MAM
Scroll Mantra appoints Nikhil Sharda as EVP – creative & digital communications
NEW DELHI: Scroll Mantra, one of India’s fastest-growing integrated marketing communications agency, today announced the appointment of Nikhil Sharda as executive vice president – creative and digital communications. With close to 17 years of experience, Sharda has been an ace story-teller and an artistic force behind various digital brand campaigns spread across a multitude of industries.
In his role he will be spearheading the social, digital, design, and website divisions for the agency. His key responsibility areas will be analysing client requirements, creating and executing compelling strategies, generating new business opportunities, maximising the company’s operating performance and achieving financial goals in line with the business objectives of the organisation.
Prior to joining Scroll Mantra, he served as the creative director at Frog Ideas – a digital marketing agency headquartered in Gurgaon. During his stint, he led and advised on go-to-market strategies for brands such as Comviva, Jim Beam, Terrapay, Twitter India Marketing, and more. Sharda has also had a long stint with AdGlobal360 where he spearheaded various campaigns for Rajasthan Tourism, Maruti Suzuki, Bureau of Indian Standards, BSB Edge, Delhivery, ministry of consumer affairs and European Union amongst others.
Having developed a penchant towards storytelling from an early age, Sharda completed his schooling from St George's College (Mussoorie) and then went on to graduate from Huddersfield University (UK) with Film Studies as his major. Today, he is occupied writing new stories for brands that will help make each scroll a mantra to be reckoned with.
Scroll Mantra founder and managing director Neha Bajaj said, “Despite the challenges brought on by this year, I believe that 2020 is an opportune time for brands to invest more in digital and new-age communications. The need for both PR and Digital is even more stronger and relevant during these times for brands to reach their relevant stakeholders and have an edge vis a vis its competitors. Nikhil’s reputation for excellence and driving exceptional results precedes him and I am very happy to welcome him to the Scroll Mantra family. I strongly believe that Nikhil will prove to be a value addition to our growing ecosystem and will help us scale our creative and digital wings substantially.”
Sharda said, “Scroll Mantra has been making remarkable waves with its approach in PR and Brand Communication. I am therefore excited to take on this role to continue delivering business solutions that will further revolutionize our edge. The teams here are young and passionate and I feed off that energy. To start with, we will be working with all our clients to build two sets of strategies – one to rebuild communication for 2020 without tweaking marketing objectives and strategies. And two, use the experience in 2020 as learnings to relook at strategies for 2021 and beyond, based on what we believe is the new normal for each industry.”
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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.
