MAM
StanChart introduces Marathon credit card
MUMBAI: The Standard Chartered Bank, in association with Visa International, has introduced ‘Marathon’ credit card to celebrate the spirit of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon.
Standard Chartered Bank India consumer bank head Murali M Natrajan said, “The response that we have received for the Marathon was phenomenal and overwhelming, which is indicative of an increased awareness and keenness about fitness. We at Standard Chartered recognised this trend and have come up with a customer oriented offer. It takes not just the spirit Marathon further, but also seeks to ride on the wave of fitness consciousness that’s the beginning to start. In continuation with our product innovations and many firsts, we are delighted to introduce a credit card that truly celebrates the spirit of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon.”
Standard Chartered Bank is the market leader in sport based affinity card programmes. Its earlier success includes the Cricket Card, the Soccer Card and Olympic Games Card. The Marathon Card is a logical extension of the Standard Chartered Bank product suite. It has partnered with Reebok in its endeavour to promote fitness among the customers. The exclusive offers for the customer include:
Free Reebok Running Shoes: A pair of Reebok 3D Runner Shoes worth Rs 2290 are offered free with every card
Balance Transfer at 0.99 per cent: An attractive balance transfer at a very low interest rate of 0.99 per cent per month, for the first six months,
Supplementary Card free for life: All Marathon card members could gift their near and dear ones supplementary Marathon Credit Cards. These cards are offered free for life,
Win Reebok treadmills: On spending just Rs 900 on the Marathon Credit Card every month, customers get a chance to win Reebok treadmills worth Rs 245,000 each, for a period of eight months.
Standard Chartered Visa Marathon credit cards will be available at a one-time enrollment fee of Rs 1599 and will be issued in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhopal, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Chennai, Cochin, Coimbatore, Cuttack, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Lucknow, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Mysore, New Delhi, Pune, Trivandrum, Vadodara and Vizag.
VISA International country manager South Asia Santanu Mukherjee said, “The Standard Chartered Marathon card is symbolic of the commitment made by thousands of marathoners in the recently concluded Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. We are delighted to partner with Standard Chartered Bank in launching this commemorative product that symbolises the spirit of freedom and the heart of sport.”
Reebok India Limited MD Subhinder Singh Prem said, “We are pleased to continue our very successful partnership with Standard Chartered through the Marathon Card. Our earlier association on the Olympic Games Card has been very successful and has been received very well by customers. We expect to repeat the same through the Marathon Card.”
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.
