MAM
Mumbai Indians: Lintas designs #CricketMeriJaan
MUMBAI: It’s possibly the only team at the moment that’s having a magnificent run at the Vivo IPL T20. And much of that could be a result of the faith & support being reposed by the fans in the team. This gesture of the unconditional love for the team by the fans is captured appropriately in the latest communication initiative that has been rolled out by Mumbai Indians.
Conceptualized and executed by Lowe Lintas Mumbai, #CricketMeriJaan is the credo that the team is moving ahead with as it reaches out to its fans spread far and wide. Led largely by Outdoor, Print and Digital, #CricketMeriJaan seeks to make the Mumbai Indians franchise a winning, successful sporting brand beyond just IPL. The insight behind the campaign was that while in all the other cities the people are fans of their respective teams, when it comes to Mumbai, the people are fans of the game first and then the team. Thus for team MI and its fans – cricket comes first.
The approach was to give the brand a deeper philosophy, one that only a team emanating from the city of Mumbai (the Mecca of Cricket for this country) can own, a philosophy that will stoke the pride and passion of a fan and make him/her feel superior to any other fan of any team.
Commenting on the communication objective, Mumbai Indians Spokesperson said, “Cricket Meri Jaan – is not just a campaign thought developed by Lowe Lintas, but it emulates the way of life for the players of Mumbai Indians and the fans of Cricket as a sport to swear by. The campaign has brought forth the ‘fan of cricket’ aspect amongst Mumbai Indians players and goes on to resonate the sentiments of millions of Indians towards the love for the sport.”
Sharing the creative challenge undertaken by the agency, Lowe Lintas chairman and CCO Arun Iyer said: “In India cricket is religion and Mumbai is considered to be the holy land. We wanted to infuse this city’s ‘love for the game above all else’ into the brand as this would help it forge a deeper bond with its fans, irrespective of which city or country they come from. Given that MI also is known to be the team that displays the most ‘team-work’ further allowed for it to uniquely own this philosophy of ‘Cricket Meri Jaan’. We brought this philosophy to life by capturing the ‘on-field energy of the game’ as these are the visuals that remain embedded in a fans heart whenever he or she reminisces about the game.”
The campaign has been rolled out with a big focus on merchandise and ticketing collaterals, which is crucial from business standpoint. Apart from this, the idea has been launched in a big way via stadium branding (Wankhede), Outdoor, Press ads, Bus shelters, branding on local trains on Western Railway & Central Railway and also on BEST buses.
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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.
