 Welcome to the second edition of the E4M Health Communication Conference. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Bhadna Bhatia and today's conference is going to be yet followed by E4M Health Marcom Awards. Well, this conference brings together the most influential and knowledgeable stalwarts of the health and wellness sector on one platform. The theme of the conference this year is marketing communications and brand empathy in the time of a pandemic. Well, I'd request everyone to tweet with our hashtag E4M HCC as one word. Well, today, Exchange for Media is thrilled to have an esteemed panel of speakers who will share their thoughts on different topics. Joining the sessions are our three key North speakers. First up, Shivam Puri, CEO, CIPLA Health, Sabrina Prince, EVP, Group Management Director, FCB Health Global, and Amir Jaleel, the group's CEO and Mulan Low-Lintas who's joining us in addition to a long list of CMOs and health experts. Well, the agenda includes an opening keynote on the marketing communications and brand empathy in the time of a pandemic followed by a panel discussion on marketing health in India's new consumer-driven world, which leads us to an interesting keynote speech on marketing continuity, digital trends for strengthening brand engagement in a remote world. We also have a panel discussion on strategies to ensure and support mental health and we will end with our valedictory address. Ladies and gentlemen, it is now time before we move on towards our awards to commence the conference for which we're really excited to have Dr. Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Exchange for Media and Business World to make the welcome address. Over to you, sir. Good afternoon. Welcome today on a very auspicious event with celebrating the fraternity that needs to be celebrated in most the healthcare fraternity. I know 1st July is the doctor's day. So well, ladies and gentlemen, we did try and have Dr. Anurag Batra out there for his welcome address. Thank you so much, Dr. Anurag Batra, for joining us on the same and I'd request everyone to keep using the hashtag, hashtag E4M, NCC as one word. So ladies and gentlemen, it is always a pleasure to hear him speak and let's begin with the day with a thought-provoking speech on marketing communications and brand empathy in the time of a pandemic. Well, ladies and gentlemen, the COVID-19 pandemic has made us reconsider what is important to us and rethink the relationships we have with people, organization and brands. More importantly, it has made us question where we place our trust. Social distancing has made us realize the importance of relationships, family and human connections. It has also made us realize what is important and what makes us human. It has also raised many concerns and uncertainty. With such complexity, how can marketers create a meaningful collection and relevant content in the times of crisis? Well, the answer truly lies in the key human ability, the ability to connect through empathy. My ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce to you our first speaker of the day, Mr. Shivampuri, CEO, Sipla Health, who will address the topic. Well, Shivampuri brings the edge and discipline of 17 years of sales and marketing experience in the diverse Indian FMCG sector to the world of healthcare. An alumnus of IIT, BHU and IAM Lucknow, he has had successful stints across leading companies like Jubilant Food Works Limited, HUL and ITC Limited. Under his able leadership as the chief executive officer, Sipla Health, Limited looks to rapidly scale up and transform healthcare in India by pushing the boundaries to consistently innovate and offer world-class wellness products to make a difference to the lives of consumers every day. Well, in his spare time, Shivamp runs marathons and plays the drums and as a dotting dad, he's loved spending time with his two boys. Thank you so much, Mr. Puri, for joining us today live at our wonderful event. It's an honour to have you over to yourself. Thank you, Bhavna. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. Can someone put up the presentation, please? Sure, Mr. Puri, we'll get that done. We have Mr. Puri's presentation. Yes, sir. Thank you. So, Bhavna, as I was beginning to talk, as I was logging in, I realised that we had a similar event almost a year back and it's so surreal on how things have changed in a short span of 12 to 15 months because the topics that we have picked up at that point in time are very different than what we are talking about here. But yeah, because of the paucity of time, let me straight away jump into the topic, marketing and brand empathy in the time of pandemic. Next slide, please. Yeah, so, you know, what I've done is, and I have some 15, 20 minutes to talk about this. So what I've done is I've put together a few common themes around the consumers that we see today. One big disclaimer, these are bases, the experience of last 12 to 15 months. And as we have seen these experiences change and can actually undergo quite a significant shift, even in period of a few quarters, forget years. You know, and the shift we have all seen, wave one began with shock and awe. That was a time when we actually had our last marketing, you know, a similar programme by E4M around healthcare. There was a shock and awe around what was happening around us as wave one descended on us. And as the cases started coming down, there was almost a euphoria, almost a feeling of saying probably India has beaten COVID and probably we are different, which is when wave two quietly crept in. And then there was massive misery and despair. All of us have experienced it personally to our near and dear ones and to our extended families as well. And today, as we sit on wave two receding, there are talks of a possible wave three, wave four and possibly a wave in. No one actually knows, maybe there's no more wave coming our way. So the point that I'm trying to make here is that, you know, post today, you know, a lot in terms of how consumers behave and think through the brand communication will change basis the external environment. But as things stand today, there's a lot of fatigue and despair. All of us personally feel that there is a trust deficit right many of many consumers have spoken to actually I'm not sure if you know if if they actually should go and get vaccinated, something so basic and so critical to, you know, take care of the COVID challenge. But what that translates into a larger trust deficit that the consumers are seeing today, there is of course postponement and down trading as any down wave, you know, any challenging wave has shown in the past. But interestingly, there's also, you know, some there are some elements of revenge buying, which we saw during the unlock of wave one. And actually you continue to see revenge buying among the, you know, upper middle class and high net worth individuals even today. There is indulgence. Yes, there is indulgence. Much little, you know, a very different aspect of indulgence that what we used to see pre pandemic, when there was a lot of flaunting around indulgence. Today, the indulgence that we see is more about emotional gratification. It's more about, you know, life is short. It's more about saying, you know, I don't know what to expect tomorrow. So let me live the day to the fullest. So these are some of the emotions that the consumers are seeing, you know, have seen in the last 12 to 15 months. And this is what we can expect to see if the same scenario continues in future as well. Next slide please. Next, what I've done is, you know, I've translated this into the communication themes that many brands have adopted. And to make it a little interesting, what I would also do is I'll play a few commercials where I feel that, you know, many of these themes actually have been leveraged to the fullest by the brands. Healing empathy is of course a big, big theme. All of us can relate to it. You know, when you're broken and when you're down, nothing works as well as, you know, a healing tonality and empathetic outlook of a brand. Second, there is a big feeling of loss of control. So a brand trying to help you regain control over your life again is a big theme that's working really well today. The feeling of gratitude, right? The feeling of little mercies of life and the feeling of the fact that, you know, I, and of course we had experienced these feelings of gratitude even before pandemic and lots of marketers had started to talk about it. But I think the importance of this has grown exponentially. And we'll see a few examples of this in the coming slides. Nimble and Adaptive, again, is a big, big, you know, characteristic of a successful brand in times like these. Things are changing very, very fast, very quickly. So a brand which is actually very, very adaptive to how their consumers are feeling around them. Because the moment you're out of tune with what your consumers are feeling, not only do you risk alienating lots of consumers, but you actually risk alienating your core franchise as well. So a brand needs to be super nimble and super adaptive and we'll see some examples of that in the coming slides. And last but not the least, making a real difference. You know, this again was always true even pre-pandemic. But again, the importance has gone up many fold in times like these. Consumers see through who is making a real difference and who is just faking it. And hence it's very important for brands to be very sure and only when they feel that they have really made a difference to their consumers, should they go out and talk about it. Yeah, so these are some of the, you know, quick themes that I could pull out, you know, that I wanted to share with all of you. Next slide, please. So what I'll do now is I'll talk about a few examples of where we have seen these come alive. You know, a great example is eBay, which launched this accelerator program for small businesses, the moment pandemic struck. And of course, small businesses, you know, were struggling to connect with their consumers and customers. And here came eBay, a free offer for all the small businesses for three months. Free sign-in, lots of help, lots of help around free marketing and support. A fantastic example of helping consumers regain control and consumers here, for example, for them would be their customers, the e-com customer base. They helped them regain control of their businesses of their life and made a real difference. And look at the fantastic adaptability of the business. They actually went live with this program very early into the game, which is when lots of other corporates were thinking about, you know, what to do in a time like this. Next slide, please. So from eBay, this is the other example, you know, if an employer were a brand and an employee, you know, were a customer. Three great examples or three very different examples that I could pull out. The one of Twitter in news very recently for announcing permanent work from home. The one of Apple trying to get some of their employees back in office and some bit of backlash beginning to, you know, they've begun to face. And the example of Tata Steel or rather the whole Tata Group, absolutely fantastic, you know, the communication that they put out to all their employees and even externally where they actually said that, you know, if an employee loses his life during this pandemic, they will actually build salary on provide salary to their near and dear ones till the employee would have changed the age of 60 and some real differentiated benefits, you know, in terms of housing and medical for the families. Now, you know, look at look at this. So many employees do many policies and they become of course very popular externally. But in a time of pandemic, these minor things get heightened and an employee and even a regular, you know, employee looking at these corporates from the perfect image of what these corporate stand for in a time like this. So this is again a great example of empathy and making a real difference. People see through the real difference being made to their lives and the lens to which these corporates have gone to take their to take care of their employees. Next slide please. Next, I've just put out an example of Verizon and there are many other corporates who have done similar stuff, you know, they've just opened their hearts and their, you know, their resources to their customers core customers. And this is an example of free resources for kids of all ages, free digital access, no questions asked. And, you know, we have a long list of companies which have done this in India as well. I can assure you that customer of these corporates who has used and leverage these resources will always have a special place in their heart for these corporates. No amount of branding, no amount of communication can cover up for the real difference that they make through these actions. You know, an absolutely fantastic thing to do in a time like this. Yeah. Next slide please. You know, okay, so this is an example of World Handwashing Day. You know, I've spent bulk of my life in Unilever. And I remember, you know, how critical it used to be for us to figure out a way to make a change in terms of hand washing habit for consumers. And the discussion used to be around cutting edge creators, some clutter breaking communication, something quirky, something cool, just to try and convince the consumer to change their habit. The tonality has completely changed and the brand is different. This is Savlon this time. The tonality around Global Handwashing Day completely changed. Many of us would have seen this video which went viral. I'll request you to play this video for all of us. But, you know, a brilliant example of empathy to actually make a change, a habit change, unlike pre-pandemic times. I'm Swapna. I used to love painting since my childhood. People always praise me by looking at my paintings. They say that my talent and I are very special. Maybe I'm a better painter than many of you. But apart from that, I'm just like you. Even in the morning, I start screaming at the alarm clock. As soon as I wake up, I go back to sleep for a while. I don't even start my day without tea. I talk to my friends. It takes a while for me to get ready too. I'm used to being online these days. And I can't ever call a 19-year-old like you. Yes, there's one thing that many of you don't do. But I always do. I don't forget to use a hand wash. By using a 20-second hand wash, you stay protected from germs and diseases. Even from viruses like coronavirus. And it's so easy to use a hand wash for me. Why don't you use a hand wash? What a fantastic way to build a habit or change a habit using empathy as an emotion. Thank you. The next one is Live Boy. Again, I picked this campaign up for not only the real difference that these campaigns, the string of campaigns have made, but also because of sheer adaptability of the campaigns. Lock 1, Unlock 1, Lock 2, Unlock 2, they actually were running different creatives and commercials. Completely staying in sync with the mood of the nation. And because of which the acceptance of the communication was amazing. Second thing to note, the brand has gone to the background. It's more about public health messaging and communication, and which makes the brand so endearing to consumers. Can you play this commercial, please? Every Indian has a request. The coronavirus has not yet gone. But good habits have gone. Bring back those habits. Wear a mask. Take a vaccine even on your nose. Keep two drops away. And use a Life Boy or any soap or alcohol-based hand sanitizer. The protection of India from the coronavirus is now in your hands. And for those of you who are interested, you should pull out the earlier three or four commercials that Life Boy came up with. And this is Unlock Wave 2 commercial. It doesn't look like a commercial. It's a perfect public health message. And any consumer watching it understands that this brand is trying to make a real difference to my life. Yes, they are trying to sell their products towards the end, but they are trying to make a real difference to me. So I picked this up as a part of that. Next