AD Agencies
Partha Sinha, Suresh Narayanan and Suparna Mitra part of the Effies Global “Best of the Best” Grand Jury
Mumbai: Effie Global Best of the Best stands as the world’s most definitive effectiveness awards program. A beacon for the industry, drawing on the very best ideas work from around the world.
Three industry stalwarts from India known for their extensive body of work will be part of the Grand Jury to determine the winners. Bringing their experience and insights to the jury discussions will be –
Mr. Partha Sinha, President, The Times of India Group
Mr. Suresh Narayanan, Chairman & MD, Nestle India and
Ms. Suparna Mitra, CEO, Watches & Wearables Division, Titan Company Ltd.
Global Grand Judges will review the Grand contenders selected to move forward in the competition to determine the Global Grand Effie Winners. The Global Grand Effie winners will then move on to compete for the Iridium Effie, the single most effective marketing effort worldwide. The grand jury will take place in September, 2023 in Singapore.
The Global Best of the Best is everything its name suggests. A platform built on all the learnings, insights, data and experience gained from the industry and the entrants. It will select from only the work that has achieved Gold or Grand Effie winning status.
Five other industry stalwarts from India have been selected to be part of the Round One judging
Ms. Neha Ahuja, Director, Head of Marketing, Spotify India;
Mr. Mitrajit Bhattacharya, Founder & President, The Horologists;
Ms. Ruchika Gupta, Marketing Director, Beam Suntory India;
Mr. Sujit Ganguli, Chief Marketing Officer, ICICI Bank; and
Mr. Neil George, General Manager & Managing Director, Abbott Nutrition India.
The round one judging will be done online.
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.
