 Now, moving further, we have with us Mr. Bobby Paul, General Manager of Marketing, thanks for the online audience, Neeta Nair, Assistant Editor, Impact Exchange for India, the fireside chat on monetizing news and winning the localization challenge for brands. So, I welcome both of you on screen. A very warm welcome and over to you, Neeta. Thank you so much, Kiyati. Malayalam and Urma is known for a lot of things. The most widely-read newspaper in India. The fifth most-read daily in the country as the IRS 2019. I would like to describe it as a Mamuti and Mohanlal combined of Malayalam myths. That is exactly how good a star Malayalam is in the market. And I hope my guests agree. Yes, I agree to you, send for some dates. And I love that anecdote you used. So, for a fireside chat here today, we have with us someone from the online arm of the group, which has been doing remarkably well in the digital news space. So, let me welcome Mr. Bobby Paul, GM Marketing, Malayalam and Urma online. Hello, Mr. Paul. Thank you, Neeta, for such a warm welcome. Looking forward. Tell me, Kerala loves its newspaper. Loud, teased, all conversations and news is very, very common in every nook and corner of the state. Now, how easy or difficult was it over the years to get the average Malayali to switch to digital news? Yeah, that's a quite a pertinent question. This is not something which is not just a matter of fact a concern for Manor Malone, but for the end-of-publishing community or publishers it is because when you grow a product and you have parallel products coming in, definitely the chance for cannibalization is always there. But having said that, you cannot still work with your typewriter, right? So, the technology has changed, the user working, the pattern has changed. So, you have to keep up with the times. So, it is basically something similar for publishing world also. You have to embrace what is coming new and especially for a young nation like India and a very literate state like Kerala where digital adoption is very high, mobile penetration is almost 100% and you talk about the news consumption habits traditionally and we have news genies. So, definitely as your time span is going towards mobile, definitely you have to be there. So, you cannot miss out on that. Even though we have a very, very strong print presence across the broadcast and review, we cover almost like 91% of the Kerala or Malayali diaspora. Okay. But is it largely the youth which is kind of accessing the website if you have to compare? Not really. So, last couple of years has been already a change happening, digital adoption, the drop in mobile and data prices in India is already one of the lowest. You are talking about comparing it to the US. It is around $12 in US for one GB of data and in India it is almost like 20-30 cents. So, it is a huge difference. So, anybody can be mobile and can access news and Malayalis as a community has been quite spread out within India and also outside India. So, you have traffic coming up for more than 200 geographies. There are a lot of other news for you to get national and international news. But what about hyperlocal which we master it over 130-year-old audios. So, that is what our strength comes in. So, the user base is there so much massively even because of the pandemic, which kind of left with a lot of people. Yeah. So, if you take a spice and that is the demographic of users for audience, our predominant group is 18 to 44 years like most of the publishers. But definitely you have users coming in from all age segments, especially after this pandemic where people cannot move out. And Kerala was lucky even in the last fast wave of COVID that the distribution of newspaper never got affected. So, yeah. So, it was pretty, it is spread out but the concentration is between 18 to 44 years. I'd like to come outside of Kerala and give a personal example. So, my father is used to read who's based out of Bombay. You should have two papers, English newspapers a day. But even in the remote shams that I tell him to delete his Malayalam or my app from his phone because of space constraints, there is likely to be a war in the house. So, you have a very, very loyal user there. So, tell me, have you ever seen merit in monetizing this maybe through a subscription model? Not so much for the e-paper but the constant updates I think is what they prefer. So, have you seen about, looked at subscription there? Yeah. So, I will answer a question in two parts. So, first, a small trick of the trade for your dad. So, Manorama app, you can just toggle back from English and Malayalam in just one touch of the button. So, that's a solution for that. And coming to the second part of the question, definitely our e-paper is already behind a payboard for the last two years. We are having solid plans to launch our subscription services by end of this financial year at least. So, yeah. So, we have quite a good tangent of audience which actually not present in Kerala, who want to know what is happening back in Kerala, would be the near shore customers for this kind of subscription services. But monetizing generic news in India is a big challenge. A lot of players are trying to tackle and try to find a solution and try to evolve. So, we will also be getting soon on that track and hopefully things will work out. Another thing is, Kerala politics is always trending on social media. Be it left versus BJP or Shailaja teacher. Youth living outside of Kerala who can't read or write Malayalam like me, they are seen actively discussing state politics. So, how are you ensuring that you have their attention and how strong is your social media game? Well, so again, I will answer the two parts. So, first part is basically, see, we are talking about a brand which is kind of a legacy brand, you know, who has been around for a long time, I mean, 134 plus years. So, it is something which is people are used to reading in your houses, discussing at home and offices, and even small chai kadas and chai corners, what we call. So, it's very ingrained in the system. And since the literacy rates and intellectual awareness levels are very high in Kerala, definitely news is something which they crave for. And of course, politics is a big, big part of that. Even though I'm not an official commentator on that, but I'll say that whatever content you can hook your customers or audience with, that is what you're going to pitch for. So, that's exactly what we are doing and finding decent amount of success over the years. And digital also nothing not quite new for us is almost 20 to 23 years we have been in digital. So, slow and rocky start, but yes. Raju, you actually mentioned legacy news publishers. And I want to come to this aspect, there are many relatively new digital news reporters like the News Minute, who are capturing the imagination of the youth. Now, tell me in this traditional publisher versus New Age Portals, David, what are the things that you are doing to emerge at the top? See, India has a quieted lot of headroom in the news space. I'm specifically talking about digital news space. Why? Because our country is so heterogeneous. So, it has 22 official languages, more than 1000 languages and dialects. So, you cannot cater to all the audience at one book, right? The news what a millennial or a Gen C user will crave for is not what a 40 plus year old person will be looking at. So, there is enough and more space for a lot of players to come and operate. It will only help rejuvenate the ecosystem. So, what is good about