one, please. Next, I have two commercials of Kia and Burger King. Very interesting because there are brands. And this is an example of a brand which has a funky, cool, quirky tonality. Of course, all of us know Kia used to talk about being the baddest in town. Now, for a brand which has such a funky communication that they've been working on, they suddenly can't become an endearing brand which has a lot of empathy. Because consumers will see through it and they will, of course, find it inauthentic. So this is a brilliant example of a naughty brand like Kia and what they have done to stay in sync with the mood of their consumers externally. Can you play the video, please? So this is called being nimble and being adaptive. Kia could have said, oh, what can I do? My communication would not work in a scenario like this. So let me just stay quiet. They said, let me continue to keep my brand salient but do it in a manner which adheres to the mood of my consumers. The next one is another brilliant one from Burger King. Again, a funky, cool, quirky brand known for its out-of-box commercial. I'm sure many of us would have seen the commercials and we understand the tonality. This is an amazing take on what they did to their tonality to again bring it in sync to the mood of their consumers. Can you play this one, please? Order through the Burger King app and the delivery fees are on us. So staying home doesn't just make us all safer. It makes you a couch patatriant. And to help healthcare heroes, we are donating whopper sandwiches to nurses and we are also proudly supporting the American Nurses Foundation. Stay home of the whopper. So this commercial not only talks to their core consumer base, it talks to a much wider base around and the respect for the brand goes up multiple notches as they continue to talk about their brand. So a brilliant communication. Next one, please. Okay, so next one is again a very interesting example. You would seldom see a brand asking consumers to not use them and request them to not use their brand and become endearing to their consumers in the process. And the example here is of Uber. Of course, as the lockdown happened across the world, the brand just completely went out of business and they could have fretted and thought about what to do in this context. They said, let's put out a public message leveraging a brand, requesting consumers to stay at home and not use an Uber. Just imagine when time becomes, when we come back to normal times, which hopefully we should, we already are moving in that direction. A brand like this continues to stay salient throughout time when their services are not being used by any consumer. So can we play the commercial, please? This is Uber. A great example of empathy, of making a real difference to consumers, of being in sync with the times. So that's it from my side. The idea of sharing these live examples with all of you was to hopefully trigger some thoughts. And I know not all these examples were from healthcare brands. I took the liberty of going outside of healthcare, but these have equal relevance, even when we talk about communicating healthcare. So I hope these have triggered, these examples have triggered a few thoughts in your minds in terms of how you could communicate in the times of pandemic. I wish all of you a very healthy life and I hope all of you stay safe and your near and dear ones stay safe. Thank you. That's it from my side. Thank you, Bhavna. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Puri, for joining us and kickstarting our wonderful event today. We really absolutely value all your insights you've shared today. Thank you, Mr. Puri. Thank you. So ladies and gentlemen, what a brilliant start that was. Now it is time to have a message from Dr. Anurag Bhatrachan and editor-in-chief Exchange for Media and the BW business world to join us on the stage and screen. Over to you, Dr. Bhatrachan. Thank you, Dr. Bhatrachan. Good afternoon. Welcome today on a very auspicious event. We're celebrating the fraternity that needs to be celebrated in most the healthcare fraternity. I know 1st July is the doctor's day, but doctors are the frontline workers who are same countless lives and continue to put in so much work. But the whole healthcare ecosystem over the last 17 months and especially the last three months has been super active in the response to COVID and pandemic. At Exchange for Media, early last year, we launched the Exchange for Media Healthcare Marketing Summit and the awards to look at the nuances of marketing of healthcare, pharma, well-being, the healthcare well-being pharma domain holistically. So today we're meeting for the second edition of the healthcare marketing summit and the healthcare marketing awards. I just want to say that healthcare in India needs to become the biggest priority. I believe that we spend the least amount of money on healthcare in India as the statistics available. As a percentage of GDP, we spend less than 1.5% on healthcare. Most countries spend between 5 to 6% on healthcare. This is the time to up the spends on healthcare and the money should go into building capacity in terms of trained professionals in the healthcare domain. It should go in putting up plans for pharma. It should go in terms of building communities that can support each other in taking better healthcare decisions. So really the time to up the spends on healthcare has come now and the healthcare marketing summit and awards is an initiative to support the professionals, the communicators that are able to take the message which helps consumers in this regulated domain. So I wish all the winners who have won the healthcare awards, the second edition, all the best. We got overwhelming response, 150 entries, second year, and we've got response from major organizations, almost every player in this segment. So we are grateful for your participation. In couple of minutes, we start the healthcare marketing conference. You listen from the leaders in the domain in terms of what the trends are in terms of healthcare marketing. So I wish you luck. I look forward to learning something new. I look forward to celebrating your success. As I said, healthcare has to become the most important focus. For all of us individuals, healthcare in the community has already become important, but as a nation we need to spend more, celebrate our healthcare workers more and everyone in the healthcare ecosystem who does a fabulous job supporting each other and making sure the system works. So congratulations and welcome to the second edition of the healthcare marketing summit and awards. As you say, say vaccinated and I'm sure you'll continue to do well. So much Dr. Bhattra. Unfortunately ladies and gentlemen we had a slight technical issue so we couldn't get the video on but Dr. Bhattra is such a personality that when he talks you'd love to hear him. So thank you so much Dr. Bhattra for those thoughts. They will encourage everybody today who's viewing us and also who's going to be talking in some time. So thank you once again Dr. Bhattra for that. So ladies and gentlemen as he rightly said there's a great day planned ahead and we just had a Shivankuri CEO Siddharth who shared his bright ideas on the topic and now ladies and gentlemen it is time to move on to our next topic which is marketing health in India's new consumer driven world. Firstly we hope you are having a great time today at our wonderful event. It is time now to talk about the topic marketing health in India's new consumer driven world. The growing economic prosperity largely spreads on the health sector by the central and the state governments. Availability of digital technologies and data will start by the wave of coming on age millennials taking a self-actualized approach to healthcare are all influencing a dynamic shift in the way brands need to approach their audiences. No longer is simply guiding a buyer through the sales funnel and intimately managing the relationship acceptable. Consumers now have to have the control the awareness and the tools to influence their own decisions more than ever before. In today's marketing landscape it is indeed essential for brands to provide their consumers with memorable experiences that inform, delight and foster an emotional connection especially within an industry as emotionally driven as healthcare. Ladies and gentlemen it is my honour to introduce to you our esteemed speakers on this panel. First up, Ms. Mitha Murarkar, CMO to your reflects. Thank you so much, Smita for joining us today. Thank you, Barna. You do have Ms. Suman Varma, CMO who is joining us. Thank you so much Ms. Varma for joining us today. I thank you. Pleasure having you here, ma'am. We also have Ms. Nikki Gupta co-founder of Teamwork Communications Group. Thank you so much Ms. Gupta for joining us today. Thanks, Barna. Thank you. Nice to be here. Pleasure. And ladies and gentlemen introducing you to the session chair, Ms. Tasmai Laharoy editor, E4M. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ms. Roy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us today, Ms. Roy. Thank you. Thank you, Barna. Thank you for the introductions. Pleasure. So ladies and gentlemen, with such eminent personalities on your stage and screen, it is now time to give in the light weight into Ms. Roy to take a pot with her eminent panel over here. Welcome speakers. So nice to have such an esteemed panel together at our meet today. So, you know, we try to utilise the most of the time and give you speakers the maximum time to speak. So, you know, quickly coming to the first question which we thought of understanding from you guys is, you know, the last year, if there is one thing that people have started taking seriously and people have started to take care of and that's health, right? So that has been the central point of everything in the last one year. So, you know, in a circumstance like that, when people are already talking about health, when there is already so much awareness around health, does that make marketing easier for you guys? Or, you know, does that increase the focus on marketing and does that make you re-strategise, make it more robust? And, you know, how does that change the dynamics of the whole situation since health was the main primary focus area last year? So we can start with you, Smita. Great. Thanks, Thasma, and thanks, Aishin, for media for doing this and giving this whole focus to health. Coming to your question, brands like ours, which are actually catering to consumers through products. So we are in the business of sleep solutions and our main product currently is mattresses. I think COVID aside and the negativity of COVID aside, this was really the awareness that we were waiting for for decades, right? Because we propagate a lot about the importance of sleep of course in this country this was really ignored. I mean this was thought to be as something we just tried to do and catch up for five hours and we should be proud if we had not slept properly. That was really the culture that we have brought up on. So it was really difficult for us to talk a lot about sleep and we genuinely believe in sleep versus just selling. So for us, of course when business was really active pre-COVID it was also a choice of weightages to give on your product communication versus talking about sleep which is anyway not heard by consumers. So for us honestly this has become easier because consumers are now understanding that what are the few things which are very critical to health and this year a lot of editorial media also talked about sleep and the importance of it. So the facts have really put things in favor of brands like ours which were not so much healthcare brands but cater to some element of health. So for us it's been great because I think as a nation we've started taking our health more seriously overall and I hope this continues post-COVID too and we don't go back to abusing our mental and physical well-being. So I think a lot of good things also we should take out of this wave that we've experienced and hope a lot of behaviors really stay so for us I think it's been quite good. Right, right. Over to you Suman, what do you think at Hamdar, you know, has your marketing strategies changed drastically over the year or in the last one year and a half or has it been the same what's changed for you in terms of marketing over the year and a half? The last one and a half years has been such a brilliant roller coaster ride for everybody. I think it's changed us all. It's changed companies. It has changed the way you look at sales, marketing, supply chain, whatever, every department. And I think just like the last lockdown took us all by surprise. I think, you know, it just meant a lot of advertising in the sense that we tried to do things that we'd never done before. And as you know Hamdar is a very traditional 100-year-old company. It's followed very strict normal ATL kind of things. So this was a time that it really required that you wear a new hat and get on to it. So of course, this old digital penetration that sort of boomed on us was a great way to look at reworking and reframing and repositioning all our brands. I think that's what we did. And while, you know, the sentiment was the outside sentiment was not such that you could come with song and dance and do a lot of, you know, hype around that. Yet we wanted our brand presence to happen. And we're dead to do things which were different, which I dare say that had the pandemic not happened, we would never have done things like that for our brand. So yes, we did come up with a lot of digital campaigns to keep our brand presence alive. And of course, we looked at doing a bit of insight mining because while everybody is locked in, who's the one who's most pressured? It's the mother, right? So there were communications that centered around her and we positioned our products and brands around that. So we did some music video. We had a Sunidhi Chauhan singing a song for us, but it was very well received because it at the heart of it, the brand proposition of health and wellness never went out of focus. So we did things like that. I think very early in the times of the lockdown last year, it just sort of, you know, we were just sort of thinking what is it that one needs to do and who is it that who's not scared of this pandemic? And, you know, as a by the by the conversation happened, what about the bodybuilders and what about really the rough and tough people? Are they scared of this? And one thing led to another. And that's when we signed up with, you know, Babitha Phogat and her sister and we did a communication which says met Darpokon. Basically driving home a point that it is wiser to be a Darpokon and stay home rather than go out and, you know, lose it all. But we sort of played up with our own products which is our immunity builders because, as you know, Hamdar is well known for its immunity and respiratory products and who would have thought, you know, that here was an opportunity to get a captive audience and talk about our range of products and I think we were well received at that stage as well. So, yes, while the whole world was talking about digital and digital transformation and I call it the digital revolution that was happening, I think Hamdar must have been one of the last companies to have got onto the digital bandwagon and that's what we did last year. We got onto e-commerce online health consultancies. We did our salience brand presence through digital and, you know, it did give us a lot of great results and the best thing that happened was that it was a great discovery to know that, you know, the normal pattern of discovery, engaging and buying pattern has changed and that's a great thing to know because the young people have shown it to us. The millennials perhaps have really shown us that you have to keep it fluid. There are moments there are micromoments and all of this could be utilized in a different way. So, yes, I think overall, we did think different. I personally because I've been associated with Hamdar from the agency perspective for 15 years and then now I'm sitting on this side of the table. I can tell you there are a lot of things