 Welcome to exchangeformedia.com. With me today is a dream marketer, a marketer with a very big brand name and an even bigger budget. Arnab, welcome. He just announced his budget this year has become bigger. So we are very excited about it and a lot of people want to chase you. Good you're not in India right now. Oh, thank you, Nazia. Very happy to be here. So Arnab, starting with what you announced recently that you've made an unprecedented announcement about boosting your marketing investments in the second half of the year. So what I wanted to understand is that is this solely related to World Cup or there are other factors to it as well? Yeah. So, you know, first, I think we need to understand that the business of the Coca-Cola company in India, India and Southwest Asia has been very strong. It's been by far one of the fastest growing, you know, consumer stapled, you know, companies out here in this region. And I think this company is all about brands. So investing in brand building, investing in high quality marketing, what programs and activation I think is very critical. So I think that's the first thing. So good news, the business is doing well. When the business is doing well and when the ambition is the high, you have to keep investing in the marketing programs to ensure your brands also are healthy. Your brands are strong so that you can continue to have the consumer demand going ahead. The second piece, yes, I think World Cup has had an important role this year. But if the World Cup had not happened, we still would have invested heavily in the second half. I think we are very clear. And for the last three years, we have been ensuring that if you have to de-seasonalize the business that we are in or at least reduce the seasonality, you have to invest in marketing in the second half. World Cup helped a lot, but World Cup was not the only reason that we actually took up our investments. But it was good to have the World Cup. And I was going through all that, you recently did a press conference in India and I was going through the content and I read that there are certain brands with which you are going very heavy in the World Cup like Thumbs Up, Sprite, Limca Sports. And wherein Coca-Cola was promoted a lot during Durga Pradesh. So I understand you have target audiences and all, but I would want to go deeper into the rationale behind it. Yeah, sure. So this is a part of the strategy which we have actually been doing for the last almost more than two years right now. Brand Coke earlier used to do a lot of things. You can't do everything. And especially after we had an internal restructuring and all the organizational changes means for the good. All the individual brands and the categories have also a PNL to deliver. The Coke can't take the load of everything. Earlier Coke used to do everything, right? You remember Muse, Cricket, Building Occasions and everything. And then yes, you also had Thumbs Up. Based on all the studies that we did, based on all the targeting we did, we thought it was best for Brand Thumbs Up to go exclusively on Cricket. And that's what we've been doing for the last three years from now. It's not that Coke will not do once in a while, especially if it's kind of linked to what the brand messaging is, but Thumbs Up is going to be our lead brand on Cricket, right? So that's one, so I'm parking that. Limca Sport you mentioned, that's the brand extension which we have been piloting for the last few months. We see a big potential for that as we start thinking as to what's the future of Limca, given all its history of hydration, isotonics, that's a very strong space for Limca to go on. And we thought that ICC World Cup would be a great opportunity along with the Asian Games where we're very active also with Neera Chopra and some of the other athletes. I think so that's point number two. So Sprite is an interesting piece. I think Sprite is actually a part of a global program, what we call internally out here called real-time marketing. So that's where we started off and you guys would have seen the banter between Shoaib Akhtar and Sachin and it went with all the other people, lots of influencers. So that's something which we are doing actually at a global level and India was a part of the whole I would say global program. So you're seeing a lot of online and digital and social action on Sprite with the platform. So the global platform is Heat Happens. In India we call it Khandrak. Pakistan also is Khandrak by the way and that's why the banter was very meaningful out there. And so it's an experiment we see and again we have never invested so heavily on Sprite in the second half. Sprite is a very seasonal brand. You're not giving any numbers? No Sprite is a Sprite across all the brands that we have Sprite is the most seasonal of all. So it is the number two brand which you are familiar with after Thumbs Up. I'm talking about budget. What investment? See it's a little bit mixed up because Sprite a lot of the investment is happening from a global scale. So that's helping us because you saw what's happening in Pakistan, little bit of investment is happening in Australia. So the global team we all got together as a community and we said okay it's very interesting to use the ICC World Cup to go and activate that. At the FIFA World Cup last time which we missed out and honestly Sprite in China had done this program called Yellow Card and the whole thing was around Heat Happens. So we went and owned all the Yellow Card moments in a football game because that's a heated moment and it was a very interesting one. You can actually Google and