MAM
R K Swamy, BBDO to end long-term partnership
Mumbai: Leading advertising agencies R K Swamy and BBDO have ended their 37-year partnership with each other. The announcement was made through an internal memo.
As per the agreement, R K Swamy will buy out BBDO’s stake in R K Swamy BBDO, and BBDO will buy out R K Swamy’s stake in BBDO India.
The partnership, which started merely after a handshake between RK Swamy and the then global CEO of BBDO Allen Rosenshine in 1985, has ended for strategic reasons.
According to an official statement, R K Swamy Hansa Group is planning to bring its various businesses under one umbrella. The group presently has over one thousand employees working on four different ventures and the split plans to bring them all under one roof.
R K Swamy Hansa Group group CEO Shekar Swamy said, “We started the relationship when R K Swamy and I shook hands with the then CEO of BBDO Allen Rosenshine, in New York in 1985. We worked for four years together on a simple understanding without a formal contract. BBDO invested in us up to a majority, which we then bought back in 2009. They have held a significant minority since then. At that point, BBDO India was created and we took a similar minority stake in it. BBDO is a great company and it has been a fantastic journey. The phrase ‘all good things come to an end’ is so true in this case.”
Adding to it, BBDO Worldwide CEO Andrew Robertson said, “R K Swamy has been a great partner. We extend to them our very best wishes and cheers as they move forward with plans for their Group. I have always admired their conviction in, and commitment to the future of India and the part they can play in it. I am sure it will be great. We have a strong agency in BBDO India. We remain committed to great work, and this will be the same in India as elsewhere.”
R K Swamy Hansa Group chairperson Srinivasan K Swamy remarked, “R K Swamy BBDO is primarily in marketing communications. However our extended activities go beyond marketing communications to span interactive and digital, media planning and buying, media and market research, CRM, data analytics and martech, healthcare communication, and continuing medical education, events, and outdoor. We are bringing these together under one structure for greater synergy. The future is very exciting as we consolidate.”
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.
