MAM
Tripadvisor launches $1.5 million creative ad challenge
NEW DELHI: Travel site TripAdvisor has launched a new creative ad challenge for travel brands and advertising agencies to design a creative ad campaign that will run on TripAdvisor websites.
The company has set aside a total prize fund of $1.5 million, and the winning entry on the TripAdvisor India site will receive $100,000 in equivalent CPM (cost per mille).
The 2012 TripAdvisor Creative Ad Challenge gives the industry an opportunity to showcase their creativity and talent through the highly interactive medium of online ad display and the chance to impact a global audience of travellers, who are looking for inspiration while planning their next trip.
TripAdvisor VP Display Sales EMEA Martin Verdon-Roe said, “The 2012 Creative Challenge gives travel brands the freedom to develop an engaging media campaign that tells a story and shows what their brand really stands for, rather than just focusing on the more traditional ROI price point creative that is so common online. Following the success of our last challenge which was hosted in UK last year, this year it‘s even bigger and provides multiple opportunities for travel brands to win specific market campaigns.”
This year the challenge has been expanded to include 11 markets across Europe and APAC. From the Europe market UK, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and Turkey are part of the challenge while in APAC, India, Australia, Singapore, China and Japan are included. All travel brands and advertising agencies from the respective countries are entitled to participate in the challenge.
All entries must be submitted by 31 May – the winning campaigns will run on TripAdvisor between August and October.
The campaigns will be judged by a panel of TripAdvisor sales and marketing experts, as well as representatives from the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
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.