look through it. So we said okay what could we do with the ICC World Cup and that's where all that you see is happening. So those are the three things. Coke is basically being very clear. We are going after all the festivals right means wherever we are able to go and have an integrated plan with the bottleers. That's very important for us. We clearly see so we activated Ganpati. We have not spoken about it a lot but if you have actually seen what we did in Mumbai Coke it was one of the biggest activation we have done on ground in the Ganpati program. Okay so that's a big one. Then we went for Durga Puja not only in Calcutta and Bengal but in the whole eastern region. So if you are going to Koresa if you are going to Assam so that was a good opportunity for us to go and activate Durga Puja. And we have also seen competition very active by the way and that's probably the right thing to do with these are big platforms for consumption and brand building. And then we will obviously we will be doing something interesting around Diwali. So it's again Diwali again with Coke. Diwali has always been with Coke. I think the challenge with Diwali Nazia is that with can as a system with all our bottlers can we go and activate both Diwali and World Cup slightly difficult. Because managing all of this logistics supply chain integration plans with our key customers not that easy. But we are going to activate absolutely we are going to be there and then we will end the year with a very interesting Christmas campaign also which actually got released couple of days ago. You can actually see it's going to be a global campaign. So we are going to be leveraging that. The thing that Diwali and Christmas particularly for the Northern India is winters. So is the demand similar if you compare it to West and South. You're asking a very fundamental question as to why we invest in brands. I think there are you are investing in marketing because there could be short term gains absolutely. But you're also investing for building long term brand health which is very critical especially for categories like ours. Ensuring that we are staying relevant. We are staying top of mind. We are staying meaningful with all the right values. It cannot be done at a short term level only. So I think you need to find the right platform and the right opportunity and that's all you need to go through. We also activated Navratri though I think you obviously you have now seen what the song has done. It has ended up you know becoming. It was it was meant to be so Navratri was obviously a part of the whole outside vegetable activation. And when we released Khalasi we knew very clearly that this would be one of the good platforms to go and activate the whole Gujarati community in India and around the world with the Navratri platform. And I think we are very happy with everything that has happened out there also. No it's an absolute and especially on Instagram every reel has that song. You know I was so tempted last week I just went to switched on the subtitles to understand what it means but the tune is very addictive. But I'm not a Gujarati I couldn't understand what the meaning was but then I was so addicted to the tune that I went and my four year old daughter loves it. She played and she starts dancing. So you know another big change that sorry. Go ahead go ahead sorry. So another big change that you brought in last year was to change your brand ambassador to bring in a new face. You brought in Shah Rukh Khan and of course Shah Rukh Khan himself is a legend and has carries a lot of brand value. And it was not one of his best times you know when you got him on board and but things I mean I think Coke was also lucky for him. He delivered two very big hits of his career again and so wanting to understand that has it already started giving you returns to have Shah Rukh Khan on board as your brand ambassador. And what was the rationale like why why bring in Shah Rukh Khan certainly. Yeah means sometimes I'll give answers which will not seem very strategic and all of this but essentially we were absolutely marketing is also sometimes driven by intuition right. So if you go back this mean almost two and half years right now because we had our first campaign with him more than two years back when we did this Cinema Hall you know first campaign with him. We were in a place where we had to we were working on our next campaign after we activated the Olympics with Pollard which was phenomenally big for us. And we were looking as okay what's next what's the campaign what we've always done with Thumbs Up and unfortunately we didn't have our brand ambassador. We lost our existing brand ambassador at that point in time. And we were okay who's there in the market and it was a good time again to reset the brand and what the brand stands for and who's the personality. And to be honest we approached Shah Rukh we didn't know whether he would be keen or not and what happened at that point in time we knew that it would it would be for the short term because he's always going to be big in India he's always been King Khan right. We obviously then went in spend a lot of time to understand from our consumers and we keep doing that celebrity understanding a lot across. And it's important to understand out here a lot of this marketing community all of us. Bandra, South Bombay, Gurgaon and South Delhi they all came to me. I don't know all this and I urge people to go and spend time with the youth in the heart of Uttar Pradesh go to Bihar go to UP go to Rudal Maharashtra go to Bengal go to Orissa and we went all of these places and