MAM
Publicis Groupe announces Creative Council for South Asia; onboards Rajdeepak Das as chairman
Mumbai: Publicis Groupe on Tuesday announced the appointment of Rajdeepak Das as the chairman of the Groupe’s newly launched Creative Council for South Asia.
Leo Burnett South Asia CEO and CCO Rajdeepak Das in addition to his current role will add depth and dimension to the Groupe’s creative products. As part of the additional role, he will lead the overall creative direction, product, and thinking for the Groupe and will champion narratives that truly empower and define the next stage of Indian creativity.
The newly launched Creative Council for South Asia will further strengthen the Groupe’s inspiring, truly remarkable creativity that transforms brands and businesses. Publicis Groupe has a rich culture and legacy of transforming brands through progressive, purposeful creativity. The council will channelise capabilities across creative, data, media, and technology to create progressive, modern, purposeful work with Publicis Groupe’s unique power of one strength.
Publicis Groupe South Asia CEO Anupriya Acharya said, “At Publicis Groupe, we have a tremendous roster of brands, scaled capabilities across design, experience, data and technology, the finest talent pool and the ‘Power of One.’ There is no better time than now to bring all these together and partner our clients in building truly epic work and epic brands. Rajdeepak who apart from being a dynamic and gifted creative leader, has been the force behind many famous, iconic campaigns for leading brands and has pivoted Leo Burnett India to top position among creative agencies in the country today; he was but a natural choice for this role.”
Speaking on his appointment, Das said, “It is an honour to lead The Creative Council for Publicis Groupe South Asia. The council will use the power of brand purpose and new-age creativity to bring a positive impact to people’s lives. The council will help pedigreed brands collaborate closely with the world-class talent of the Groupe. I can’t wait to get started and look forward to leading a power-packed council that is going to create next-generation solutions.”
Das is an outstanding creative leader, with over 20 years of experience in building successful brands. He is a great believer in the power of modern creativity to transform human lives. From saving India’s biggest national treasure, the INS Vikrant warship, with the help of Bajaj, to being part of “Roads That Honk,” the world’s first anti-collusion road management system for Hindustan Petroleum, to developing India’s first micro-finance system, his work speaks for itself and is centred on human values.
His movement for Whisper “Touch The Pickle” won Procter & Gamble the inaugural Cannes Glass Lions Grand Prix for breaking the menstrual taboo. More recently, Das’s work for Whisper “Keep Girls In School” won Leo Burnett India and P&G a Cannes Lions Grand Prix in sustainable development goals. The agency also won the title of ‘Creative Agency Of The Year’ at The One Show Abby Awards, Goafest ’22.
Das has more than 100 international awards to his name, such as The One Show, D&AD, and Spikes. He was the only creative head featured in the popular Netflix series The Creative Indians Season 4.
In his words, Das’s biggest creation till date is Apollo 11, a specialised division of Leo Burnett India or what he refers to as “The Mutant Creatives.” This is a team of hugely talented young people in their 20’s with backgrounds such as aerospace engineers, product designers, data analytics and environmental scientists, who solve brand and human problems with him. His focus is on new-age brand solutions, and he believes “Only way to predict the future is to build it yourself.”
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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.
