MAM
Vivek Ballabh is Maxus Digital general manager
MUMBAI: Global marketing communications consultancy Maxus announced today the appointment of Vivek Ballabh as Maxus Digital general manager for North India.
Ballabh joins Maxus from Cheil India, where he managed the media operations for multiple clients . He brings with him extensive experience in digital marketing and branding which enables a significant understanding in planning/executing various integrated digital campaigns. In a career spanning 14+ years, Ballabh has worked with leading agencies/companies – these being Cheil India, Monster.com, Webchutney, Digitas & Razorfish etc. His body of work also includes working with several fortune 500 brands like HP, Samsung, AMD, Fritolays, 7Up, Microsoft, Makemytrip.com, Maruti Suzuki, Axis Bank, Nestle, Dabur and Airtel among others.
Ballabh started his career with the online marketing domain with Careercommunity.com which launched India’s first online job portal- Winjobs.com. He has spent 2 years at Monster.com as a Brand Manager where he handled marketing operations for South East Asian markets. With over 5 years spent at Digitas & Razorfish, he launched the digital media practice and also setup a SEM centric off-shore centre of 120 people, catering to the group’s business needs worldwide.
Commenting on the new appointment Maxus national director Vishal Jacob said, “Vivek brings invaluable experience in digital marketing. He brings the right mix of talent, experience and enthusiasm we seek to inject into our talent pool and will help the Maxus team in Delhi take a leap forward. The mandate for Vivek is to consolidate and grow the North operations which I’m sure he will do a fabulous job of and successfully achieve all milestones”
Elaborating on his new role Ballabh said, “I believe the digital revolution has just taken off in this market and the times ahead will be more exciting than ever. Brands have evolved in their digital thinking and Maxus is strongly poised to deliver cutting edge digital innovations, leading to more meaningful brand and consumer connections. I look forward to working closely with the super talented and energetic team that exists within the agency.”
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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.
