MAM
What if, asks Kyoorius Designyatra
MUMBAI: All great things are achieved by making that extra effort. Kyoorius Designyatra, in its ninth year, will explore what it takes to create something new and unprecedented.
The annual conferences on creativity, themed ‘What if?’ will bring together speakers from around the world who redefine conventions and use radical approaches that push people to think beyond clichés. Where others see risks and obstacles, they see opportunities.
Kyoorius founder and CEO Rajesh Kejriwal said, “If you are looking to discuss the latest trends in digital, design and brand strategy or simply expose yourself to the most radical thinkers today, Designyatra is the platform to do just that. Here the barriers between young and old, senior and junior are dissolved, and interaction between designers, marketers, brands as well as young professionals and students, is welcomed and encouraged.”
The event will be held from 11 to 13 September and will be attended by 1300 delegates over three days at the Grand Hyatt in Goa. Kyoorius Designyatra brings radical and divergent ideas into focus through formats ranging from talks and workshops, breakout sessions to portfolio reviews, allowing the audience multiple levels of interaction.
Speakers will curate talks keeping in mind the Indian context.
IAA Kyoorius Digiyatra will look at the latest in digital – discovering new ways to realise its potential as a marketing and communication tool for India’s mobile audiences. An entire day will be dedicated to deconstructing the newest technological innovations, decoding online marketing, exploring content strategy for consumer engagement and ways to humanise digital.
Kyoorius Designyatra will engage in stimulating discussions, creative collaborations and interactions. Designyatra offers the opportunity to expand professional networks, meet the most innovative entrepreneurs and mingle with industry professionals.
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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.
