MAM
Rajshri Media, Mattel bring Barbie on cell phones
MUMBAI: It’s now Barbie’s turn to enter the mobile arena. Mattel Toys India and Rajshri Media Pvt. Ltd, producer of content for broadband and the wireless telecom mediums, entered into a partnership to present Barbie’s debut into mobile content with her sixth property Barbie and The Magic of Pegasus.
Taking cue from the growing trend of reaching out to consumers through customised mobile content, the two companies joined hands to capitalise the kids segment through this fairly nascent, though unique medium of ‘Experiential Brand building with the Consumer.’
Barbie & the Magic of Pegasus mobile content will be available in various formats – SMS tones, ring tones (in polytones, mono-tones, true tones and video tones) and ring back tones (polytones, monotones and true tones). One can also download Barbie wallpapers, screensaver and watch her latest video – ‘Hope has wings’.
These will be distributed through cellular operators like Hutch, Idea, MTNL, BSNL, Tata, Spice, Indiatimes and Mauj.
Speaking on this initiative Rajshri Media Private executive director Rajjat Barjatya said, “With 65 million mobile subscribers in India growing at an astonishing pace of three million as month, the mobile phone is fast becoming a very important touch point with consumers. The mobile phone is a communication, entertainment and lifestyle device, all rolled into one.”
Mattel Toys India MD Sanjay Luthra said, “Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus was one of the biggest Barbie launches this year. The movie launch had many firsts like a Hindi music video to support the same, product to support the movie that included a range of dolls and toys, movie VCD/DVD, publishing, sleepwear and now mobile content that little girls can access.”
Barbie and The Magic of Pegasus took innovation to a new height with it’s adaptation of the English music video “Hope Has Wings” in Hindi, sung by Saregama’s upcoming artiste Akriti.
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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.
