AD Agencies
Y&A Transformation launches Snippet Digital, a first of its kind digital agency
Y&A Transformation today announced the launch of Snippet Digital a full-fledged digital marketing agency, founded on the premise that digital is technology first, combined with creativity, media science and brand thinking. The company will operate under the Y&A collective banner, which will soon be launching other specializations as well. The executive board of Snippet consists of Tarun Mitra, a technology expert, Ram Gudipati, an experience brand strategist and S Yesudas, a media expert with collective experience of over 75 years. The agency also aims to provide executive education on Digital Business Leadership, particularly to equip the senior management at the clients’ end to get much more from their digital investments.
Tarun Mitra an IIT Delhi alumni comes with a strong background and experience in technology business, growing internet startups and marketing services. Ram Gudipati has in-depth understanding of consumers, brands and marketing communications. S Yesudas brings with him deep understanding of data, media sciences and how consumers across demographics consume media both offline and online. All 3 have worked on various brands across different life stages and produced work which have won client trust as well as industry recognitions.
Commenting on the launch of Snippet, S Yesudas, Co-founder said “Most clients that I have spoken to are of the opinion that majority of digital agencies do not bring the maturity to consider different perspectives and explain the same to clients through meaningful conversations. The discussion is largely centered around digital execution. While Google has moved beyond the gate-keeper status to a destination in itself, most agencies haven’t moved beyond traditional SEO practices. Organically engaging with consumers searching for products and services near them is fully owned by the directory services/yellow pages. This not only reduces discoverability but compels a client to even pay for his own data, as the clients’ GMB even belong to these service providers. Our aim is to add some grey-hair perspective to clients’ investment and help build curiosity, pride and purpose for the digital natives in the team so that they start exploring rather than just exploiting”
Tarun Mitra, Co-founder, Snippet Digital, adding to the agency offerings said, the future in digital is changing as we speak and soon the era of augmented creativity will replace conventional process of digital creative development. Therefore, our efforts are in building a very strong technology orientation, which will get balanced with human wisdom. In addition to our investment in top quality engineering resources, mostly coming from IIT, Mumbai, our resources include creative professionals, story tellers, digital strategy experts, planners and implementation specialists. We have already forged alliances to deliver programmatic solutions and location-based services integrating mobile technology. Although nascent, we will even be employing data science, AI and predictive analytics capabilities with a view to ensuring our clients’ investments do not end up at click-farms”
Talking about how brand and creative thinking will heighten the overall customer experience, Ram Gudipati, Co-founder, Snippet Digital said “Unlike the current practice on digital which is one brand and many stories, more like the spray and pray approach, our focus will be one brand, one core story and different manifestations of the same, platform specific. We will help our clients spot the signals before they become the trend, rather an adding to the noise on the trends. Snippet has already started working with the Hinduja Group, Hillcart Tales, a premium tea brand, Chitralekha Group, media owner with 70 years of reader engagement, LOL Surprise dolls, Paw patrol and a whole host of brands within the toy’s category. We are in advanced level of conversation with two other large corporates”
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.
