 Ladies and gentlemen, now we have with us a personality who is well known in Indian business fraternity and has also chaired the jury board of Indian marketing awards. Mr. Bharat Puri, Managing Director, Piddy Light Industry. Mr. Puri's association with Piddy Light began as an independent director of the company in 2008. His career has witnessed many achievements during his tenure at leading Indian and global companies. In his last assignment, he was President Global Chocolate Gum and Candy Categories at Mondalis International Zurich with worldwide responsibilities for the growth of these categories. I would request Mr. Bharat Puri to kindly share with us his overall experience on being part of the jury of Indian marketing awards, followed by an interaction with Mr. Naval Ahuja, who's the co-founder of Exchange for Media Group. I welcome you gentlemen. Over to you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let me start by saying that we, you know, normally people use the word unprecedented rather loosely, but we have this year lived in unprecedented times. And for marketeers, it's been a double whammy because, A, obviously the consumer has been substantially impacted. And secondly, marketing funds have been substantially impacted. And therefore when one went into the jury, one was wondering how has marketing done this year? And I must say it was a pleasant surprise. I think marketing is alive and kicking. Marketing is innovative. Marketing is doing different things. The digital world, the digital consumer, all that we hear of is true, but it's wonderful to see that people have found new ways and improved old ways of connecting with consumers. And therefore the whole experience of chairing the jury for the Indian marketing awards was for me, A, an enjoyable experience, more importantly, a learning experience. You know, all of us are learners, irrespective of the amount of gray in our hair. And I must say at the end of it, I came back with a lot of ideas. I came back quite happy and quite impressed with a lot of the work being done. So overall, while I will add my congratulations to all the participants, not just all the winners. I just say it's been a good day for marketing and it's been a great experience chairing the jury for the awards. Over to you, Naval. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Mr. Puri, for joining us and thank you for your words of encouragement for marketers across the country who have participated in this year. And I could not agree more with you. Challenging times are the ones when companies have to innovate, especially the marketing fork. And I think last year was one such year when budgets were on a tight string and you had to find ideas which would fly without the wings of significant money. And as you might have seen with the IMA entries, a lot of those companies, a lot of brands manage that. Since you're here, we thought it's a good opportunity for us to pick up your brains. I'll come to a little bit more to the IMA part of the discussion a little later. Mr. Puri, as you started by saying it's been an unprecedented year and as you saw it created significant disruption in society with individuals, companies of course are very deeply impacted and naturally every company, every sector responded very differently. As a business leader, you are part of a large category. You also keep track of what's happening across categories, which are the companies that will stand out for you when it comes to response to pandemic and why is that? I think a number of companies really, when you are hit by a pandemic, it's obviously something that no management books or no budgeting process or planning process prepares you for. And it's never about falling down novel. It's about how quickly you get up. So the companies that have impressed me are the ones that got up quickly, connected with consumers very, very quickly, cognized of the new realities, realized there was a trend around health and hygiene. There was a trend around people shopping and interacting electronically. There was a trend around far more emphasis on wellness and a large number of companies reacted very well to this. I don't want to go into specific names because then what happens is when you call out some, you miss out a lot of others and later people come back and say, how could you miss me? But I must say, I think overall if you look at FMCG, you look at durables, you look at the real consumer space, I think marketing is well and alive in India. And it's wonderful to see how quickly brands adapted, came back, whether it be the pace of innovation, whether it be understanding insights and acting on them, and whether it be just good breakthrough communication. So overall, I would say a good year for the consumer industry. I think the services industry has suffered a lot more, retail has suffered a lot more, they will bounce back a little later. But overall, I think it's been wonderful to see people adapt and act with agility. Right, and some data bears that out Mr. Puri, I was told that a category about new product launches got a lot of, a lot many more number of entries that we wouldn't get in the usual year. So that really is kind of proof of the pudding that even in a year as disruptive as 2020, companies didn't stop their sort of animal spirits remained intact and we figured out ways of going out and selling new products if the existing ones were not flying off the shelf. Coming to the role of the CEO and you've been in a leadership position now for many, many years. And again, last year was a very disruptive year. What were the things that came on to a CEO's plate and which would not occupy or consume too much of your time earlier. And do you think the CEO's role pre-COVID and post-COVID is likely to be slightly different and COVID will leave some lasting sort of changes in how a CEO, an MD of a company approaches the business once this entire episode is behind us. Great, great questions. Now, you know, starting with, I think the important thing in any crisis for a CEO is first to stand up and lead. A lot of times we tend to get overcome or