MAM
Neil Dawson – Partner at Dawson Pickering joins the Kyoorius Advertising Awards Jury
MUMBAI: Kyorius, a not-for-profit initiative by Transasia Fine Papers, and D&AD today announced the addition on Neil Dawson – Partner, Dawson Pickering to the already illustrious list of jury members at the Kyoorius Advertising Awards. Neil joins some of yhr worlds top creatives at the Kyoorius Advertising Awards including Past D&AD President and jury foreman – Roise Arnold – Deputy Executive Creative Director, BBH, Abhijit Avasthi – national Creative Director, Ogilvy & Mather, Agnello Dias – Chairman & Co-Founder, Taproot India, Graham Kelly – Regional Executive Creative Director,Isobar, Senthil Kumar – National Creative Director, JWT and Sonal Dabral – Chairman & Chief Creative offier, DBB Mudra Group and Woon Siew Hoh – Regional Executive Creative Director, Hakuhudo.
Apart from 3 years working in South Africa, Neil has spent the whole of his career in London. His ‘Wedding’ ad for Volkswagen Surprisingly Ordinary Prices has, for over a decade, been the most awarded print ad in history. His ‘Fish’ commercial re-launched the Keep Walking campaign for Johnnie Walker globally and as Chief Creative officer on the Philips account Neil won back- to-back Cannes Grand Prix in 2009 for Philips Carousel and 2010 for Philips Parallel Lines.
With long time creative partner Clive Pickering, Neil has recently launched London’s newest ad agency – Dawson Pickering.
The overarching structure of the Kyoorius Awards is to only award work that is worthy of merit. No matter how big the brand, or how small the names behind it; how wide the media reach is or the number of re-tweets; the ultimate goal is to create outstanding work that works.
With over 34 categories spanning Press Advertising, Outdoor Advertising, Film Advertising, Radio Advertising, Direct Marketing & Activation, Integrated and craft related categories including Art Direction, Craft for Advertising, Film Advertising Craft – the Kyoorius Advertising Awards will reward only the best of the best in each category. This is why Kyoorius Awards have no winning tier structure – no gold, silver or bronze, and it is the jury’s prerogative to award one or multiple Blue Elephants in any one category, whereas none in another, if entries are not up to the mark.
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.
