AD Agencies
Pubilicis acquires 51% of Law & Kenneth
MUMBAI: In December last year, when Publicis Groupe CEO Maurice Levy visited India, he was very clear about India being a strategic market for the company.
Staying true to his words, the world’s third-largest advertising network has acquired 51 per cent of Law & Kenneth, a New Delhi-based independent agency led by adman Praveen Kenneth.
The acquired entity will merge with the group’s Saatchi & Saatchi in India and will be re-branded as L&K Saatchi & Saatchi (Law & Kenneth Saatchi & Saatchi), which will strongly reinforce the agency’s presence in India between its offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. Kenneth will take over as the chairman and managing director of the combined unit. He will join the Saatchi & Saatchi Asia-Pacific board and will work directly into Saatchi & Saatchi Asia-Pacific Chairman and CEO Chris Foster. Kenneth was also the CEO of Publicis India from 1999-2003.
The senior management team of Law & Kenneth including, Anil S. Nair (CEO and Managing Partner), Sandhya Srinivasan (Chief Strategy Officer and Managing Partner) and Anil K. Nair (CEO Digital and Managing Partner) will continue their respective roles in the new entity. Law & Kenneth’s CFO Vijay Agarwal will report to Saatchi & Saatchi Asia-Pacific Regional CFO Johann Xavier.
“We are excited to be adding the breadth and depth of talent and resources of Law & Kenneth to the Saatchi & Saatchi network in India, a growing and important market for Publicis Groupe as a whole. Praveen has built an impressive network throughout the country, one that will provide a heightened added value and a mutually beneficial relationship for both existing and future clients. We are glad to be welcoming him back into the Publicis Groupe family,” said Levy in a release.
Kenneth remarked: “Law & Kenneth was born out of passion and has always focused on adding value to client brands and to the lives of people we touch every day. This has helped us become the largest independent agency in India in just over 10 years. Our story is an example of the Saatchi & Saatchi spirit of Nothing Is Impossible. The combination of Law & Kenneth’s stability, size proven success and experience in India’s dynamic market place, together with Saatchi & Saatchi’s iconic status and mystique, results in a creative powerhouse that is L&K Saatchi & Saatchi. Success for us will be to use the philosophy of Lovemarks to win the hearts of Indian consumers and grow our clients’ brands and reputations.”
Years ago, Kenneth along with Andy Law and investment support from Bodyshop’s Anita Roddick took over St Luke’s India operations to form Law and Kenneth. With this newly formed agency, he had wished to create an agency that gives creative freedom. Over the years, the agency only grew and presently counts over 285 professionals and boasts of clients that include Renault, Dabur, TATA AIG Insurance, Godrej, ITC, Reliance, Idea and Hero MotoCorp among others.
However, lately, the agency witnssed a number of exists including that of CEO Matt Seddon, besides Ramanuj Shastry, Kamal Basu, Nisha Singhania, Sourabh Mishra among others.
This acquisition follows those of Beehive into Publicis Worldwide in October 2013 and Neev into Razorfish earlier in 2013.
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.
