MAM
O&M’s ‘Giant Footprints’ campaign bags silver at Cannes Lion 2015
MUMBAI: Filaria (vernacularly known as Haatipaon) is a venomous disease which gallops million lives in India due lack of awareness amongst people. The mandate to generate this awareness amongst the target, so that they could accept medication was given to Ogilvy and Mather Mumbai. The result of which was the creation of TVC ‘Giant Footprints’ by O&M executive creative director Sumanto Chattopadhyay.
The TVC got not just a million feet to medical centers but also garnered a silver Lion at the ongoing Cannes Lions 2015.
“I pushed hard to get the campaign registered at Cannes Lions, but the fact that it did not win any accolades in India was raising doubts in my mind. Now the fact that it indeed won a silver Lion is extremely satisfying,” says Chattopadhyay to indiantelevision.com.
The TVC was shot in Apte village in Bhor district of Maharashtra, and was targeted towards all the rural and semi rural parts of the country. “The core idea behind the video was to make it look like a universal India video which is relevant to each and every part of the country. So, be it for someone watching it in east or south India, it should resemble his or her locality,” informs Chattopadhyay.
“Cannes Lion is an amazing recognition but the number of people who reached medical centers after watching the video is something more inspiring,” asserts Chattopadhyay.
Besides O&M’s silver Lion is for the ‘Giant Footprints’ campaign for Sabin Vaccine Institute, Indian Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (Filaria Dose) India had one more winner in the Pharma category. Medulla won a bronze Lion for the ‘Spinning Living Room’ campaign for Johnson & Johnson’s Cinnarazine in the Print section.
McCann won two silver Lions, one for its campaign for Dabur’s Gastrina and other for Essel Group’s Dish TV. The agency is the only Indian organization so far to win two Lions in 2015. Grey won one silver Lion for its campaign for DHL while Taproot Dentsu bagged a bronze Lion for its Pimp creative for Bennett Coleman’s Mumbai Mirror.
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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.
