AD Agencies
The Advertising Club campaign elevates ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024 prominence in the industry
Mumbai: In a persistent endeavor to elevate prominence in the South Asian and the global advertising industry, The Advertising Club (TAC) has unveiled a campaign for the upcoming ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024. Positioning as the unequivocal benchmark of excellence in the advertising industry, the campaign highlights the collective spirit of the industry, encouraging professionals to unite and contribute to shaping the future of the industry collectively.
The ABBY Awards stands out as the sole creative award show in India administered by the industry and endorsed by one of the best in the world, The One Show. The laurels achieved at the ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024 hold significant weight, with winning works also triumphing at prestigious global platforms such as Cannes Lions, The One Show, and D&AD. The esteemed jury panel comprises the crème de la crème of the global creative fraternity, ensuring a rigorous and impartial selection process, further endorsed by The One Show.
Speaking on the initiative, Ajay Kakar, Chairperson, Awards Governing Council, ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024 and Managing Committee Member, The Advertising Club, said, “At The Advertising Club, we are committed to bringing forward and honoring the masterpieces and the masterminds. The ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024 serve as a testament to the extraordinary work that our industry creates and its potential to shape the future. With this campaign, we invite the industry to come forward, submit their best work, and together elevate the collective creativity to unparalleled global heights.”
McCann Worldgroup India executive director Alok Lall further added, “We believe in celebrating not just the present achievements but also the future that we are collectively building for our industry. The ABBY Awards powered by One Show 2024 serve as a beacon for the creativity that defines our industry’s trajectory.”
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.