this new, I don't need any platforms or sites, but they are young, they are very nimble. They are very adapt to technologies. You don't have a baggage, what do you have from a lot of legacy operations. So, these are all the merits. But when it comes to merits or cause for legacy publishers, it's our trust what people have in us, the kind of network of news gathering, factual news gathering which has our whole set of reporters spread throughout Kerala and India and outside and a lot of stringers who work with us who actually gather a lot of credible news. And there is a mechanism where we treat it and make sure that what we put out is kind of genuine in most of the time. I'd like to now come to revenue. For years, online publishers have accused tech companies like Google of getting an undue advantage from their news content and now they've launched something called the news showcase which kind of provides monthly payouts to partner publishers. Now, as a biggest news brand in Kerala, do you see merit in being a partner with Google? Well, I cannot really comment on that but what little knowledge I have about it is basically it is a curated content offering from Google for various publishers and regional is yet to be launched. So, I think mainstream English and Indian is what I think it's already launched. So, we are in discussion. So, the discussion what we are having is about monetizing the content or curated content and some amount of monetization which Google gives us. Now, on the monetization part, it's still a little far off because we are not even started the relationship already. So, once that is in place, then you'll think about the monetization part. But right now, it is only content and monetizing content. So, ads will follow a little later. And you know, off late, we've seen this huge explosion of regional language content and news. The people beyond the metros and the big cities have never been this important. So, tell me in the past couple of months or maybe a year, are you seeing more and more national advertisers coming on Malayalam and Orma and as opposed to maybe two, three years ago, as opposed to also having national brands coming out from Kerala like VGAR or Muthuth advertising on the platform. Yeah. So, we have a healthy mix of national and regional or retail brands which operate from Kerala. So, when I say healthy mix, if I give a percentage on this, it's almost like a 50-50. So, basically, all the national brands that show want to tap into the consumer state like Kerala were, Kerala economy is kind of insulated to a lot of what is happening within India. There is a lot of money flowing from outside of India, especially GCC and elsewhere. So, what happens is that there is a buoyant consumer, you know, spends already happening from Kerala. And if you look at auto, white goods kind of numbers from their respective organization that you can always see auto, Kerala, Maharashtra will be always on the top. So, there is quite a lot of demand for that. So, national and within Kerala, spenders are always the mix and match may change. For example, the second wave which just happened in Kerala and elsewhere in India, there is a bit of slowdown for retail market because things were locked out and you know, retails were not operating and things like that. So, it was a major prominence for the national brands. But having said that, once the lockdown is stopped from 17th onwards and shops and establishments started opening up, things are coming back. But it will take a little more time. But tell me about these ads on Malayalam Anurma customized for a Malayali audience. I tell you why I asked because I was going through one of the sessions earlier on our own platform. Kavita Ganeshan from TVS Eurogrip said that, you know, there was a TVC that they wanted to play in the Kerala market and which had a cat crossing your path which kind of shows bag love. But in Kerala, we don't have that kind, that particular superstition. We have many more but we don't have that particular superstition. So, they completely changed that to something else. So, are you seeing that happen even on digital, you know, on Malayalam Anurma digital, wherein, you know, ads are being made specifically for your kind of audience? Yes, there is quite a good amount of effort what is happening on localization front, you know, catering specifically to a Malayali diaspora in Malayalam language. But there is quite a bit of challenge for a lot of agencies and international brands as a kind of, you know, localize for the local taste. So, we also helped a lot of brands with our, you know, content team to actually localize. So, it is not just literal translation. It is more of the getting the feeling of why you've got Malayali diaspora, you know, treat that good and, you know, not so good. I'll tell you a little example. I mean, there was a large champion from a very leading video sharing site last autumn, where they showed, you know, they're crushing Papadam as a contest. So, there was a bit of a backlash which happened telling that it's food basically, so you cannot mistreat food, right? So, if you would have, if the brand would have understood what Malayalam or Malayalis are and what they value, then this kind of small mistakes would have been avoided. So, that is the place where Malayalam or Malayalam or Malayalam or like can help a lot of brands to localize content. Finally, you said that it is not what you say, but what they hear that matters. True. So, Onam is going to come up in the next few months. What are the big innovative ways in which you're lowering the advertisers to Malayalam and over online? Yeah, this Onam is almost around the corner. It's another one out of months, if you put numbers to it. This year, our overarching theme for Onam is basically cautious optimism I would call. Enjoy responsibility, celebrate responsibility. The approach we are taking for this Onam is basically on vertical based or segment-based approach because the needs and requirements of each of the verticals like auto, SMCG, fashion, gifting, all is different. Now, being a lot of people opting for digital or omnichannel kind of group, we are customizing a lot of options for this kind of large segments, which I think they can cut across the clutter which normally happens in Onam. So, this is where our focus is going to be for the Onam. And how much is the growth and revenue are you expecting foreseeing in this season? See, every year you clock a new revenue benchmark during the Onam season, but if you compare it from last year to this year, we should be looking at least 20-25 percent growth over last year. And last year has also been a growth, in spite of being a family. I'm talking about digital per se. Okay, fantastic. And with that, we've come to the end of this discussion. Thank you so much, Mr. Paul, for joining us. May you have a fantastic Onam season and me, Mahabali, bring with me with a lot of hope and joy for Malayalam Anurma and whole of Kerala and the country, to be honest. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. And it was good speaking to you and having all the listeners across India or worldwide. Hope things work out and all stay safe and have a nice Onam. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for those times. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good day. Thank you, Mr. Paul. And thank you, Nita, for steering this wonderful conversation, bringing in such nuggets of insights through this conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you.