honestly it was very clear to us there was one guy and that was King Khan. And it was a no brainer there was Shah Rukh and then there was everybody else. I was out of India for a while so I was a little not connected with what is going on but I sat through all of these conversations with consumers. And it was very evident we had to go with him and he has been brilliant with us. I think I had, we had done a short stint with him in my last India stint he had worked with KKR on Sprite, but I had never got a chance to work with him. Absolute pleasure to work with outstanding professional outstanding what is one of the best we have in our Paul roster. Super creative and a complete gentleman so very happy with our partnership so far. And I can tell you he's worked for us very well you know thumbs up the results are out there what you're seeing. We became a billion dollar brand in 21 then in 22 we had one of our best years which we have spoken about 23 we are having a very good momentum by far. I think it's one of the fastest growing you know beverage and FMCG brands we have right now. So the numbers are there on the business side the good thing is the numbers are also there on the brand health side. So it's not just you're having the ground business but what's the future and we clearly see that most of the long term brand metrics are kind of moving up. And that's I think that's how long is this contract like it's a five year four year. We are not going we are we are not going on going contracts. He's with us. See I think most of the partnerships we do are also you would have seen they tend to be a little bit long term because you will need some time to understand what is the what is the value each of us you know bring to each other. And the good news was when we had the first call with him. We had no clue by the way that he was moving into completely action films and he was thrilled because we shared the script resonated well with the change that he was also looking. So it's and it was pure coincidence because many people might think oh we had all that thinking we didn't have that we didn't know that he is going to move entirely to action because even if he's not doing action he's still a great person to be there and he can pull off he can pull off anything of anything. So but it's great I think what what happened is he changed his person in the on screen which worked for us very well. And as I said when I'm on kind of market visits to some of the India BNC towns and these people are probably bigger consumers of Indian advertising than what the as I said the cohort that we all operate in. Yeah and it's phenomenal so we are extremely happy with with what we have and the partnership. So you know I happened to meet Navin last week he is one media agency head of the Department of our events. So I was I told him that I'm speaking to you next week and I thought I'll use it a conversation with him can help me help in my research. So he told me that there is an open X model that you're working on and although he did not he said you have to understand it from one of what exactly that. So what is this open X model. So I'll try to simplify I think without kind of getting caught into this terms and stuff essentially marketing in the way we the the process of marketing in the way we have been operating for the last 20 years. I think was going through a complete transformation complete transformation because if you go back and the process was very simple you do consumer research you find insights you work what your business objectives are then you brief the agency. The creative agency comes back with some creatives. You go introduce them and then you work with the media agency of with with Navin and his team and they find the right ways to connect with as many people based on your objectives right that's broadly in a very simple way. I feel this whole thing is completely getting you know disrupted. So this is a trend that not only in India we are this is a part of the global transformation we are doing worldwide. And essentially where we see is that content and media and connections are all coming very close as the world moves into a world of digital space. This whole linear thing what I just explained is irrelevant right. So ideas for example needs to be very different from the way the ideas have been before. So we talk about Sprite real time marketing. So the people therefore the process of kind of getting these ideas how do you amplify these ideas and how do you you know have a always massive social push around all these ideas cannot be done with the existing agency structure. So that's the whole transformation which we are doing with with working very closely with WPP who is our global partners out here. So imagine a world where you have a Guilvy you have even other out secretive partners like you know like GWT and other people they all come together sitting with our digital teams sitting with with Navin's teams. And then there is obviously assigned responsibilities where the ideas coming from how the amplification is done. Now are we there yet not yet as I said this is a big transformation for us and for the creative agencies and for the digital agencies and how they work together. But as I said this is going to be the future of marketing in India. So it's that kind of in-house integration that you have done of all the agencies right. Yeah it's WPP obviously so WPP is going to be very involved in that but yes it is going to be more integrated as we. But this OpenX is specific to your brand right. It's an internal name. It's a WPP Coca Cola. I thought this is something an innovation that they've only done for you. No no no it's an OpenX. So it's an internal brand name that we have for this whole process. So there is something called OpenX and something called StudioX and we can talk about this at a later date. I think it will be good to have you guys over and actually see what the future of marketing is. In Gurgaon or? In Gurgaon yeah yeah. Sure sure. So you know I also wanted to speak to you about your decade long association with Coke right. Being myself. Sorry. Me myself. You've been associated with Coca Cola right for almost. No this is my 23rd year Nazia. 