MAM
Publicis Media ropes in Mimi Deb to lead platformGSK
New Delhi: Publicis Media has hired Mimi Deb to lead its dedicated bespoke unit platformGSK. In this role, Deb will manage end-to-end responsibilities under media investment management for GSK India, and work towards using media as a driver of brand and business growth. platformGSK brings together diverse talent with expertise across areas such as media, healthcare, consumer strategy and business transformation from across the Publicis Groupe for the FMCG giant GSK.
Deb is a media veteran who comes with a wide spectrum of experience of over seventeen years across the media agency business and almost six-years of marketing & sales experience in the Middle East.
She has led and managed prominent FMCG, CPG & Digital-first brands like Dabur, Perfetti, Mother Dairy, RSPL, Amway, McCain Foods, OLX, GoDaddy and Shopclues, to name a few. Her last stint was with Wavemaker, earlier to which she has also worked with Universal McCann, OMS & Hakuhudo Percept in key roles.
Zenith India CCO Ajit Gurnani says, “platformGSK is a market-leading, end-to-end platform for FMCG major GSK and given her experience and skills Mimi is the ideal person to lead the mandate by focusing on value creation, innovation, media excellence and product differentiation. I am confident that she will drive significant and measurable media, brand & business outcomes for platformGSK and GSK CH.”
Deb said that she’s excited to be taking on the new role, and looks forward to building and executing marketing transformation for GSK. “I am delighted at the opportunity and look forward to harnessing the power of innovative media strategies for the continued growth of GSK CH. I am committed to accelerating platformGSK’s capabilities, driving business results and keeping our offering competitive, impactful and well-ahead of the curve.”
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.