that I now do. I wouldn't have dared to even come and propose it to the people because, you know, you would think if somebody just lost it to be proposing an idea like that. So, yeah, we're managing to do good things out here. Right. So, that's so many interesting insights, you know, doing something for the first time in the last year. So, we've come to you Darshanah. If you can tell us a little bit, walk us through what changed for you guys because insurance was something you know, people who haven't heard of it, people who haven't ever you know, gone online and searched what kind of insurance they need, what is the kind of insurance that suits their budgets, their requirements. You know, every one of them must have checked out one plan or the other in the last year and a half if I may say so. So, you know, how has that changed marketing for you guys? I'm sure there was pressure on product, on new customer acquisition. There must have been so much going on. So, tell us a little bit about what changed in your marketing strategies in the last year and a half. So, that's my yes kind. It was a clearly unprecedented life for everybody and the good thing I think for once I really got excited to be a market here in a health insurance category because for once the customers were waking up that I have, do I have a health insurance? I used to always say that you know, health insurance, nobody's going to wake up and say, I want to go and buy clothes, I want to buy many things. Health insurance is not even out of the minds of our ones, this category suddenly became a full category and not a push category. And yes, everything changed for us the way even Suman was saying, last year in March when pandemic really hit, is a jansai march is very, very big for us in insurance at sales. And this is exactly the time March is the largest month in the year and suddenly we had to completely go on a halt. Absolutely. So, insurance sold a lot through intermediaries. So, imagine you can't meet customers face to face, stop, everything. So, it was completely devastating at that time. You know, in India everything came to a halt and more than that there was a lot of anxiety with customers. There was a lot of panic. So, the good thing what has helped us is that we had launched this company with a positioning of health first. We were not about health insurance. We were about health first and focus on your health. So, that entire opposition that we have built in the last four years is what really helped us because this was a time when people were not looking at sales, they were not looking at any brands coming and pushing them on buying products but really empathizing and helping that. And that's when we started this entire, so we have a, I have a huge community online called active living and my entire health from home series is what we started. We partnered with a lot of influencers big names like new Coutinho, Aditya Govit Rikar, Nikki Mehta and many such things. A lot of doctors and every day we used to have Facebook live series from morning to night on physical fitness and nutritional wellness. We also had around the doctors coming and talking mental wellness. So, all those wellness, whether it is physical, nutritional, mental and also doctors coming and talking with their pregnant women, senior citizens. So, this entire thing we ran for six complete months. A lot of engagement from health from home. We also created an entire conversation around the new health partners because people were used to having their health buddies and you go out for a run, there's somebody nudging you and that's what India is all about the whole community way and you know with your health buddies and suddenly that had stopped so we created an entire series called Sehat Ki Main Yadav in other health from home where you had to look at your mother-in-law or your husband or you know the mother and child. How can you create new health buddies in the house at your home and do things together and still not give up. This gave us a lot of, you know, this gave us a lot of customers coming engaging with us from the health lens not just for health insurance that really helped our positioning. That helped my, you know, entire intermediate my bank because we sell a lot to banks we sell a lot through, you know, the agents and entire ABG group being a large conglomerate. So many of ABG companies and also we could create this kind of a platform conversation and engagement through I think we reached almost 70 million customers in this entire you know time, that six months of lockdown we have a part of the Facebook Hall of Fame. So a lot of new ways of doing things, a lot of agile I also have a mobile app for all these activities so you could do suddenly we had to introduce all virtual home videos to live active because we also give money back if you're staying active. So that's our proposition. So creating everything literally up, you know, differently. Looking it from the consumer lens being more empathizing with the customers was the way we went around doing this and it really helped because we were finally as a brand still growing at 70% year on year. So that's the kind of, yes and health has been the focus hold out. Right, right, right. So you know, Niki over to you, you know, while all the other speakers spoke about their brands and you know what they have been doing in the last year and a half. I'm sure for you, you know, you have worked with multiple brands together. So multiple clients. Tell us what was that one common thing you know that they were looking to change in their marketing strategies in the last year and half. What are the kind of solutions that they were asking you for to, you know, bring about that whole change in conversation, bring back the whole focus of the marketing to help acclimatizing people about the importance of their product services, etc. Tell us a little bit about how it has been in the last year and how suddenly it has been in the last year. So I tell you, as you said that health is a universal crisis right now and everybody is facing the same situations being that in mind we are a health focused communication firm and we work for more than 45 clients in healthcare. So when we are talking about healthcare communication and you know 45 clients having clients in our kitty, I would say that it has been a very difficult process. Every client wants a very custom made tailor made communication plan and the plan is no more like even the monthly plans are not even working in the healthcare scenario right now because things are changing so frequently that you cannot rely on the long term plans here. So either our teams are working you know around the clock and they are making short term plans like for 15 days for 7 days according to the clients requirement. If I talk about in this last one and a half year we have done multiple healthcare award winning campaigns. We have done for hero cycle cycle revolution we have talked about where we did not just talk about cycling but yes it is the whole you know health related campaign. It was not just the focus on cycling but yes it was related to the health. We are working for Apollo telehealth so how the telehealth is because of this pandemic people are not going for physical you know consultation everybody is opting for online consultation so we created you know more than 7 lakhs online consultation in a specific period and we really did great campaigning and then with influencer marketing with Novartis we did you know disease awareness campaigns. So it was a holistic approach for all the brands that we are taking and beat our oxygen crisis. So the team is very agile we need to the industries whole agile so we really need to work accordingly and create the customized plan for all the brands. Right great. So you know another interesting thing that comes up from each what each one of you said like Suman mentioned couple of things that for digital first initiatives that were taken last year Darshan mentioned so many interesting things that happened online last year. So you know there is one common thing that happened across board for all marketers irrespective of their sectors that you know content became a very important part of marketing right even brands that were never present online came online to you know kind of carry on a certain piece of communication which was done through trusting content which was either to grab the attention of the people because a lot of people were going online either on their smartphones TVs other devices so content became a very huge and important part of the communications that brands sent out. So someone will start with you again if you can you mentioned a couple of things in your first answer but if you can elaborate a little bit about you know the importance that you gave to content as a marketer and how it changed things for you you know my biggest issue in hand has been that all our brands are 70 plus years old and you know a lot of people would turn around and say oh my god but it's so traditional. Now it doesn't help to be so traditional when you're in a health and wellness brand you have to look at the efficacy of the product rather than just the imagery around it but yes of course you know you have to be talking the youth language you have to be talking to people who influence decision making and we all know it that when you have a 14 plus at home they sort of start influencing you to think different look different, behave different. Now it definitely meant one thing that we weren't going to just stick to traditional media because traditional media till September last year I don't even think most brands were present on television as such so while we were enjoying the little fame that we had got from the digital world we decided that we would dial down the age of the brand by taking on what really sort of resonates with the consumers today and our consumers being that 18 to 21 that we wanted to talk and if I specifically look at a brand like Safi which is all about anti-acne and that's the age that you really want to be talking to so it definitely made sense that you get onto content as well because when we made our digital films they're very different they're very unlike who I got Acne none of those stories are there there's no brand window that you talk about blood currification so we really went on to a little higher level and we brought in you know let's say mini celebrities in the sense that people who are super achievers from different walks of life and we use them as you know the core narrative people then we went on to brute platform so you know brute as we all know has its own engaging way of talking so we came up with three of our films on Safi or as a content and I think it really really sort of was so well received and what is interesting I think what's amazing is that today radio comes up with content today you have digital platforms of other publications who give you great content and of course you know you can't be so far removed if you don't get on to today's bandwagon and have influencer marketing so we looked at all of that whether they were in Instagram whether it was in LBB platform which launches new products and stuff so I really think that even if I may say so for me it was a great learning experience as as a marketing person trying to look at how much more new things that I can come up with which is going to engage with the clients I mean with the consumers in a way which is content has to be sticky for the brand to stay in your mind right so it had to be relevant it had to be completely in sync and I wanted it to be talked about so there was an element of virality that sort of came with it so yeah I think it did great things for us so content now is definitely something that we specifically focus on building as we go into the you know out of the second wave preempting the third wave and then trying to strategize and say what more absolutely Smita I would want to understand the same thing from you as well you know any content around sleep sounds like an amazing idea to me but I'm sure as a brand you must have also had a content plan because everybody is talking about content these days so what is it that you did around that if at all you did something around content in this time so we did a lot around content this is really pivotal for us that was the differentiating factor among everybody else in this category and up yours as well so before covid as I was telling you as we were very passionate about sleep which is one the product offering that we're giving unlike you know maybe hum that which the product itself is very directly helped and this of course was more about first educating on sleep and then the products of mattresses and what we so we make premium mattresses we make doctor recommended mattresses in a country where mattress itself most of the purchase is unbranded right so you can imagine very very indirect conversation pre covid but once covid struck we were ready we were ready with a lot of content because as a team we had been reading books we were passionate about sleep so we were ready with that and last year the first we benefited and there was complete lockdown as a management as teams we didn't think twice but we went all out and we released a campaign on sleep for immunity so it was there on TV it was there on digital we also got very active on media and digital we did things you know which know what the brand in our category has done before you know so we used a lot of influencers to talk about fitness help how you should build a sleep protein you know so and and last year during the first wave there was a lot of stickiness on influencers and live videos people were generally upbeat even though there was a lockdown and they were ready to embrace new things right if you all remember there was a lot of thinking that all of us did and similarly fitness so a lot of people were quite upbeat and it worked really brilliantly for us we once business became normal we did not look back and we said content on sleep has to still stay we really need to balance it out along with business content which is around products selling offers plus we need to continue on sleep so sleep was always equal kind of a conversation on our social media platforms so even just before the second wave we had one of the largest properties IP properties sounds of sleeps which I don't know if you all have heard but it became quite viral organically it was the first time in the country that any brand like ours has done a property on music and it was about the regional lullabies really reviving them for the young parents in their anxiety and some of the top singers came together and it was hosted on Sony or YouTube channel as well as ours so this was completely different it was not in the realm of business but of course on the whole education of sleep when the second wave struck this time the mood was much more somber right if you recall about two months back in April it was really a negative scenario where any brand which was seen to be promoting business or product was really negative and we didn't want to be doing that so what we've been conscious about in our content strategy is know the mood of the consumer right there right then so it's not about creating a plan on excel sheet while we do all that but making sure that as a team we are very clued in on the moment of the mood and we made sure that that time we just took a backseat we took off all our product communication and for 15 days we got doctors on board in fact this time so this time it was not so much about talking about positivity because the word positive I think had a negative meaning altogether so we shifted our strategy to more really get the experts the qualified experts which was doctors and make them say how firstly sleep impacts even vaccine efficacy so we had this whole article written by our MD and some of the doctors in the big names so how sleep impacts vaccine efficacy pre and post and that was a very relevant article when the entire vaccination drive was starting off right so very very relevant conversations and bringing it the right experts at the right time relying on the mood of the consumer and