23rd yeah. Two decades. I said a decade. You look so young that you know I could not say two decades. So in these two decades that you've been associated with Coke. How have you seen the brand evolve? I think it's interesting. I was that 23 year old Coke different from Coke. From India right. India and let's just talk about the brand. Yeah yeah but brand is very different right now. See my experience has basically been in India for the first 10 years then in Southeast Asia. Atlanta. And then there was a gap and you came back. So how did the brand change? So let me go back. The first three years that I was there in the company was the best years I've been and we had Coke had just come. Coke had come in 93. Started to really expand on the ground. So another building on my previous question. How has you know working with Coke evolved you as a person as how has it changed you. Yeah so everybody asks me I think a lot of people when they meet me for the first time is that why haven't you how come you've been there for so many years. So there are two answers. One is I am completely useless. Which is absolutely the answer because I have not even tried to step outside. Or like if my internal answer it's been an amazing fun ride. I think what Coke gives you is couple of things. I do feel it's the best marketing company in the world by far because it gives all of us the breadth of doing multiple things around marketing. And so as I said after I worked in India I worked on heading the marketing program for the FIFA World Cup. That's my passion point. Since I was a kid I grew up being a fan of Brazil. Which company gives you a chance to go and lead the marketing program for the World Cup happening in Brazil. So when you think of these things it's just been the experience. What more is on the bucket list. Again I see myself as a marketer. I don't see myself kind of moving out of marketing. I think the other thing what Coke gives you is a very strong horizontal experience around the world. Have had a good chance to work in some geographies. There are some geographies I would want to go and still work on. Would that be you want to talk about them? I think I would love to work in a market like for example I have never worked in a country like Japan for example or Europe. But every time you even go and work in the global team you get that experience. So I think as I said it's very interesting but park that aside. The most exciting place to do marketing right now in Asia. Since I can tell this right now because I've been in this company and I've been in the global team and I've seen what's happening. I'm connected with all my peers outside. There is no better place in the world to work and work in marketing than in India. I think there is a growth opportunity happening. We are going through the transformation so fast in terms of how marketing is evolving. The work that we are doing out here on the digital side and again when probably if you are interested in the studio X you can see the high quality of the work that's happening. It's not possible to do that in many other operating units also as I speak. So this is the place where so much action is happening. The consumer is improving. While digital is growing at a very fast pace in India, television continues to be a very very important medium. So if I was to ask you about your medium is mixed here in India. So what is it like? How important television is for a brand like Coke even in these times when people are moving digital? It is going to change very fast. I can tell you that. If you ask me answers I don't know how long TV is going to play. It will have to be based on what our business objectives are. But I'll tell you from what I've been seeing the last one and a half years the way the digital world is changing. It's really fast and rapid. The way content is kind of moving ahead. The role of digital is going to become again very important. So TV will be there. Will TV go away? No, TV will not go away. For a mass brand with mass kind of distribution. I think the numbers are still going to be there for TV. The media mix is going to be changing very dramatically. I can tell you that and you'll see a lot of innovation because I think one thing I keep pushing. I think in most of these conversations, understand digital is not putting your TV ads on YouTube. That's the single mistake a lot of FMCG brands today in India are doing. And I think that's the one thing we are trying to change as to. You cannot play that game right now by putting. Nobody wants to see. Everybody is either skipping the tad or watch the tad with irritation. You've got to work with all the partners, work with you tubes of the world. But you have to change the kind of way you're going to make your content. And that's the exciting piece of the world in digital right now. So lots to come there. Anab, one last question before I move to. Maybe two if you allow me, we can quickly do this. One we're almost halfway mark. We've just World Cup. We're just left with another