MAM
Net4 awards creative and digital mandate to Cheil Worldwide SW Asia
MUMBAI: Net4 India has awarded its creative mandate to Cheil Worldwide South West Asia.
Net4, which is a data centre, cloud hosting and network services provider, has awarded the duties following a multi-agency pitch. It was a creative and digital communication pitch that encompassed strategy, creative and execution plan presentations.
Cheil Worldwide SW Asia COO Alok Agrawal said, “The win is yet another testimony to Cheil’s integrated expertise. We provided a 360-degree solution to the client’s brief. The challenge is to enhance awareness for Net4 and make it a top of mind choice in its fields of business. More than just advertising the brand requires active engagement with the consumers to get into their consideration set. At Cheil we always lay emphasis on ideas that energise people into action. Net4 is one of the earliest Internet companies in India with a solid heritage and proven business models. Our solution focused on building a stronger brand franchise across all segments of a fully integrated communication plan to drive business to Net4.”
Net4 chairman and MD Jasjit Singh Sawhney said. “Net 4 is a leader in most of its areas of operations, especially Web Services to SMEs. It is the only fully integrated internet company providing solutions to businesses of all sizes, across a wide spectrum of technology services. We feel the market for our services is currently highly underpenetrated and is poised for explosive growth. To capitalise on this opportunity, we are embarking on an aggressive marketing plan and floated a brief to identify the right partner to build our brand and image. Cheil’s understanding, clear strategy and impactful creative for Net4 clearly demonstrated superior thinking. We are looking forward to our partnership with Cheil for driving business on the back of a solid brand”
The agency has already started working on the projects.
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.
