MAM
Soaked and Sold Moto G96 Wins Hearts with Water Baby Campaign
MUMBAI: Phones usually dread the drizzle this one does a dance in it. With the monsoon in full swing, SW Network and Flipkart have tapped into a universal fear wet phones and flipped it on its head with the launch campaign for the Moto G96, a smartphone that’s not just water-resistant, but water-embracing. Armed with an IP68 rating and a Watertouch Display that works flawlessly even when soaked, the G96 became the centrepiece of a cheeky, insight-rich campaign titled “Always a Water Baby.” The phone’s monsoon-proof credentials became an open invitation to throw away the plastic bags and rice bowls and say goodbye to panic-mode hairdryers.
The outdoor campaign went bold and witty hoardings dismissed old-school hacks with lines like “You don’t need these anymore.” In one standout execution, the agency installed a monsoon shelter with the tagline: “While other phones run for cover, I’d stand in the rain for you.” Subtle, it was not but the point was made loud and clear.
Print creatives took gentle digs at waterproof phone pouches still clinging to relevance, while a quirky double-hoarding visual metaphor featured the Moto G96 as “a great catch” literally caught between two billboards.
“Moto G96 doesn’t just survive water, it loves it,” said SW Network co-founder Raghav Bagai. “We wanted the campaign to be playful, visual and instantly relatable. ‘Water Baby’ gave us the perfect language to celebrate this feature without falling into the spec-sheet trap.”
Instead of leaning on technical jargon, the campaign found humour in a shared everyday pain phones and puddles are usually a nightmare pairing. But not this time.
With the G96, SW Network shows once again it knows how to turn product truth into pop culture, proving that even in tech advertising, a little splash of humanity goes a long way.
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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.
