MAM
psLIVE allies tea brand Parivar with ‘Drishyam’ for effective marketing
MUMBAI: psLIVE, the experiential marketing division from the Dentsu Aegis Network, has facilitated a marketing tie-up of the tea brand Parivar with Nishikant Kamat’s soon-to-release Drishyam.
As part of the tie-up, Sapat International has created a co-branded television commercial (TVC) with Drishyam in an attempt to capitalise on this psLIVE-helmed partnership.
Sapat International group managing director Nikhil Joshi said, “It was an extremely important opportunity that was brought to us at the right time. The way it was presented to us by psLIVE, we knew instantly that the integration cannot be missed. The TVC gave us a chance to amplify the association and market Parivar on a massive scale.”
To leverage the integration amongst maximum audience, the brand too is promoting the movie through the co-branded TVC in addition to a print and outdoor campaign. Releasing on 31 July, Drishyam stars Ajay Devgn, Shriya Saran and Tabu in lead roles.
Viacom18 Motion Pictures VP marketing Rudrarup Datta added, “Drishyam introduces a brand new genre in the Indian film industry as a ‘family thriller’… The film is based on the tangled lives of two families and reaches out to the same target audience that Parivar tea reaches out to. This was therefore a natural association and we are delighted with this alliance.”
psLIVE vice president Sidharth Ghosh said, “Drishyam seemed to be a perfect fit for the tea brand Parivar as both seamlessly blend with each other. This association will increase the brand recall. At psLIVE, we are extremely delighted having initiated this integration.”
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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.