balancing between business content product kind of content and actually and for in a much larger objective that has really been our strategy we've also because we've been so focused on what else can we launch to help people sleep better we've been able to you know expand our product offering and today we sell a lot of billows accessories in fact last year we launched and you are a mattress protector something which normally might not have taken so much of a stage but holistically I think we were able to really look from a consumer and healthcare point of view we're also doing a lot of research on sleep internally and we would be coming out with a lot more things so I think if you know what really part of health is that you are focusing on as a business and you're very single-minded about that from consumer point of view more than your business point of view I think that makes great content because you know I mean otherwise you're just selling as someone said if their saffi has a product it's still relevant today similarly sleep is going to be relevant forever right you're not talking to a particular kind of an audience or trying to sell them something to you know just an age group or a lifestyle it is a thank you so for healthcare content I would think thoroughly be true and honest to what you're all about if you're totally out of the realm of healthcare marketing then just because the mood is around it probably doesn't make much sense to talk about it but luckily for all of us on this panel it is something that we are strongly focused on so content comes naturally absolutely you know it's so interesting Smitha after having heard you about so much content that you did around sleep I don't feel like I deserve so much more sleep so yeah I'm sure that's the kind of message we're trying to drive home through the content you know that it's effective and the consumer realize that you know this is the kind of product they need or this is something that they've been missing out on so I'll ask you Darshan are you already mentioned the interesting things about working with influencers etc you know tell us that you know healthcare is something like all our other speakers are also mentioning that we don't know what kind of if it's clothes that you're selling if it's selling you know that there's a certain kind of content that you're expecting from these products but healthcare is something we are not sure that you know what what is the kind of content that we would see you know that would have a stickiness factor to it that people would come back to it and also you know content around healthcare can also go viral like we have heard our other speakers talk about so tell us a little bit you know that how did you manage to keep these content different yet making sense for your product and your brand value and also reaching out to the right set of audience yeah so see for us first thing let me talk about the category this category has always been called as mediclaim and not health insurance that's how people still think and that's actually nothing but the PSU product so that was going to be launched only by itself that was a change we wanted to bring that we wanted to focus on health insurance and that also on health and health insurance which is where we had always targeted our journey it's just that last year this year and a half it's really amplified so when you talk about like I said I already had started with the community and it was very small like two two and a half years back I only had 64 65,000 customers coming in and in the community which we call active living physical fitness, nutritional fitness, mental fitness and lifestyle conditions because these are the nuggets of if you have diabetes if you and India is a world's diabetes capital so diabetes if you have asthma hypertension you know blood pressure so this is all that we also cover in our product if you and if you're staying healthy like I said we give you 100% of your premium back in the wallet and you can actually make the product free so with this kind of a promise that we are in the journey health and driving engagement because again health insurance is a buy and forget category you don't want to buy the product and obviously use it because you don't want to get hospitalized so you are going to keep it in your hand also so everything changed last year that's why suddenly a lot of COVID cases people had a lot of anxiety so this community where we had a lot of conversations around health and the content to be honest all year we were focusing more on static post and you know writing a blog kind of long form articles last year suddenly we realized a lot of content need a lot of empathy with the consumer on the and brand becoming a brand who's reaching out and you know understanding your needs so we bought all variety of content medium so whether it was podcast whether it was music whether it was videos and obviously static and infographic so literally on the platform we created 200 plus content you know pieces literally writing it all new so having so many content partners on the background and that is not created so last year I had you know a million plus visitors on this this is not my health insurance just a community sort of you know a space microsite so that's the kind of traffic we got today we have around 20,000 plus subscribers who are month on month coming repeatedly using it so that is what the driving content for that second thing is interest groups so today because I have you know like we have 12 million lives covered so we have an entire application mobile app that you download again I said it's a health and wellness ecosystem we partnered with a lot of all these medicines doctor on call all that which is on the medical side also on the health side we have Fitbit Garmin we have Google Fit Apple Health so we can track the health we can we can help you on any diagnosis or anything like that so know your health improve your health and get rewarded as a platform that comes to life through our application and there also I have interest groups I saw 300% so we have running group we have nutrition group we are also adding a diabetes group so I have seen 300% jump in conversation people joining the groups and actively participating so suddenly just going out and selling a health insurance product the way this category does we've actually turned this entirely on its head and started from the health first conversation and that is why content has become a you know large piece for me the way we do things differently and I'll give you some of the examples like every year on World Health Day I do this property and this was my fourth year called jump for health that you jump for your health and we donate prosthetic leg to somebody who can walk this is almost become a moment I have global jumping groups across the group people have created groups for us and they keep donating it to us and this year alone and this was completely driven digitally we also go through our bank partners and all so this year alone I have donated 1100 you know prosthetic leg so that's a kind of digital virality that has created and similarly we do on cancer day and just just yoga day I think two weeks back we had World Yoga day so this time we did yoga day differently we created yoga music also we've done a lot of partnership with music was another thing during so creating a health music a health playlist so we partnered with Spotify we did with Ghana so creating this kind of different kind of content which is on the move on the go the bite size you know snackable content as you call it so these are the things that we did last year and that's what has engaged a lot of our consumers that has got the brand scores going up so yeah I think that's what we've done and of course a lot of awards everyone great, great Nikki I'd come to you and you know help us understand I'm sure you have seen a variety of content right you have so many clients in your basket so I'm sure each one of them have a different kind of content depending on what they are selling right so tell us about the variety that you have seen you know from X kind of content to Z kind of contact you know what is the kind of variety that you see okay so I would like to start with this you know the importance of content in healthcare so just a small thing when it comes to the healthcare healthcare is communication is a very serious business it's not like a lifestyle because it is related to your life and death so of course the whole you know the focus goes on the quality of the content the importance the how trustworthy is your content right how informative is your content so these are the things that we really need to work around when we are working on the content you cannot create any content like any launch is simple the real difference you can make during your communication so it's important to be very authentic it is important to be show empathy during your conversations and the communication so when it comes to the content we have seen the variety as I mentioned about the first when the first lockdown started nobody was aware about what we are going to do to be very frank the brands were not aware everybody was just moving what media was talking about that time we realized and we just start working on the as we have more than 17-18 hospitals in our organizations so we started giving information and talking about more on the current news the hard news which media is looking for it's on the immunity everybody wanted to boost their immunity that time so yes the immunity was the key that time at the same time hospital beds and how many number of patients are increasing and you know how do you want to stay fit because during the first wave everything was normal means there was not such kind of casualty where the people were not happy around and they just don't want to do very serious story so it was more of a informative stories that we were doing that time and we were focusing more on the hospital aspects gene strings we work for which does you know covid testing so beta testing labs startups and multiple you know when it comes to the second wave it was more over a very serious content and it was an ongoing thing because hospitals in between and the healthcare brands along with the covid they wanted to promote their other things as well so during our communication we need to ensure that we are focusing on the other areas as well be it cancer be it other diseases also right so we were focusing and taking the holistic approach and you know publicizing and communicating with the media in a very mindful manner with the very trustworthy content and you can see the mushrooming of the healthcare brands when it comes to the immunity booster because everybody was running after immunity so be it social media content or PR content or the influencer marketing content one thing that we anchored it with the trust empathy and right information because when you are doing a piece of wrong information you know it spreads like a fire a wild fire so keeping that in mind the being a you know communication firm it was our responsibility to keep the focus apt on the brands along with the right communication I would say absolutely absolutely you know there are so many important points that you brought out Nikki like important importance of the communication and the right messaging that is also important you have to be sensitive about what you're talking about what is the communication that you're giving out so you know given we have very little time left on this panel I would come to each one of you to understand the importance of you know being sensitive in your content yet being different from your competition when you're giving out a certain piece of information or communication to your customers and you know how differently have you done it for your brand you know what makes you cut through the clutter so we'll start with you again someone if you could wrap it up for us okay will I just speak about Khandar first because that helps me to talk about what we could have done I think the desire of any marketing person would be to create a content that could be clutter breaking or create any communication that's clutter breaking but you know the business that we handle which is health and wellness the most clutter breaking thing out there is the product itself what is the product that's going to be driving it or what are the services that as a health company is going to provide to people that's really going to you know sort of connect with the consumer that was of prime importance and I think even in the pandemic last year we launched 11 products and that itself was a quite a task because you know as I think Nikit spoke about that everybody spoke about community and stuff like that but the point is that when you are you know I think this pandemic gave supported nature and natural products and it gave them a chance to sort of thrive and survive on and it is therefore it was a very natural thing that despite having 450 products in our own kitty we came up with a lot of other products which were the need of the hour whether it was the single ingredient products which you don't need to be prescriptive in that sort of bite of the shelf and since we were already present in e-commerce and places like that it was so easy to purchase these products so the communication that went with it were I wouldn't say insightful but they were beautiful because you know when you start seeing the kind of ingredients that have gone into the making of that product it sort of starts talking to you so that's how beautiful our communications looked you know in the digital space so we did a lot of other things and also during the pandemic I think that Ayush ministry supported and promoted a lot of natural products so I think this gave boost to a lot of products who are in the Yunani space and otherwise and Yunani as a system is known to few and those who believe in it believe in it whole heartedly but I think what also this whole thing you know the pandemic did to us was that it allowed us to out box the brands and start indulging in having a conversation with people who are not the users of this product so a lot of social listening really helped us to understand that what is it that people wanted to understand so you know I think in the past if the communication or whatever information dissemination had happened seemed a bit it helped us to sort of demystify it and put out a very simple communication where putting the heart of the product as a story and doing a lot of things so I used PR very extensively because you know during the pandemic four of our products went in for research they wanted to understand when it works to treat the you know the COVID patients and we are getting results now so that also was a talking point so I think all in all what it did I think the pandemic has really helped us to understand and there's a great learning for it is that you know one needs to simplify demystify the products talk about the natural products in a more natural manner and help it to connect with not just a section of people who understand the method of this holistic treatment but sort of start disseminating that information to one and all and you know the surprising bit has been that the number of letters and queries that we get on a daily basis on products related to respiratory skin immunity in I think has been quite inspiring and this has also given us a lot of opportunity to create our online health consultancy you know which is sort of we started last June but I think it's sort of taken off and we really need to have more doctors to be able to service them than to be able to service our clinics so that I think has also been quite a learning and I think like I think Smitha was talking about that since most of my products are related to health and wellness it sort of gives us that one advantage to reach out to people during this time however trapped you may feel inside your homes that here are these natural products it's going to have a better effect on your lifestyle rather than you know popping lot of other kind of medicines which can have side effects because these have no side effects so yeah I think