MAM
Ricoh comes on board Aircel Chennai Open 2012
MUMBAI: Ricoh, a technology company specialising in the office and production printing markets has announced its association with the Aircel Chennai Open 2012 as an official sponsor.
The tournament will be held from 2 – 8 January, 2012 and will see in action a line-up of Indian and international players including world number 9 Janko Tipsarevic and world number 10 Nicolas Almagro, Somdev Devvarman, Rohan Bopanna and Mahesh Bhupathi, among others.
Ricoh has had a strong relationship with the sport of Tennis, they are an Official Partner of the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals and they also sponsor a host of other ATP Tour events, hence the association with India‘s only and South Asia‘s premier ATP World Tour tennis event is an exciting development and testament to the stature of the tournament. At Aircel Chennai Open, Ricoh will offer printing and copying services and aid the seamless conduct of the tournament.
Ricoh Asia Pacific MD Majima Nobuaki said, “The ATP is the region‘s elite tennis arena and this partnership reflects our continued commitment and dedication to going beyond simply streamlining the document processes at the events we sponsor to make them work more efficiently and effectively while supporting efforts to promote and further enhance our brand values.”
IMG Worldwide head of tennis Fernando Soler added, “It is a pleasure to have Ricoh on board as a sponsor for the Aircel Chennai Open. While the tournament, in its 17th year in India and 16th in Chennai, has become the definitive ATP World Tour event in South Asia, the support from global corporations such as Ricoh is a testimonial for it and for the growing popularity of the game in India.”
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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.