overwhelmed by the enormity of what faces us. But I think what distinguishes the CEOs that stand out from the others is their ability to be able to, in a sense, understand that while there is a storm, you have to manage the storm. You have to keep also strengthening your own ship as you're navigating the storm. And really, therefore, actually, I always say that it is periods of crisis that test the character of a leader, the metal of a leader and the culture of a company. All the good work that you've done in better times. This is when it comes back because that's when people really own the agenda. That's when people go the extra mile, they go the extra, you know, they put in a lot of the extra effort because they have a sense of ownership for the organization. So as far as the CEO is concerned, he has to fly the plane visually. He's got this massive plane, but a lot of it is being flown visually because you don't know what is going to happen the next, you know, week, 10 days, I mean, the whole planning horizon shifts and shrinks dramatically. The second thing is you have to also keep saying that, listen, as this gets over, we must emerge from this as a stronger organization. And therefore, you have to put in a whole set of actions, whether it be related to innovation, whether it be related to supply chain, whether it be related to people, which help you basically a manage the storm well, but be emerged from the strong, from the storm, a little more able and a little stronger than you were before the strong storm came. So I mean, is the role of the CEO going to change? Absolutely. I mean, you know, we truly, I mean, these are truly the famous WUKA stroke changing times. And the role of the CEO is continuously evolving. You know, the CEO now slowly and steadily you have to, I mean, if you look at just post pandemic, if somebody had told me that I would be spending most of my time looking at a screen as I'm doing now and talking to a screen, I'd say surely come on, I mean, you know, this is something futuristic. So whether it be how you communicate, how you visit the market, how you see consumers, how you meet your own people, given the scale of change, I think the role of the CEO has to change. But at one level level, the role of the CEO still remains very simple. Lead by example, lead from the front, lead authentically and lead and own the company as if it's your own. That's not going to change. I think, I think that that that's a fundamental proof that will remain in place for a perhaps forever. Culturally, organizations are also undergoing a lot of change because of COVID, face to face contact has changed. COVID has also made sure that you don't have as much opportunity to meet your partners as much you're not going out in the market, your teams are not out. Hopefully, all of that will change or will be behind us sooner or later. But as you said, a lot of things will remain, for example, virtual meetings. And what does that do to the culture of an organization? Because, you know, a lot of organizations pride themselves in, you know, very close net, rightly in teams being very closely knit, flat structures, lesser hierarchies, face to face discussions as much as possible, a lot of travel. And all of that might not come back for a year or two. Do you think culturally that changes the DNA of organizations? I think more change the DNA, but again, good organizations will adapt. You will have to find new, you know, I always say right now, the most lonely objects in my office are the coffee machine and the water cooler. And you have to find different ways of having the coffee machine and the water cooler conversations. But as I said, this is time when, you know, the culture that you've embedded actually comes home and pays you back. And all of us will have to adapt to newer ways. I mean, we're all finding different ways of still having the same fun, having the same camaraderie. I do think that as things improve, we will go back to a mix of physical and digital. I don't think we'll go back to the fully physical one. I don't think it'll remain fully digital either. Because there is a value of collaboration, there's a value of apprenticeship, there is a certain social capital that you build in an organization. And a lot of that comes from face to face contact. So I think, again, it's for organizations to adapt, it's for organizations to continuously evolve and keep pace with the times. Who would also introduce a lot of changes in organizations, especially when it comes to decision making? You think, look at the last year, it also tells us that a lot of organizations can be more nimble put it. Decision making can be much more faster than it has been. You know, it was driven and forced due to the pandemic. But the fact of the matter is if companies can launch new products in 45 days, which in normal course of time might take a year or two, you think, you know, one decision making being much faster is something that will continue to happen post the pandemic. And is there a big opportunity waiting for companies to tap it? I think absolutely yes. I think what the pandemic has taught a lot of people is the old adage used to be look before you leave. In these times, you look while you leave. And you know, you make sure that you don't hurt yourself, but you're still you still leave quicker and, you know, hopefully leave longer and faster. So I definitely think you will prioritize a certain amount of speed and agility of doing things over, you know, getting dotting the last I and crossing the last T. And what this crisis has taught you is finally what the consumer sees and how quickly the consumer sees the change is what matters more than you're getting it perfect. And that might mean lesser money for research companies, but that's a conversation for a different day. Yes, that's a different conversation. But to be fair, I mean, the word research, I mean, you know, all of us finally are researchers. And, you know, in our day to day lives, we're all researching as long as we do a lot more of that research and not rely only on formal research, we'll be happy. Absolutely. The