Economic Development Board assistant managing director Kelvin Wong said, “When you look at how mobile, social and e-commerce are changing the behaviour of Asia’s consumers, it is clear that brand owners are turning to their agencies with a very different set of needs. Mindshare, by centralising a suite of data, technology and domain-centric capabilities, is well poised to serve global clients who require specialised expertise in the growth and emerging markets. We welcome the establishment of Mindshare’s FAST hub, and look forward to building Singapore’s digital marketing ecosystem from strength to strength.”
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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.