one month or 15 many days. How has it been being the partner with the ICC and the World Cup on television and digital? So have you found merit in it? How has it been so far? If you've seen the campaign that we have been running is about Shahrukh speaking about India is going to win. I don't know whether you've got a chance to see this one. I've seen all your campaigns. All of them. Have you seen the believer bot? I've seen all of them. Honestly, I don't know if what happens if India is going to lose. But if India wins, then your campaign also wins. So very good so far. The believer bot has been a little out of job because nobody is now questioning. Because we came in with again everybody we are asking. The inside came from consumers. Everybody wants India to win. Nobody was sure whether India is going to win. And I think everybody has been blown away. India is doing well is good for all of us. So I think it's been as I said, the business numbers are very good. Very good. And I think that's a function of many things. I must also thank our bottling partners because how our bottling partners invest in the program. They've invested a lot of money. What you see in a lot of retail execution on ground. Everything is done in partnership with the bottling partners. And a bottling partners have been phenomenal partners on this one. And I must really call out all of them as to how they've helped. So very happy on the business side. On the brand side, I think on the social engagement from what we've seen very good. The brand health numbers we know after some time. But I feel very good. I feel very positive with what we've been through so far. And if India wins, it's going to be really good again. We're all hoping for India. Yeah, it's making sure. Fingers crossed. So I also wanted to know if you have any focus markets in the coming financial year. Because you lead the entire South West Asia. I think all of them have independent roles. If you break down India into multiple states, it's very clearly we have clear market focus on every brand has got three or four markets which are going to be very critical. So I don't want to say if any market is not in focus individually for individual, all the brands and all of them are very big brands for us. They are all having their individual plans, which are going to be very important. People forget that India, every state is bigger than any country in Europe by a big factor. So the opportunity is so big, it'll be unfair if I then say, oh, this is my only focus market. I don't focus on this huge potential because every state when you get into it, the opportunity you see. It's massive. Even in markets where per capita is high, you then index it with what is happening in other countries. It's a big opportunity. So it's, yeah. Thank you, Arnab. Before I close on my elite's request, I have a quick rapid fire to do with you. So are you ready? I'll say you don't need any hamper. I don't have a hamper to give you. We are not on coffee with you and we are, maybe I can treat you with a coke. So which is your favorite coke campaign? And this is across from the beginning till now. India or outside, worldwide. Okay, whichever. Like worldwide, India. Your favorite coke campaign? India will be Kukukola, especially the paach one. I think it's still the most iconic piece of work that I've seen with Amerkan. Your favorite coke drink? Like Kukukola. I have two of them, Coke Zero Sugar and Glimka. Okay. Your favorite coke studio song? It's a coke studio Bangla song called Bono Baby. Okay. Your favorite coke office? NK Towers in Gurgaon. That was our first office. That's where I joined as a management trainee. Somehow all the nice memories are still rooted in that office. And you still have that office? Or you've moved on to another building? We have moved to one horizon. But NK Towers is where it all began. So very good memories. How often do you drink coke? Every day. Every day? Do you drink it sugar-free? No, I drink at least one. So I think the way it is, I don't get Coke Zero many times. Unfortunately. But it'll be either a coke regular or a Coke Zero every day. And it's been like that for the last 23 years. Good. Thank you so much. I'll also not stop my children as much as I used to after this conversation. From having coke. I mean, of course it's not a hell drink. But it's very addictive. That's my one concern as a mother. It's so addictive. Even if it's in front of me, I can't resist. My pitch to you is coke once a week on a Friday with a nice, like every kids for example. And we don't market to kids. So it's completely, we are very clear on that after it's about age of 12. At the age of 12, you have a nice Friday with a pizza or a nice meal out there. Absolutely safe. Absolutely the best thing to have. If the teens are not going to be, forget about Coke, the teens are not going to do anything and they'll sit at home and they won't play outside and they won't have any active living. It's a big problem. Taking Coke away from their life is not going to change that. That's the thing. And I think as when we were growing up and I've tried to maintain that, I do play a sport every day, at least something. And that's important for your kids also, all of us to ensure that we have active living here. Everywhere. That's going to be the big thing as we keep saying. Anup, thanks a lot for talking to us. We wish you a very good ROI on all the investments that you've made this year and very good results in the coming quarter. Thank you so much for talking to Exchange for Media. Thank you so much, Nazia. I enjoyed a lot. Thanks a ton. Thank you, Anup.