real research is your gut and your, you know, market feedback. Let me come to a feed light, specifically, Mr. Puri, and you've been part of that company for a good part of six years. Tell us how I saw your Q3 results. They were fantastic. Congratulations. The market is very happy with what we delivered. Tell us what are the what are the challenges you faced in the first two quarters of last year and what were the intricacies of those challenges and how were those kind of, you know, overcome? See, in our case, because we operate in a whole variety of categories, we have a B2C business, we have a bazaar business, which is basically a consumer business, but there could be an influencer, a carpenter, a nascent, a plumber. And then we have B2B businesses and all of these obviously had different challenges. In our case, first and foremost, was just to keep the wheels of the vehicle, the wheels of the large truck running. And therefore, how do you get back quickly into action? How do you get your supply chain back into action? Most important, how do you ensure first and foremost, the safety and security of your team, then of your partners, then of your influencers? So amongst the things, for example, and this is when I, you know, when I talk about culture and how it pays, we had teams, we actually had a deal with ATM where we converted the loyalty points of carpenters, masons actually into money because they didn't have any jobs because everything was locked down. And we said, listen, this is the time like companies like us have to be there for you. We had various cases of people going out of their way, therefore to help their users, to help their consumers. Basically, what we were doing was we formed the company to two teams, an act now team and a plan now team. The job of the act now team was to ensure safety, security and keep the wheels moving up, you know, day to day and make sure that business is coming back. The job of the plan now team was listen, this pandemic is going to lead to a lot of change. How can we be ahead of the change rather than struggling to catch up with the change and how do we emerge stronger from this crisis? And, you know, fortunately, as you will have seen in the last two quarters, we've come bounced back much quicker simply because, A, I think we planned well, B, we had a wonderful committed team which was standing right up there and saying, that's the motto. A lot of companies want to follow. Let me now talk to the marketer and you and you being a person who's built brands over the years and once a marketer, always a marketer. You've seen, you know, a lot of work that's happened in the Indian business environment, brands being built and off late, you know, what we've also seen social media has come up like a hydra headed animal, which has caught a lot of companies, CEOs and, you know, marketers off guard completely and we've had instances where, you know, on one hand, as CMO that marketers, we talk about building brands, which are purposeful brands that stand up for values, brands that are aspirational brands that people look up to. And when those brands try to take stands, even if they're not taking any stands, seemingly mundane issues, very run-of-the-mill issues, just look up into, you know, huge controversies given the amplification power of social media. I'm not going to get into, you know, specific examples and, you know, put you in a corner there, but we've had recently, you know, controversies around, you know, social media really amplifying what brands are doing. What's your take on that? You know, what does a marketer do if you are in that person's shoes? What does the CMO do today? I again think that's a great question. Now, in fact, many, many years ago in Cadbury when social media was active but not as active as it is now, we had a crisis which was like, you know, in a sense company threatening and we went through. The lessons for a marketer are very simple in my view. They're just three simple lessons. A, put the consumer first. The media will go away. The regulator will go away. But if the consumer goes away, then she's not going to come back. So put A, put the consumer first and make sure that you're acting in the interest of the consumer. B, tell the truth. It's, even if you make a mistake, consumers will forgive brands for the mistakes. As long as people stand up and say, this is, you know, rather than try and cover it up or rather than try and tell a story or blame somebody else, et cetera. So I think the second thing is tell the truth. And the third thing is, you're in this for the long run. So don't do anything in the short run, which is going to, in a sense, not let you put your head on your pillow and sleep well and not let your brand succeed in the medium and long term. In the end, brands are going to outlive all of us. We must treat them therefore in the same way. And therefore, very important for us to do the right thing. Even if in the short run, it seems to be like, you have your back against the wall. I mean, when we had the famous Cadbury crisis, people were telling us like, oh, this is going to happen. That is going to happen. But A, we were sure about our product. B, we were sure that we were doing the right thing. And C, we kept putting the consumer first. And, you know, fortunately, it all worked out well in the end. I think the other sort of portents, if I may use that word, sort of poison that's added to the mixes that you have seemingly mundane issues where, you know, there is a very poorly or I would say not even a defined right or wrong person or a group of persons taking offense to somebody and how do companies react to that? And I think that's become a very tricky question. You write in the sense of, you know, a marketer taking the right approach, backing your instinct, backing, you know, what the consumer wants. But here you have, I won't call vested interest, but, you know, there is always a group of people who will have a difference of opinion. So how do you deal with that? I think that's become a very tricky question these days. I think it's a sign of the times. I just think