that's a great learning in all of us right right Smitha quickly come over to you know picking up exactly from there you did not have a product which is directly related to health but again it has a deep relevance in the whole system so in terms of your messaging in terms of your marketing what is it you know that differentiated you know a communication to convince buyers alongside being sensitive at the same time given the time that we were all in about your key learnings and how you will do things differently from now on or if things are changing for good for you because we have all entered into a very weird phase and things are constantly changing so yes you're wrapping up message Smitha yeah I'd like to touch upon some fundamentals why even more I'm sure a lot of people have realised businesses have realised it's a very interesting function still but it is that content is content and the crux of it is what you do as a business what you believe in products you make right especially in the age of social media which you know is very real you can really separate the fake from story you cannot faff anymore unlike probably just a headline just any other medium so social media has made more important that what you say has meaning and is consistent so before we can even have content marketing or really put out facts or figures over there we should have done our work as I said we already had a doctor recommended product range mattresses one of our leading mattress range therapeutic was recommended and certified by doctors and this is something we did two three years before when you know something like this is going to come in mainstream and it's going to become so important but it happened because we genuinely as a team believe products like this needs to come we have always strong innovation and research team even in the product division so it cannot happen overnight that COVID strikes and tomorrow you re-organise your business to really focus on healthcare and products that impact it right you have to really breathe it from all functions so product wise we were already like the most of the knowledge that we had and upgraded and you know have ranges which are more meaningful for consumers on the other side as I said earlier we had already equipped ourselves we were very passionate and it flows from the top so we were very passionate about sleep and all of us you know wanted to learn more about sleep so internally we had learning sessions we had a lot of things which pre-COVID and during COVID it got strengthened it helped us all come out with new answers and facts about sleep which finally give us our content strategy right so some of these things especially healthcare especially serious topics like this you cannot just have a creative idea or you can just do some great content marketing which is very viral and move on to something else it needs to be genuine it needs to be honest it needs to be human it needs to connect with the other person who's listening to it so it's a lot more nuanced it's a lot more factual based of course you layer that with your creativity you layer that with your you know new way of projecting it so sleep can be projected in multiple ways that's what you bring to the table as a marketing team but other than that your whole business your company your product portfolio all need to talk the same language and really be differentiated from the rest of the back for as luckily we were in a category which was literally sleeping on content and we were able to really get a lot more bang for a buck because of that so from an ROI perspective or from a reach perspective it gave us a lot more versus established categories where everybody is talking the same but of course now we are getting into a situation where everybody is caught up to it so it will help us be on our toes even more but I mean combined with the category that was not so actively talking about the topic that we should have which is sleep collectively so much it really gave us a strong edge but the really the goals I need for good content is your business and your product portfolio being around it consistently so that's really the starting point thank you so much speakers it was such an interesting session to hear all of you thank you so much for joining us thank you thank you in terms of discussion that was talking on our topic marketing health in India's new consumer driven world what an excellent discussion that was thank you once again to all our speakers while we move on to our next session I'd just like to re-remind our audience on tweeting with our hashtag hashtag e4m well ladies and gentlemen it is now time to move on to the next keynote for today which is on marketing continuity digital trends for strengthening brand engagement in a remote world by Sabrina Prince EVP group management director FCB Health Global well with with 20 class years in healthcare marketing including research public health relations and advertising Sabrina is a strategist who's able to identify pivotal customer insights and in fact customer behavior to drive revenue as the EVP at FCB Health Europe Sabrina is an empathetic leader and a mentor and champions diversity and inclusion her passion is helping small business owners recognize their brand essence and cultivate marketing strategies to expand customer loyalty thank you so much Sabrina for joining us today and being a part of our wonderful summit today it's an honor having you how you're doing I'm doing well thank you it's a pleasure being with you can you hear me okay yes absolutely fine so with this Sabrina I hand it over to you thank you for joining thank you so much and if you can share the presentation sure I'll get that you do that could we have a presentation yes right there over to you awesome so amazing speakers that we've had thus far talking a lot about brand engagement and their strategies and empathy my presentation may be a bit more educational and applied and focused obviously as you know the theme is digital trends for strengthening brand engagement in a remote world but really what I want to focus in on specifically is the importance of customer platform customer next slide customer customer data platforms next slide please could we have a moving forward for me just a second Sabrina no worries over to there we go cool all right so again focusing on the importance of customer data platforms so to frame our conversation next slide I'd like to take us a year back to the beginning of the pandemic which I know may not be a place we all want to go to but this was an interesting survey by Statistica on the online behavior of consumers in the U.S. around that March 2020 timeframe in the website of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC.gov was the most popular governmental web domain in the U.S. in March 2020 with almost 432 million digital visits the majority of the American population considers the CDC the most trustworthy source of information on COVID-19 CDC.gov recorded 934 million page views in that month alone in stark contrast social media was considered the least trustworthy source of information on the coronavirus outbreak according to the same March survey so what does this tell us I mean the unfortunate truth is that we live in a world of information overload and of mistrust of politicians sometimes scientists and on occasion each other and this reality has forced internet users to cut out the middle man and really turn directly to the source and this place is a big responsibility on healthcare marketers to be a resource for unbiased information providing that unbiased information in a way that is authentic to the consumer as you've heard from the previous speakers relies heavily on security and the integrity of the data that the marketing team is able to to consume and collect. Next slide. Obviously we know that delivering the best customer experience is a core goal for most companies and in order to do so we need to understand and collect data about our customers and how they interact with our promotional materials our clients you may be using a variety of digital platforms to capture these customer interactions like Google analytics for websites or Adobe analytics for any sort of customer campaigns you may have or for specific HCP to rep interactions we may be collecting that in Salesforce. All of this makes complete sense but what this does and what this data what this results in is that the data is collected in silos of information and these silos limit the cohesive understanding of the customer. Next slide. That's where the concept of connected data comes in. Next slide. So in order to own the data and to ensure that we can deliver data informed and solution driven user experiences it's really important for marketers to be able to manage and activate or act on that data in real time and this is where a customer data platform or CDP helps to improve this engagement and those conversations. So what do I mean when I'm referring to a CDP? Essentially a CDP is a single dashboard where all data all tagged data all identifiable tagged data so information about your customer can get down level on is captured across all the brand's digital properties and it can be managed and segmented and inform any customer insights. So this is an example of just a mocked up CDP customer data platform and you can kind of consider this diagram instead of a line more of a loop but on the left you'll see those digital platforms that are collecting data from websites any customer relationship programs any, you know, HCP engagements that are happening and feeding in the data into the centralized CDP platform. The beauty of a customer data platform is that we can collect that online data information but also any offline information that is occurring from events when we get back to live events or any sort of segmentation or market research or surveys that currently exist that create more of a comprehensive picture of the customer and what this does or what a CDP does is bring together all of that information from the disparate sources in a format that is easily digestible actionable by the marketing team so that they can collect it, it's standardized they can learn about what the customer is doing why the customer is doing it and determine the best way to act on that push that information back out for any lead generation or whatever the overall brand strategies are. Next slide. So, why is this so important? Why should you care? Obviously, today's customers are assuming that your company knows them, that they remember them, that you know who they are you know what they've done, you know what they want basically that you can read their mind they're having this sort of experience that feels authentic and almost like prescient by brands that aren't healthcare brands. They want to be loved they expect the marketing company to serve relevant content based on their experiences based on data and marketers and marketing technologists know that gathering this data acting on it in a unified way isn't easy and we also know that internally only a few companies have done this successfully the rest of them probably you, your clients are battling with technology strategies budgets, organizations staff skills and a host of other obstacles to success but customers don't really care about any of these issues if you don't give them what they want next slide, it's game over they'll assume that you don't care about them you don't understand them and they'll take their business to somebody else to the competitor who they believe will treat them better and it doesn't matter whether the competition or the other firms actually do treat them better or not the fact is once you've lost them you'll have to fight twice as hard to get them back and it's therefore not a surprise that delivering this unified love inducing, brand inducing, brand loyal customer experience is one of the highest priorities for marketers I'm probably preaching to the choir I know next slide so you're like okay yes Sabrina, I agree I want my customers to love me where do I begin so as I mentioned a unified customer experience is impossible without unified customer data most data, as I mentioned before originates in separate systems that weren't designed to share with anything else traditional methods for collecting data into unified customer profiles like enterprise data warehouse have failed to solve this problem newer approaches like data lakes have collected the data into like a big lake but they fail to organize it effectively in a way that marketers can act on it a CDP is an alternative approach that has had great success at pioneering companies and it puts marketers in direct control of the data unification it helps them to ensure that it's focused directly on their marketing goals marketing requirements and CDPs specifically apply specialized technologies and pre-built processes that are tailored to meet marketing data needs to customize the information in a way that's actionable for marketing and this essentially allows them for faster more efficient solutions than any general purpose technologies we know how important it is in this evolving landscape to be able to understand what our customers are doing based on the dime and CDPs assist in that process next slide so I've listed here just five CDPs that as an agency we've worked with with clients I don't expect you to read these all segment exponia, list tract and marsysteelium they'll be in the wrap up in the handout but these are CDP solutions that we found to be successful in really combining the data analytics the platform in a way that is digestible with this unified view that allows marketers to really be able to understand and bring together their wealth of information online and offline to action in a real time manner for their customers so again take a look at these at your leisure if this is an area that you're interested in exploring next slide so okay you've hopefully figured out that you want to try using a customer data platform you've got your technology together now you're ready to create this unified customer experience so you know diagram on the left is really just showing you a mockup of what that would be but on the right I've listed for typical process questions that you would like to tackle as you're undertaking this effort first develop a line on your data strategy do you know who you're targeting what do you need to know if you don't know that is there additional research that's needed what's the behavior that you're trying to change in this customer along the customer journey whether it's acquisition or trial or loyalty do you want them to tweet what is that and then determine your content strategy speakers before we're talking about the amazing way that they've been using their content to motivate patients over the pandemic figuring out what your messages are knowing your content strategy is imperative to be able to turn that information out to the customer based on their actions I'm going to give you an example of how you can determine that content strategy soon to come now assuming you've got your content strategy is really important to be able to be responsive and the best way to do that is to leverage template driven creative so not recreating the wheel every time you need to communicate to your customer whether it's on banners or posters online or offline but having that in a templated manner so that you can pick customer a behavior B message C and organize it get it out the door extremely important to constantly integrate analytics at every touch point because unless you know the results of those efforts don't know how to maximize or change our strategies next slide so this is just an example of being able to implement this that we've done for a brand one of our clients and their focus was really on leveraging data relevance to drive trial for these HCPs and you see of course how they've used websites as the really foundational resource for information and you know pushing the physician to prescribe that sort of the action that is desired in that medium for more long foreign messages more in-depth information about dosing or anything that's related to safety usually that's