MAM
SapientNitro acquires 81% in Brazilian digital agency
MUMBAI: SapientNitro, an interactive marketing, creative design, and technology services agency, has acquired 81 per cent of Brazil-based independent digital agency iThink.
The move into Brazil marks the expansion of SapientNitro into the Latin American market, strategically rounding out the agency‘s global footprint to include all of the BRIC countries, and expanding its ability to help clients around the world.
According to the company statement, Latin America is a strategic and rapidly evolving market for SapientNitro and its clients. Expansion into this region is in response to client demand for SapientNitro‘s combination of brand, digital and commerce service offerings in the market, particularly as global marketers gear up for Brazil‘s hosting of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics.
Led by Marcelo Tripoli, iThink was founded in 2002. iThink‘s team services a multi-national client base that includes Castrol, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Google, and Samsung.
Sapient president and CEO Alan J. Herrick said, “As the changing consumer continues to disrupt the way companies and brands interact with their consumers, we see more and more clients looking for better RoI and more innovative experiences around brand, digital and commerce that can be leveraged globally. Our move into Latin America with the addition of iThink as one brand, one culture and one P&L, furthers our role as a new breed of agency unlike any other in both capability and global footprint.”
iThink CEO Marcelo Tripoli said, “Our culture has always been about transforming our clients‘ businesses by creating engaging interaction between their brands and consumers. In SapientNitro, we found a kindred spirit that recognizes that digital is not just one more outlet, but increasingly the center of a consumer‘s behavior. Reaching today‘s evolved consumer involves creating multi-dimensional experience spaces that connect to human emotions.”
Pátria Investimentos and Blackstone Advisory Partners acted as the financial advisors to Sapient in connection with the transaction.
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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.