that in today's days and times, you know, we are becoming more and more politically correct. There are smaller and smaller lobbies getting offended at smaller and smaller stuff. I just think it's the same thing as, you know, how you would treat things in your own home. If you think it's important, you act on it. If you don't, you stand up and stick it out and say why you want to stick it out. But I don't think you should topple over easily. I don't think you should also be needlessly stubborn. So I, you know, I don't think there's a magical formula. But the thing is be authentic. Don't forget the consumer and address, don't run away from the issue. Address it. Yeah, I think, I think those are all the wisdom, especially that treat an issue like you would treat it at home. At the end of the day, even if you have consumers who differ from what you are giving them, the fact is that they are consumers. And as long as they are important for you, you need to address what they are looking at. Let me also ask you now, Mr. Puri, about, you know, let me go back to last year and as you also seen a bit from about the entries at the Indian marketing boards. And the CMO's role over the last few years has significantly changed, especially, you know, the media mix has driven that change. I won't say just media mix, but the fact is that digital, not driving businesses, not just part of the marketing mix, but digital as platforms and driving businesses, how do you think that has changed the role of the CMO in organizations? I think what has happened, you know, let me give you a nice analogy. When I, in the good old days, when I was a young marketing manager, marketing was like a test match. You had lots of time, you had time for a lunch break, you had time for a tea break, you know, you planned your strategy long. And generally the pitch was predictable, you knew what was to be done. By the time I became a CMO, it had become a one day match. You still had time, but you had to be a little quicker so on so forth. It's now become a T20 match. So therefore you have to innovate much quicker, you have to find the new switch hits, you have to find new way, you have to find new betting combinations. So I really think the role of innovation, the role of speed, the role of thinking on your feet, all of this has actually got heightened for the CMO and I would, you know, much as all of us older fellows would like to say that in our time marketing was, you know, what real marketing was, I think actually the marketing job is now become a fuller, well-rounded and a constantly changing job. And I think it's a wonderful challenge for any young, you know, manager to be a CMO today because you're talking to your, the consumer is experiencing you in all facets, 360 degrees, seeing you in a variety of media and you have a variety of choices to interact with the consumer. So I really think it's now a T20 match and you know, it's not about which was better, which was, it's just that you have to adapt and you have to now be far more thinking on your feet, you have to innovate a lot more and you have to get results much, much more quickly. And if I may add, I think the CEO's attention to some of the media vehicles that are being used by brands is also gone up. So that kind of more spotlight into the job. That is true. No, I must tell you that, see, traditionally always the CEO's choice of media always, you know, influenced people's media plans. I think now it's much more difficult because the choice is so wide. That's right. That's right. And data analytics, CRM tools, all of those really play a very important part in the mix. Tell me, Mr. Puri, Fiddleight also would have, you know, as is a company that has really adopted digital and when I say digital, I don't mean to say digital as, you know, platform for marketing, but in its entirety, the 360 degree approach to digital, whether you're connecting with consumers, whether you're reaching out to them, whether it comes to reaching out to your B2B community, what are the key ROI metrics that you look at from digital adoption? And when I say ROI metrics, I don't talk about digital advertising marketing alone, but as a company, you know, how do you look at it holistically and, you know, what is the kind of view you would have, say, three years out? I think that's again a great question. You know, our starting point at Fiddleight is whether any initiative, finally, whether it's a digital initiative, it could be a real world initiative, it could be a supply chain initiative, finally must be seen through the lens of impact on business in the short, medium and long term. And, you know, a lot of times we get into doing things for, because it's fashionable, it's trendy, we need to have a story. Our whole piece is, A, we must first look at the lens on the impact of the business, but not just today's business, tomorrow's business, day after tomorrow's business. Secondly, it has to become a lot more cross functional and a lot more people who are younger need to be involved. So in Fiddleight, we have a program called Art of the Possible, where cross functional teams have any ideas or anything digital, it could be a digital idea for a robotic process, automation, finance, it could be some new idea for the supply chain in factories, it could be something with AI, with influencers and carpenters. They actually come and present to a team as, and we are like venture capitalists, if you, if we like your idea, it doesn't matter which, and we believe is going to impact the business, we actually give you seed capital and start you off. We actually get some startups to help these fellows develop the ideas, because, you know, in today's world, we must realize that we must run idea meritocracies. The best ideas are never going to come from the top. The best ideas are going to come from fellows who are close to the consumer, close to the customer. And how do you empower people, get them to do stuff? That's what we've been pushing at. And, you know, therefore, whether it's e-commerce, whether it is analytics, whether it is AI, I mean, just to give you an idea, during the