delivered in any sort of email or direct mail campaign but also how that could work on digital displays whether it's virtual or live congress congresses or conferences next slide then you can see of course how you can expand this to all of your customer groups so this is just an example of a ecosystem multi-channel ecosystem where we've created that world of physician a similar complimentary world for the patient based on the experiences and drivers that we know they're going to interact with and knowing what our content will be for the physician what the content will be for the patient the marketer has the opportunity to create like a universe where when that conversation happens they're both speaking the same language and it is the most productive treatment of that particular disease or prescription of their medication next slide so you've got your assets you've got your CDP and you know your customers you know how to reach them what do you say we talked about content strategy and this is just an example just of a content workshop that we hold for clients often that really is focused on ensuring that all the messages across all your tactics within a specific tactic are working to achieve the goals that are aligned to your brand strategy so a way this could work is that you could bring together an assortment of participants whether they're medical people marketing people consumers people who know your message your messaging prioritize the audiences your customer audiences based on the impact that you think you can make with our messages and really group those messages based on the ones that we feel can can drive or move our customer towards the desired outcome and what you end up with is like a matrix that kind of outlines the barriers that exist with your customer and the specific messages that would be needed to change that behavior so again would love to talk through how this could work with you in the future but doing something like a content workshop or a card sorting workshop is actually what we call this where you get all your messages onto cards prioritize identify the customer is really a great way of aligning on your content strategy so that you can be nimble with your messaging across all of the various platforms or channels that are part of your your marketing mix I talked about templated communications developing templated communications really allows you to cadence those messages that you prioritized when you did your content card sorting workshop so you can cadence them by segment and this is what really allows you to create that experience for the customer that feels dynamic I'm on a website and I'm reading certain information and then I move to another channel and I'm getting a similar information it seems like the brand is following me they understand me they they know my pivot points all of this can be actioned in a way that feels intuitive to the customer when you you can template out these these communication vehicles in this example it's for a banner next slide so I threw a lot at you real fast but really focusing on customer data platforms and bringing the power into the hands of the marketing team aggregating that information and that data that is in-house offline and online putting it in a singular dashboard place so that you can understand and contextualize it and drive better decision making for your customers so as so I was near the tail end of the presentation and essentially I know that I've thrown a lot at you as it relates to customer data platforms and the strategies needed to integrate them but all those things aside as you want to consider this or whether you're currently using CDPs here's some questions to consider on how you can further create this unified intuitive customer experience one what would a personalized experience feel like for your customer so certainly we know as marketers it's really important for us to put ourselves in the seat of our customer and we know that they want to be loved so in what ways can we demonstrate that what would that feel like from the brand what do I need to know about them or need to know to create this experience so perhaps a little bit more market research might be needed for you to be able to answer that question do I have the right data either like insight or channel or behavioral data to deliver on this what technology do I have in place today and what do I need so we can always start with where we are today and then build so just to close a few questions to consider as you're delivering your unified customer experience what would a personalized experience feel like for your customer what do you need to know about them in order to create this experience do you have the right data do you need additional market research to be able to inform this decision what technology do you have in place today what do you need you know start where you are today and build towards a more robust offering how can you start small what is the one additional thing you can do to create that personalized experience thank you if you ask yourself those questions in a rigorous manner you'll be able to move toward creating that loved sort of comprehensive customer experience that we know our customers crave even though you're in health care so that's my presentation thank you for being good students now I have some examples of some creative work just to ramp up your energy level again next slide next it's a video so this is for Accord the biggest company you've never heard of enjoy the video that's coming up next this is a case study from Accord you know Accord the biggest supplier of medicines to the NHS surely you've heard of this we make a fifth of all generics used in the UK come on we make 4.3 billion pills a year we're in one in three homes you've probably definitely taken one of our pills you must have seen our name it's on factories up and down the country and on thousands of lorries it's on lab coats name badges we get this a lot so we've made a new campaign introducing the biggest generics company no one's heard of and we made some bright orange ads and we gave them some wiggly headlines telling it like is that it doesn't matter if no one knows who we are it won't stop us doing amazing things for the nation's health and we made a lot of them too so there's no way you'll forget our name it's Accord thank you Bhavna and we have one more for bear health care this was bear health care as a client of ours and have many contraceptive devices for women and this was their 60th anniversary celebration of the contraceptive pill and if you go to the next one that's also the video thank you all next slide including not only spacing of children but also new hope for the childless through a remarkable new pill since the pill's launch we've seen it transform women's lives around the world so Bhavna wanted to create a campaign to celebrate not only 60 years of the pill but what the pill means for women today the pill you know just two unremarkable words but 60 years ago it changed the world in a remarkable way supporting women to have children by choice not chance it helped us pursue our own ambitions and take on the world it empowered us to reach for new heights support the children we have and strive for lives free from hardship to shape our own futures and to shape others and to live our lives our way 60 years ago a world of opportunities started with the pill since then Bayer has been bringing women benefits in contraception and beyond and continued to innovate decade after decade all that started with just one little pill celebrating 60 years of empowering women Bayer your partner in women's health the campaign rolled out across social media digital and print materials 60 years of independence opportunity and freedom all that started from just one little pill thank you Bhavna great thank you so much Sabrina for joining us and being a part of this incredible summit we really value all your insight thank you once again it was a pleasure bye bye bye thank you once again Sabrina for joining us and with this we are going to be moving on to our next topic so ladies and gentlemen that was an interesting presentation and thank you once again Sabrina friends on that now we move on to another important conversation that people are having worldwide corporates now understand the importance of it much more strategies to ensure and support mental health well this session is about to connect with consumers during the time of uncertainty and heightened anxiety participants discuss how brands must change the way they market and sell to consumers to remain connected with their target audiences and progress their business goals while remaining mindful of consumers mental wellness so ladies and gentlemen it was a wonderful panel discussion I just request you to keep tweeting with our hashtag HCC as one word ladies and gentlemen it is now time to introduce you to the eminent panelists on this panel first up Dr Bhavna Gautam founder and great slide thank you so much Dr Bhavna for joining us today my pleasure thank you Bhavna I see that we share her name so pleasure having you also we have Miss Piaali Das Gupta senior VP marketing Columbia Pacific communities joining us thank you so much Miss Piaali Das Gupta for joining us today thank you Bhavna thank you for having me pleasure being here also we do have Dr Vispy Jopi the CEO of Missinah hospital thank you so much Dr Jopi for joining us today Lai thank you very much thanks for having me here I hope I am audible and everything is fine technically yes yes perfect sir we also have Miss Samantha counseling psychologist at Fortis hospitals thank you so much Miss Samantha for joining us today Lai at our summit I believe she is just logged in thank you Miss Samantha if you can hear us do acknowledge the same alright so we will just give her some time on setting that up quickly we also have Mr Nithi Zamurdia founder and director at Indira IVF thank you so much sir for joining us today Lai thank you Bhavna it's a real pleasure to be you know talking on this particular very important topic in the current times thank you for having me absolutely and ladies and gentlemen it is now time to introduce you to the session chair of this wonderful panelist fashion that's Miss Nazia I'll be Rehman e-program editor thank you so much Nazia for joining us today Lai and being a part of this wonderful panel discussion thank you Bhavna I am audible yes perfect so ladies and gentlemen with such eminent people on your stage it is now time for me to pass on the live bait and to Nazia to take it forth with her panel over to you hello all my apologies we had too many technical glitches and we are starting late but I will try to cover up and I'll keep my questions short I'll keep my short so that I give more time to experts like you to speak on the topic I think mental health I believe has been the most discussed disease globally after covid in the last one year everyone I mean this mandatory confinement in which you know we all are currently in has given has been a sudden surge in the cases of mental health and I don't know if a lot of people but some people have definitely become vocal about the problems that they are suffering at work in family in your neighborhood and a lot of people have got mental health issues because they have lost jobs a lot of people are not able to do their jobs because they have mental health issues so I mean I would want to cut my interest short we all know what the problem is and let us focus more on solutions that you all can offer us so if I can I would want to start with Dr. Jyokshi because you know Masina hospital has been doing so much around mental health even before we all started talking about it and if you can tell us how the problem has increased in last one year one and a half year post covid and also changed in the sense that you know if you have if you are seeing a trend which did not exist before you know if there are younger people coming to you the older people coming what is or is it related to only a particular age group although if you can just run us through all the interesting new details that you have been noticing in the last one and a half years you are on mute sir you need to unmute Heading an institution which has run a mental health facility for almost 25 years which is not common because mental health indoor facilities in most hospitals are not existing and we have always had a spectrum of cases which range from very mild to very severe psychosis and in this period when there were two challenges you know one is to review the indoor admissions were restricted because of the fact that we were afraid of covid spreading because you know even if you have mental health people staying together to make to ensure social distancing and covid protocols in the indoor facility was a problem so therefore there were a lot of patients who would not seek the help that they required at that time and they were actually you know suffering at home and at that time we digitally thought of you know going on the digital platform and going digital in a bigger way than what we were doing conventionally so you see even a digital platform is difficult for people with mental illness so it's not very easy however we made sure that we kept the services running and we tried to you know differ admission for as long as possible very difficult and once the lockdown started once the disease and we were able to understand more about covid and the fear of covid became lesser we started gradually taking patients in more and more into the single rooms and with lot of care Sorry to interrupt you but what are the time of cases that you've been noticing more and more? It's the same in fact the severity there's no I mean I would not say there's any change in the kind of cases that you're getting it's that we are we were getting people who would be easily manageable at home because of with medication and all but now with the situation being worse the severity and the number of cases started increasing a lot and if you if you have to give me a percentage a rough idea of you know of both share on 30 percent 30 to 40 percent this is in the number of patients or number of severity and the number of patients I mean you would say that it's a one third more than what would normally be there. I also ask this because you know I myself know a patient as young as 10 year old 11 year old you know who was diagnosed with clinical depression after covid then of course there are older people there are younger people who have lost their jobs Bhavna if I can get you also in Bhavna Gautam not the emcee if I can get you in the debate what what are the trends that you have been noticing and you know how do you what are the kind of solutions that you have been offering. So the way Dr. Vispe mentioned I'm sure the the whole bulk of clinical and severe cases you know are the ones that approach an institution like Masina hospital in my practice was that during the first lockdown there was a larger number of people probably coming in with anxiety you know because there was this financial uncertainty there was an uncertainty about how we are going to cope with the lockdown there was no idea about how we are going to move across however with the second lockdown there's just been a very I wouldn't call it significant but of course there's been a shift where I'm getting a lot of younger ones who are coming in typically in the age group of 18 to 25 roughly around 32 and now the idea or the major challenge that they are having is not you know anxiety or depression it is this sense of hopelessness or helplessness because they were in an age group where they were looking forward to probably creating their careers and starting a new journey altogether and in fact very interestingly one of the journals have been reported this emotion and called it languishing so I actually saw this shift from you know a lot of anxiety and depression to that languishing where people didn't know why they are doing and what they are doing and where they are headed and in fact for them to ignite hope when you yourself don't know how long the situation is going to last was quite a journey actually so you may tell them a lot