MAM
Saffolalife urges to pay attention to your belly fat
MUMBAI: Saffolalife, a not-for-profit initiative by Marico launched a new campaign on World Heart Day. This year, the campaign ‘Dil ki haalat, pet se pakad’ aims to build awareness and educate people on the impact of belly fat on heart health, thereby inspiring people to begin their journey towards a healthier heart and lifestyle.
The campaign kicked off with a digital film conceptualised by McCann Mumbai. The film shows light-hearted moments of family and friends holding a dear one’s belly fat in jest, but in reality it is no laughing matter since belly fat puts your heart at risk. Through the film and campaign, Saffolalife aims to build awareness of a lesser known fact, that the presence of belly fat increases heart risk. The video was launched across social media platforms – YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and OTT platforms like VOOT and HotStar complemented with print releases and on-ground activities to amplify the message ‘pet pakad mein aaye, toh karo dil ka khayal shuru.’
Consumers can also visit the Saffolalife microsite (www.saffolalife.com) and use the Heart Risk Calculator to get a deeper understanding of the extent of their heart risk.
On World Heart Day, Saffolalife also released a research study on the ‘Impact of belly fat on heart health’ which highlighted some astonishing facts such as 67 per cent Indians with belly fat are at heart risk, 83 per cent Indians who are at heart risk due to belly fat do not consider belly fat to be a key reason for heart risk, 6 out of 10 Indians are at heart risk due to belly fat despite having normal weight and 63 per cent Indians under 35 years are at heart risk due to belly fat.
Saffolalife has also partnered with a team of cardiologists and nutritionists who provided various insights on this issue and recommend ways to improve one’s heart health.
Marico chief marketing officer Anuradha Aggarwal says, “We endeavour to build a Heart Healthy India by encouraging people to take charge of their heart health through small yet impactful measures. For over a decade, the Saffolalife initiative has been building awareness on heart health and inspiring people to take care of their heart. This year’s campaign drives an important message on how the presence of belly fat can impact one’s heart health. And, that people should start taking care of their heart if they can see fat around their belly.”
Talking about the campaign, McCann Mumbai EVP GM and national head planning Suraja Kishore adds, “Every World Heart Day, Saffolalife has been raising consciousness of people towards heart health. This time we discovered a powerful insight that made us go one step further. The insight stems from something that most of us worry about but don’t link to heart health which is the presence of belly fat. This led us to the idea of – ‘self-check your heart-health’ by measuring your belly fat.”
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.
