MAM
Narain Karthikeyan inaugurates Castrol Autocar Performance Show 2005
MUMBAI: The Castrol Autocar Performance Show 2005, which is a display of high end, super performance cars kicked off a couple of days ago at the Nehru Centre in Worli, Mumbai. The four-day long show was inaugurated by India’s racing champion Narain Karthikeyan.
Spread over two floors the Castrol Autocar Performance Show 2005 features over 36 motor manufacturers, designers and accessory manufacturers.
Kartikeyan says, “This is the first time that a collection of high end, super performance cars has been put together in India. Besides being a treat for enthusiasts, the show offers a fascinating glimpse at some of the most advanced vehicles in the world and is set to become the benchmark for automotive shows in India”.
The star attraction of the show was the Castrol World Rally Championship Simulator where a driver navigates the Castrol World Rally Championship winning car on one of the rally courses, while sitting in Mumbai. This is the first time that a simulator of this sort has been brought into India.
Castrol India VP marketing Sudhanshu Vats says, “Castrol has had a long standing association with motorsport and Formula One and our association with this show is a natural extension of Castrol’s brand promise of superior performance. High performance cars and bikes demand superior lubricants and Castrol is uniquely poised to meet the grueling performance needs of automobiles in motor sport and high end cars. We are delighted that car and bike lovers will get this unique opportunity to get a close, up-front look at some of the most powerful automotive machines in the world”.
Visitors can view performance cars, including the Porsche Boxster, the Roadster, the Cayenne SUV the Porsche 911 Coupe, the 500bhp BMW M5 Sports Saloon the Rolls Royce Phantom, the 385bhp Range Rover Sport, the 286bhp Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, the Polaris All-Terrain-Vehicle, the Chinkara ATV, amongst others. The bikes on display include the Suzuki Hayabusa-the fastest bike in the world, the green devil, the Kawasaki ZX 12R, the Moto GP-bred Yamaha R1, Honda CBR 600RR and the Harley-Davidson V-Rod.
Sharing the motivation behind the launch of the show, Autocar India editor Hormazd Sorabjee said, “This show is the ultimate destination for those who have a passion for cars and bikes. It is an excellent platform for the automotive industry to showcase exciting products and new concepts to a knowledgeable and influential group of enthusiasts. The show has received excellent support from all sections of the industry and it is heartening that in its inaugural year, it lives up to its promise of being the ultimate show for high performance cars in India”.
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.
