MAM
Tridal DDB India appoints Meera Sharath Chandra as NCD
MUMBAI: Tribal DDB India, Mudra’s specialist interactive unit, has appointed Meera Sharath Chandra as its national creative director.
Chandra will be based in Mumbai and will oversee creative operations for clients across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and international business.
Chandra has been a winner of several awards and accolades, including the prestigious London International Advertising Awards.
Her work for the web kiosk for Lakme, was a finalist at Cannes. Several of her portfolio brands have been adjudged the “Best Brand of the Year” during her advertising years, Ford Ikon (the Josh campaign) and Hindustan Lever skin and hair brands being among them.
Tribal DDB India GM C V S Sharma said, “I am delighted to announce the appointment of Meera as the national creative director of Tribal DDB India. Meera brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge. Innovative creative has been Tribal DDB India’s major strength. With her on board we are looking at providing path breaking user experience and better results for our client.”
On her appointment, Chandra said “I’m delighted to be a part of Mudra. In this new era we need to weave our services into the changing needs of our customers’ digital lifestyles. We have a young and enthusiastic team at Tribal DDB India, which will help us reach our objective. In my position I will continue to push the quality of our product to new heights and this I am confident, will reflect in the results.”
Tribal DDB India, Mudra’s specialist interactive unit, has appointed Meera Sharath Chandra as its National Creative Director. She will be based in Mumbai and will oversee creative operations for clients across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and international business.
Meera Chandra has been a winner of several awards and accolades, including the prestigious London International Advertising Awards. Her work for the web kiosk for Lakme, was a finalist at Cannes. Several of her portfolio brands have been adjudged the “Best Brand of the Year” during her advertising years, Ford Ikon (the Josh campaign) and Hindustan Lever skin and hair brands being among them.
C V S Sharma, General Manager, Tribal DDB India, said, “I am delighted to announce the appointment of Meera as the National Creative Director of Tribal DDB India. Meera brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge. Innovative creative has been Tribal DDB India’s major strength. With her on board we are looking at providing path breaking user experience and better results for our client.”
On her appointment, Meera Sharath Chandra, National Creative Director, Tribal DDB India, said “I’m delighted to be a part of Mudra. In this new era we need to weave our services into the changing needs of our customers’ digital lifestyles. We have a young and enthusiastic team at Tribal DDB India, which will help us reach our objective. In my position I will continue to push the quality of our product to new heights and this I am confident, will reflect in the results.”
Prior to this appointment, Meera has worked with Contract Advertising (India), Mumbai as VP creative and was heading team HSBC, Contract Health, iContract and DesignSutra and handled clients like Walt Disney, Cadburys, Godrej and Platinum Guild International.
Meera has spent over 18 years in the advertising industry with agencies like Everest, Saatchi and Saatchi, Maa Bozell- her last held post, (before Contract) being VP and senior creative director of J Walter Thompson in India. She also has over three years of international new media experience as executive director and president of Avigna Technologies, an Intel portfolio company, based in Washington DC, New York and in Hong Kong.
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.
