MAM
Starcom Worldwide bags media duties of Educomp Solutions
MUMBAI: In the wake of a multi-agency pitch, Starcom Worldwide Delhi has bagged the media duties of Educomp Solutions.
The agency takes on the role of a channel planning partner and will be responsible for all media planning and buying duties for Educomp. It will be activating relevant touch points that ultimately drive revenue for Educomp.
Says Educomp director Abhinav Dhar, “Starcom did well in the pitch process. Our brief evaluated the agencies on four counts – talent helming the account, consumer insights, ideas anchored on business goals and stretching the budget. Starcom did well in all areas. Now comes the exciting part – delivering and executing.”
Avers Starcom Worldwide executive director, India – North Tarun Deep Kumar, “It‘s a fantastic start to the year with the Educomp win. Understanding the realities of the education industry resulted in winning the account. Our unwavering focus on business-building ideas made our argument compelling.”
Starcom Worldwide has already commenced the work on the account.
Founded in 1994, Educomp Solutions is a globally diversified education solutions provider. It reaches out to over 25,000 schools and 14 million learners and educators across the world with 27 offices worldwide including an office in Canada, 20 in India, two in Singapore, one in Sri Lanka and three in the United States.
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.