lockdown, we did over 2,500 DigiMeets with carpenters, masons and plumbers. Now, if a year back you had told me that, you know, masons and plumbers are going to do DigiMeets on Teams or Zoom, you would have said, oh, it's never possible. It's all actually happening. It's, I mean, today all my carpenters, my masons actually have an app on which they actually interact directly with the company. So, I mean, it's a massive area, but if I was to say, how do you evaluate ROI on digital, A, sure impact on business, B, chunk it, give, you know, a lot of times the idea develops as you go along. So, give people seed capital as it develops, give them more capital and have a lot more ideas. And three, involve cross-functional as well as younger people early. Fantastic nuggets, I think. And if I may add, the humongous amounts of increasing productivity, if you have your B2B community joining you digitally, the kind of the upside, the X factor is, you know, limitless if I can. Absolutely. Let me, before I get into specifically, I am one last question about, you know, what's happening in the economy. Yesterday, we saw the budget and like a lot of, you know, leaders in the business community were seeking from the government, additional spending has been committed by the government. It was done last year, more has been committed next year. A lot of mixed things are happening in the Indian economy. And as globally in many countries, it's not a, you know, uniform story. Growth is uneven. Small businesses are more impacted perhaps than large ones. They will take more time. Some industries are more impacted like you said. What's your view on the economic recovery? Some say we are likely to see a V-shaped recovery. Others talk about a K-shaped recovery. Some talk about, you know, average growth going up. Others talk about, you know, the mean growth not really picking up because a lot of sectors will take time. What's your view on, you know, how 2021 and beyond is likely to... See, I'm fairly optimistic now along the next 12 months, notwithstanding the low basis, because if you look at the numbers, I mean, in the end, what has impacted us substantially is the pandemic and the numbers at least as of now. And, you know, you can keep putting these famous multipliers, etc. But there is no doubt about the fact that India is now in a much better place in terms of controlling the pandemic. Now, as we go into March, the next six months, most of industry is cycling last year's depressed basis. So growth rates are not going to matter too much. But if you look at the IMF forecast, the IMF says we will grow real 11%. Yes, there will be some sectors that will grow, but it's always been so that there are some sectors that at times grow faster, there are some, but overall as an economy, as economic growth, will it return? I'm fairly confident it will return. Will it be 11? Will it be 14? Will it be 15? Let's wait and see. But we're getting prepared for it and I again think the agile market here, the innovative market here will have the higher growth rate, the fellow who's waiting for everything to fall into place and have a lower growth rate. Absolutely, no doubt about that. And a very big question of interest to people who are in the advertising and media business, what happens to marketing spend? Are they going to significantly go up this year and not compare to last year because spend significantly came down? What happens to marketing spend? Are companies like you, yours looking to spend significantly more money this year? Without any doubt. In fact, when we look at it and whenever there is growth, marketing thrives, advertising, communication thrives. And given the kind of growth that the government is punting on, all of us are looking forward to in the next year, I think it's going to be a great year for marketing and therefore advertising, communication and related fields. Historically, there's been a correlation, kind of loose correlation between economic growth and advertising has roughly grown 2x of the economic growth. So if we get close to 10 percent, advertising industry will grow much faster. Last two questions about your experience of IMA, you've spoken a bit about that. But let me just ask you, what were maybe a couple of things that really impressed you the most about IMA this year? I must say in the marketing awards, what impressed me was the breadth of work that is happening across categories. You see, in the good old days, when you had limited channels, etc, you ended up seeing a lot of the work as consumers. And as I said in my opening address, I really enjoyed the process because I learned a lot and I learned a lot because there was a lot of work that I had not seen, which I was very impressed by. So I was impressed by the breadth and I liked the fact that marketers, even in an environment like last year, were pushing the envelope, were trying new things and you will see that in the awards that have been awarded. So at an overall level, a great learning experience and an enjoyable experience, always good to meet some old friends and make some new ones. Did you also notice any clear impact of the pandemic on what you saw, the work you saw? I think without doubt, as marketers, you have to be connected with the environment, you have to take note of what's changing in consumer behavior because in the end, marketing is getting the consumer to change his or her behavior in your favor and therefore, if there's a massive environmental thing, yes, there's been a substantial impact. If you had told me that hand sanitizers are going to be a 1000 crore category or people are going to wash their hands six times a day, we would have all never imagined. But as they say, some categories have thrived, some have thrived even more and some will come back. People are back to buying cars, hopefully back to buying houses and taking home loans. Thank you, Mr. Puri. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for spending time, especially driving this jury. Thank you to all the jury members. We look forward to meeting you very soon in person. My pleasure, Nava. Thank you so much.