of things as mental health expert and especially as a holistic health expert I incorporate dimensions of health so whether it is your nutrition whether it is your fitness, whether it is your meditation all of these aspects come into it but with the restrictions and what do you do there are people who are locked up in isolation I know they are not allowed of their buildings, they are not allowed of their you know cubes in Mumbai we literally live in you know tiny nests out here we do not even have space to go breathe how do you tell them that okay you need to exercise and you need to ensure that you fix your diet and at the same time stay connected with your family and stay connected with your friends because socially how am I addressing it so like I said it's been quite a learning for me too we try to do with a lot of history taking we try and understand what outlets can work for this particular counselling it cannot be a generalized approach it needs to be so customized and it needs to really understand and move around that some of those fears may just be you know just be fears I mean there is no basis to it but you move with that for me the main work still remains that it has to take into consideration all of these aspects they are nutrition, they are fitness their social connects very importantly so like I said holistic health in fact came into a much bigger role rather than that piecemeal approach that was being implemented earlier I mean because you are an IVF expert and you deal with a lot of pregnant women postpartum depression has always been something that a lot of women go through I myself had two pregnancies the pregnancy in itself is such a difficult journey for women now when you add COVID stress to it I mean what kind of outcomes, I mean what kind of patients are you handling and you know you suffer from so many health issues when you are pregnant then with a pandemic around you what is the mental state of women who are pregnant in last one year and how do you help them how do you answer them so I think the biggest problem with this COVID was that it certainly hit the world and there were people didn't know how to react they didn't know what it can cause what it can do and how to safeguard yourself there have been a lot of misleading things happening digitally as well as through other media where people were really confused as to what should be their step we have been having patients who wanted to go for IVF but they were really scared in terms of because of the fear of pregnancy and there were few misconceptions that can pregnant women go for a COVID vaccination which still just got recently cleared off that they can so till now there was very uncertain situation that should I go for a COVID vaccination and then go for a pregnancy or if I am pregnant how should I safeguard myself can I go for a vaccination or not which is I think now clear so it was very typical for these patients and we had put in a lot of efforts especially with the help of telemedicine teleconsultation we have provided them with the helpline so they can get in touch with our doctors and they don't have to visit hospitals unnecessary to expose them to such kind of conditions we have tried to provide them with authentic information because there have been so much information floating from all around they really didn't know what to do and what not to do we have tried to advise them to you know isolate themselves with other people be away from people as much as possible to safeguard their pregnancy and to shield themselves so I think they are also not very depressing to be all alone when you are pregnant so how do you address the mental health aspect of it and at times you can't do anything if you are pregnant that is the only option that you have there is no other option the only thing is use digital technology to be in touch with your relatives your people try to avoid physical contacts and coming close to people it is just like there have been deliveries being happening just imagine the kind of situation after that you have a baby with you and then you can't let people be around you or help you out right because it is very scary you don't want to expose your babies to such kind of situation so it has been really bad but I think somehow the way digital has helped people connect to their doctors and this telemedicine thing floating around it has really helped I think a lot of patients to get the right answers by connecting to the right doctors Shamantha or Shamantha because you have written Shamantha Shamantha okay so Shamantha if I can have you in the discussion so you know I was wondering I forgot my question from you I wanted to ask you know let me go through my basically if you first tell me what are the kind of patients you are getting right now and what are the solutions you are giving to them so I work since I work in a hospital setting I usually see post op and pre op right and also am I audible yes but if you can be a little louder hello I think we have lost if I can I remember the question if I can come back to Mr Jogchi you know the biggest problem with always been first there is a stigma attached to it secondly it is very difficult to tell the person suffering from mental health issues you know to tell the person that you need some kind of help you should go and see a doctor people get offended they are already going through a lot of turmoil within themselves how do you handle these kind of situations you know how do you go and tell a person in your family or in your neighbourhood or at work that you know so basically you are asking these questions the wrong person I am not a mental health professional I mean actually I wanted to ask but I still ask answer your question see there is a stigma to mental health no doubt about it but the fact that the acceptance that mental health is an issue today has become easier especially since the time people have started coming out in the open of course COVID has helped to come extend but more than that in the recent past you know celebrities talking about depression celebrities talking about anxiety has helped to my mind one of the things which we want to introduce as a hospital is that even in any any executive health checkup in the hospital you never get an executive health checkup which checks your mental health and I am very keen that in fact I had had plans to introduce that in my executive health checkup in my hospital right from the beginning unfortunately with COVID all the executive health checkups also have closed down you don't do executive health checkups at all so a simple questionnaire a dashboard or something you know it will just give a simple idea whether someone needs some screening tool is required to you know make people aware that well you I mean you don't have to be actually overt or covert symptoms of mental disorders sometimes they are so subtle that you will pick it up early and then maybe that's the time to intervene and make sure that you don't land up in a bad situation so I think that's what I would put it as my the question I wanted to ask you then was that how if I notice you know if I feel that there is somebody in my family or my colleague you know or my neighborhood who is become a little aggressive or you know who's become a loner who's not talking the way he used to how what is the right way to approach the person and you know tell the person that you know I think you need help or you need to go and see because people get very offended the minute you try to tell them that you could have mental issues they come back and say you have mental issues you have lost it you know so how do you handle that and also sorry what are some signs that we should notice you know what are the first few signs that are very important to you know observe which give you that idea that this person might be suffering from something to do with mental health okay so answering your second question first so we need to look out for the signs and symptoms right so any mental health need to be louder so answering your second question first we need to look out for the signs and symptoms right so any mental health disorder or symptom for that matter will have certain symptoms like it can have physiological symptoms it can have emotional symptoms it can have physical symptoms right so when first we need to understand what are these symptoms and what are these signs and what are they related to right so if it's like anxiety for that matter right so they will be showing bodily cues they will have some sort of reaction to a particular situation so we need to understand then we will be able to tell that okay yes this person is having an issue right but and again if it's depression for that matter they will try and avoid social situations or they might isolate themselves or they might have excessive crying disturb sleep and appetite right so each problem has a different set of signs and symptoms so depending on that we will be able to identify that right and what was the first question again first question is that how do you approach them approach the person and convince the person to go and see somebody like you or Bhavna right I think first understanding who is very close to that person like any random person just cannot go and like talk to them and say you need help right because they might get offended even though they would need help saying the way you say it also matters right how you say it where you say it matters a lot you can't say it in public you can't say it in a way that could be disrespectful or offensive to that person right so you need to understand okay this is a sensitive matter right and maybe I have to be close enough to that person to be able to have a discussion around this topic right and once I do that and also if you cannot approach that person directly like you not have this conversation with them directly then maybe giving them an example right or you know like in terms of a third person and helping them realize that okay you know like you too can take help right like since somebody else took help and felt better or you know put themselves in a better situation because of taking help and there is no stigma or shame surrounded around taking help right because there is mental health and stigma just like come hand in hand so I think reducing that stigma and normalizing the fact that you can take help whether it's whether you have to take medication or just go to therapy and also helping them understand that people who just want to talk about their week also go to mental health professionals it's just not just people who have severe mental health issues so informing people about this educating people will really help I want to come back to you Kelly I just want to add very briefly to it you know how do you suggest to approach somebody who is suffering from mental health? So Nasi I get a lot of parents who ask how do I get my child into therapy a lot of spouses who say how do I get my partner to you know be part of this therapy process and I always tell them parents you know I get my mother to therapy and it isn't easy for a child to do that and I always tell them irrespective of whether the person comes or doesn't come the first thing you need to do is be a genuine listener you know I've realized that most of the times people want help they just don't ask for it because like I said it's the stigma or their egos get in the way or they feel that they are going to be judged but every time the supporting people around have been listeners and they actually go with the idea of you know suggesting things rather than implying that okay you need help people have been more open to seeking therapy. So I usually in fact land up training the people who come to me for somebody else I train them on how to become a better listener and maybe the other person would feel much more at ease saying okay you know what I think I'll take your suggestion Hey Ali you told us you know you have suffered from anxiety and despite suffering from anxiety or your own issues you've done remarkably well in your career you've won awards as a marketing and communication expert. So I would really want you to take us through your story and also tell us what are the kind of support an employee would need you know from your office or you know your and how do you speak to them and what where are the loopholes and what can be done to improve it also. Nazia thanks for the question so I've been you know a mental illness survivor I like to call myself because I've suffered for over 23 years I continue to live with clinical depression and anxiety so it's not just anxiety and I just think that you know mental health is a spectrum right it's it's on one end of it you have people like me who are severely ill and on the other end of it you have people who are perhaps going through some kind of a phase you know are starting to probably show some kind of symptoms and they would want to just talk about it like Bhavna also was saying you know the importance of listening right I think specifically talking about the kind of support system that you need at work I just feel and without you know mincing words I'd like to say that I think India is far behind I think that most organizations and I'm talking about very large organizations I wouldn't be unfortunately taking names here but I've worked with very very large organizations where my personal experience has been that you know people have very very low to nil awareness about how do you deal with people with mental illness and it's challenging because it's a dual battle then for people like us because you're fighting a battle with your own mind where there are voices in your head that you can't necessarily control and there are voices that are going on telling you that you're going to fail you know your life is not worth living you're not good enough you're good for nothing everything is wrong everything is going wrong so that's an internal battle that you fight and then externally you fight a battle with the ecosystem that you're within which kind of identifies you as somebody that's a little different a little off somebody that is a loner is not a people's person which is typically not looked at as a good sign in a corporate setup is not you know is not a team player you know these are the words that you know this is the sort of typical feedback that is kind of given to people that isolate themselves and not realizing that that's actually you know a symptom of a disease that the person kind of lives with right and it all stems from tremendous amount of apathy I think the correct word is apathy because it's not just about not knowing it's about not wanting to know because it's not their reality right it's almost and I'm sure that you know things have changed quite a bit in the last year and a half with COVID doctor mentioned that you know he's seen a 30 to 40% rise in cases and obviously that has led to greater awareness and while COVID has taken away a lot I think the one thing that it's given is higher awareness around mental illness and mental health in general but I think that you know even today I think organizations have no structured way of dealing with people with mental illness there is no policy in place I mean last year when Zomato declared you know period leaves right there was so much of chatter around it right but when would we actually see mental health leaves right I mean when can an employee very safely write a letter to a manager and I'm actually currently very fortunate to be a part of an organization where I have leadership which is extremely empathetic but that's never that's not really been the case all my 15 years that have been you know in the business right because you know when you're going when you're feeling the way you feel when you're mentally ill you are constantly under this continuous worry that you know if I talk about the fact that I'm mentally not okay my performance and the way I am in the organization will be looked at through the prism of oh she's mentally ill and therefore she's a burden so you know I mean she's problematic or things that's the usual narrative right so the point is that like I said there is no structured way of dealing with