MAM
Yes Bank inks five-year sponsorship deal with IPL
MUMBAI: Yes Bank has come on-board as the on-ground sponsor of cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) in the financial services category for a period of five years.
Citi was the official on-ground sponsor of the IPL in the financial services category till IPL season 5 before it decided not to renew the deal.
Yes Bank is the third official on-ground sponsor apart from title sponsor Pepsi and associate sponsor Vodafone, which renewed its association with IPL last year.
Yes Bank Founder, MD & CEO Rana Kapoor said, “IPL is the foremost event property in India, which through its vibrant and innovative platform brings together the entire country, irrespective of regional or demographic diversity.
“We are confident that Yes Bank‘s association with IPL for five years will facilitate our brand recognition, and further propel our pan India retail banking franchise. We look forward to deepen our relationship with our stakeholders through various exciting and creative initiatives around the IPL in our Retail branch serving areas across India.”
IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla said, “Pepsi IPL welcomes Yes Bank on board. Our relationship will only get stronger in the weeks and months to come, and we shall together ensure that we deliver a stupendous tournament.”
The IPL season 6 will be played from 3 April to 26 May involving a total of 76 matches to be played over a period of seven weeks.
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.
