MAM
Zodiac using internet rather than print, television for Zod!
MUMBAI: The latest marketing initiative from Zodiac, a manufacturer of corporate and semi formal garments, shows that the Net can be an effective vehicle of catering to the upper scale.
The company is promoting ZOD! which represents its foray into trendy club wear through the net supported by offline promotions rather that the usual norm which is the print and the idiot box.
An official release informs that the decision was made keeping in mind the target audience which is the young, extrovert party going, and fun loving man. ZOD! claims to wear its daring attitude on its sleeve. There will be plenty of variations in the product line in terms of fabric used, palette of colours, the cuts.
The advertising strategy for ZOD! revolves around the theme Are you game? The media strategy required mapping the match between the target audience and the net and pushing the logic further mapping the match between the youth and online gaming. And therefore a creative strategy to exploit games/contest based on partying was arrived at.
FCB Ulka Interactive has devised the campaign strategy. The ad agency helped ZOD! to partner with Indiatimes, the country’s premiere youth portal to launch its club wear which. It was the first time that Zodiac launched a brand by allying with an online entity to create adequate mind share, both online and offline for its clientele.
Zodiac business head, ZOD!, Imraan Surve was quoted as saying: ” The target audience for ZOD! consumes a lot of computer time. In fact we believe them to be heavy users of the net. In addition the net allows you to actually fine tune and target your communication based on age; SEC and even gender.”
“Moreover the cost efficiencies are unbeatable The return on the advertising rupee is great. The web / net is very effective if used sensibly and cautiously. We started in a small way, checked the response and then one thing led to another It will be our endeavor to provide our customers with wider range to choose from. For success, I feel it is imperative not only to have a quality product but also the right kind of marketing strategy. ”
Speaking to indiantelevision.com, FCB-Ulka senior consultant-Interactive division N Ram said that while it is difficult to give a figure in terms of the number of companies using the net in a major way to advertise their product there has been a 100 per cent increase over the last year.
Ram adds: “Companies like UTI, Tata Indica have become more receptive to the concept of hooking the computer user. However since the internet penetration is low in the country mass brands like Pepsi, LG, Samsung are very selective in their usage of the medium. Brands like mobile phones which believe that they can make an immediate connection with the audience through the net will go through this route. However in the near future I do not see ad budgets shifting from the television onto the internet. Radio since it is still new was never a big medium for us.”
The micro-site http://zod.indiatimes.com depicts the flavour and attitude of ZOD! The portal hosted an interactive contest for users apart from showcasing the shirts on the site, which got an overwhelming response of over 2,000 contest entries. The micro-site covered all nuances related to dating, partying, fashion, dressing and gave netizens a chance to win prizes.
On Yahoo! the contest that revolved around rating the fashion quotient online was targetted at the male, 25+, SEC A, top 10 metros on Rediff the company did targetted e-mail shots using demographic filters to promote special offers and viral based activities. Through various online initiatives ZOD! claims to have captured a database of 30,000 email ids.
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.
