MAM
Top brand placed in ‘Baghban’ film courtesy Leo Entertainment
MUMBAI: Leo Entertainment, the full service entertainment consultancy division of Leo Burnett India, is going all out to grab brand associations for producer Ravi Chopra’s multi-starrer feature filmBaghban.
The film stars Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini, Salman Khan and Aman Varma among others.
Leo Entertainment has managed to forge alliances with brands such as ICICI Bank, Tata Tea, Zip Telecom, Ford automobiles and Archies which will conduct in-film placements in the film. The agency has also conceptualised “zara hatke” (different) promos.
Leo Entertainment head Sanjay Bhutiani says that the first phase of the campaign – TV, hoardings, posters and banners for the domestic and international market – has already been conceptualised by his team.
He explains, “In an attempt to be different from run-of-the-mill trailors and publicity material, we have developed offbeat creatives. The promotional material strives to induce guilt among children; in turn urge them to express their love for their parents.”
Some of the promos airing on TV channels include visuals of Amitabh Bachchan walking with a small child with the tag line “He was there when you took your first step; will you be there when he takes his last?” Another creative has the tag line “Their house was always yours. How come they are guests in your house?” and the third one is “They sacrificed their today for your tomorrow…”
Industry sources say that the publicity and promotional budget for producer Ravi Chopra’s film – slated as contemporary version of the Rajesh Khanna-Shabana Azmi film Avtaar – is around Rs 20 million.
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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.