people there is lack of awareness there is a pati there is tremendous amount of you know neglect right because you know if you can give an example of how did you handle on day to day basis you know having a corporate job and having the stillness how did you tackle the issue I mean you know you tackle it because there is no other way it's like you know it's like asking I mean what's the what's the alternative do you just quit and do you just kind of give up on everything in life you can't because you know you have you have to how do you survive it's very tough Nazia it's because yeah but but I would want you to tell us you know in a way so the people who are listening would know that there is a way to survive because you have survived I think that the way to survive is to continue to do what you're doing and focusing on the things that you're good at and to ensure that you know you are able to you know you're able to distance the disease from the person right you know the disease is a part of us but it is not it is not entirely who we are there are other aspects to us so for example I'm mentally ill but I could also be somebody that's good at painting or you know is a good friend a good listener you know fun to hang out with amongst people that are genuinely like not necessarily a lot of people but you know people that are genuinely like I'm somebody that could be very well read for example so there are other aspects to me that also make up who I am also as a professional you might be having some bad days but on most other days you are doing your job pretty well so here's the thing about it right there are days and there are many days that you don't even feel like getting off the bed that's a reality right and again it differs from person to person not everybody's cases as severe as me or as chronic as mine but there are many days when you don't feel like even getting off the bed forget attending meetings but the way I've been able to cope with it is to just constantly tell myself that you've just got to do this you've just got to do this and you cannot let the disease become bigger than you and have you taken help of professional counselors? Of course I mean if you've lived with the disease for over half your life you've reached out to every possible doctor and psychologist and psychiatrist and taken all kinds of help that there is out there and the best of help but in certain cases you know there's something called treatment resistance depression which is TRD and I don't want to get too technical but I'm sure there are doctors on this panel so I'm sure they would know what I'm talking about my case is that unfortunately so it is kind of treatment resistant I still haven't given up hope and I continue to take my medicines you know but like I said not everybody's cases has severe there are cases that are less severe and they are able to manage better I am able to manage the way I am because I've lived with it for so long so for me now one of the ways of coping is to be able to identify your triggers is to be able to list down you know what are the things that could be potential triggers or have been triggers in the past and how do you kind of build a shield around yourself to try and see if you can protect yourself from those triggers and it's not going to happen all the time you're not going to be able to protect yourself every time from those triggers there would be days when you would be triggered by something, something not working out or you know something frustrating you deeply but the idea is to try and constantly kind of build that wall around yourself to that's my personal mechanism it differs from person to person I'm just telling you what works for me and it is the ability to identify triggers so I think going back to corporate policies I think that one of the things that I strongly feel about is you know when we talk about diversity and inclusion at work you know diversity and inclusion is not just about hiring 50% women right that is one kind of diversity and I'm you know me being a woman and being you know very proud feminist I think that I'm all for diversity in the board room all for breaking the glass ceiling and having more women but diversity and inclusion is also about ensuring that you have enough you know people of different backgrounds and different world views right people with mental illness have a very different world view which in many cases could actually be an asset to the company which most most companies don't realize for example when you live with anxiety you're kind of always you know you're always pre-empting what can go wrong right you can become risk averse but you're always kind of sniffing out problems before anybody else can because you look at everything as a risk factor right you look at everything as a potential source of risk now that in many ways could actually be a positive thing in a team because everybody else might be like oh you know we're going to be very gung-ho about something and then you need that one person to say that hey but listen have we thought about this and this could actually backfire right so having neurodiverse people in the organization and actually you know making that effort to you know go out and look for people that live with neurodiversity of some sort and again neurodiversity is massive but you know I think is one of the things that organizations should very very actively doing be doing just as they should be actively hiring LGBTIQ people for example right similarly I think there should be representation of people that are mentally ill when you see somebody who's mentally ill who's successful who is in the senior leadership it gives you tremendous confidence and tremendous impetus to go on and tell yourself that listen if she could or if he could I can too and I'm going to do this right so yeah so you know because of technical issues we started late and now we are already out of time Mr. Jadeel has already joined for the next panel so you know now I would final think which I hope we can discuss for next 10 minutes at least how do we make you know like there was this incident of Deepika by the phone coming out and you know talking about mental health issues then there was Arya who started talking about her mental health issues how how can we as a nation as people you know how can sellers and how can brands embrace this and you know make it make it perfectly fine to you know have mental health issues and bring in more awareness about it so I can I can start with Mr. Dr. Amudhya you know if you can if you would want to talk about it because I also remember Isha there talked about postpartum depression you know how she suffered and from it and she overcame it so what can sellers and brands and corporate do about this whole issue of mental health I think India really lacks you know the awareness about it and you know what Piali has described you know for me it's very difficult to even understand right because someone who has suffered really knows what she or she has been through the person on the other side doesn't realize what they have done right we have had a long array of discussions with LGBT people and you know finally India has achieved that level where now we recognize that they also you know are a part of this society I think there has to be something which is the lead from example the organization have to take it as a priority and channelize it it is not just having a policy around and just saying that we have something like this in place it is about you know you have to lead by example you have to share let's say for this you know COVID crisis managers need to talk about their mental you know wellness issues to employ under them then only you can initiate a discussion there has to be lot of you know effort being made from the media side there has to be effort made from the celebrity side I still remember a movie Thare Zameepar right which had a bit of flavor about the same issue so that created a lot of ripples that you know something like this exist otherwise people don't know and people don't understand that something like this exist as psychologist yes you guys definitely get cases which are you know of these nature and you know and you understand that something like this can happen but for a normal public for normal organizations for normal people they are unaware of all this thing they don't understand that you know someone can go through this and what what is the kind of struggle that they have this is something that we need to bring out as a society we need to accept it as how we have accepted other things in India and I think there is so much work to be done on this because COVID has really shown us that you know this thing has become a highlight now people are suffering from it and at the end of the day it is the organization that will be suffering if the employees of the organization are having mental health issues and there have been a studies conducted in the western world which says that every one dollar that you invest on the mental health you will have additional two to four dollars of revenue being generated for the organization so I think it is something that we really need to work on now I think we need to I take that quote from you later and circulate it to as many corporates as we can so Chamanta you have to sum it up for me in two minutes because I really need to wrap up yeah sure I completely agree with Dr. Murthy but adding to that I completely agree with Dr. Murthy but adding to that I would like to say that you know create safe spaces for people to converse about mental health you know whether it is creating social support groups right it could be formal or informal and also having regular conversations about mental health in the workplace setting right even at homes I get a lot of cases where people tell me that they cannot discuss about mental health at home because it it's not even acknowledged right so when they say that I am going through so and so family members just brush it off and say you know what it's just you know you're just pretending or maybe like you know this is just a phase get over it and things like that so having that conversation is so so important Mahabna Nazia taking from what Piali just addressed so beautifully I believe the one way where we can create that huge impact which is required you know vis-a-vis this slow growth that we are seeing on the awareness and accessibility is to create a more community based approach people need to rethink their relationship in communities and there are so many communities that need to come together to create an entire ecosystem talk about mental health in schools talk about mental health among pregnant women talk about mental health among the chronically ill in the hospitals talk about mental health of the caregivers so unless each community and each ecosystem does its bit in getting the awareness I think that complete chain and link chain doesn't get created so whether we are talking about conventional medicine and doctors out there who treat you for maybe physical ailments what stops them from bringing in this element of you know what if you're feeling too disconnected with your physical health situation why don't you also approach a therapist why don't you also go to a counselor why don't you also see a psychiatrist it needs to get normalized on multiple levels so that people know that they are in an ecosystem and not an isolated and not to find support for their mental health so I believe we need to interlink these community efforts together Dr. Joshi we are on mute sir you need to come so basically of course everybody has spoken about this aspect of you know widespread awareness and actually to some extent in Masina hospital the fact that we have a mental health unit for a long time it is it's almost natural for many of our patients to sort of seek mental health so it is not that bad in our hospital as such but in society my question was how to create awareness and what can we as a society and particularly corporate offices can do for their employees to improve that is exactly what I am saying that to mainstream this mental health issue is therefore I spoke in the beginning to make it a part of a mental health matter of physical and mental health check up as I said an executive health check up should have mental component itself besides that the question of see basically everybody is afraid of mental health illnesses because person who was not only does it put you back it affects your own livelihood it affects the livelihood of the caregivers who are around you because they don't know what to do with you you become unproductive and the last and most important thing is when you have a mental health illness it becomes a very costly and socio-economically destroying affair for you it puts the whole family's socio-economic status a via so I mean there is a finiteness to a physical illness which is not a mental illness a mental illness is a prolonged illness it's something which is a fear of the undone and even if you become aware and you want to seek help you are afraid of going and actually seeking help so there are many dimensions to this the awareness of course is the first factor but today in our country it has to get coupled with the cost of treatment also today although the mental health act mandates that insurance is supposed to be given but is this the ground reality that's a question I always ask on the ground you do not get insurance for mental health illnesses because there are still no proper guidelines for that I mean in any conventional insurance you have to declare a pre-existing disease how do you define pre-existing disease as an attempt at suicide whether suicide is supposed to be given a status of a mental illness or whether it has to be treated and what is the cost of treatment so there are many other aspects to this besides just the awareness so that I am sorry I have digressed a bit but I touched on a third topic because I feel that it's all playing but that is absolutely necessary you need to cover mental illness under insurance otherwise a lot of people would not go I know somebody who was seeking going to a counsellor but the counsellor would charge 3,000 or 4,000 per hour that was adding to the mental illness not reducing it absolutely so Piyali if you can conclude the session for us well I think that three things one is first recognise that mental illness is an illness right I think that awareness has to be built to raise enough awareness through conversations to involve stakeholders for example the press like communities for example like Dr Babna said to acknowledge that mental illness is an illness is not something that is in your mind right the second thing I think is to be able to actively encourage conversations in corporate setups people can come out and share their stories which gives other people the courage to do that and helps destigmatise it helps demystify it like Dr Joki also said this is a fear of the unknown and that's the only way to do that and the third obviously is to have test makers influencers in the know people in the limelight like for example Deepika people of influence who would be able to come out and share their stories because that also gives tremendous amount of courage for people like me to come out and talk about what it is like to actually live with an illness like this so I think that's how I would sum it up three key things thank you all for joining us and I've been getting messages for the last five minutes to conclude it although I would have love to have this conversation going on for another half an hour or so I mean this is really enriching thanks again and you guys are really doing a great job because you know when the illness has become a big problem for our country I was reading a report of WH of India I think is the most depressed country right now I don't know if this is the most after China I think it's a relative population I think yeah so anyway thanks again and we are very sorry that we started late because of technical problems and we have to finish it more or less on time thanks a lot thank you again thank you very much thank you Nazia thank you Nazia thank you sir thank you very much ok bye