 Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us at the mid-year review of the ABP News Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2020. My name is Kapi Kawa and I'm delighted to be your host today. As you probably are aware, the Pitch Madison Advertising Report brought out by the Exchange for Media Group and Madison Media is the most awaited report on predictions of ad spends in the media and advertising industry. Over the years, the report has become a benchmark in the industry and is often quoted in the media, pitch presentations, company boardrooms, corporate reports and also IPO documents filed by media companies. Now, this report tracks and analyzes how and where advertising monies are spent in the last and also projects the future growth. It aims at understanding the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for marketers and various media, be it print, TV, radio, out-of-form internet or cinema. Earlier in February this year, many of you must have joined us at the unveiling of the report which had projected a 10.4% growth in 2020 for the ad market. Since then, the COVID setback has turned our lives and the entire businesses and industries upside down. Therefore, for the first-ever time, we are unveiling a mid-year review of the report to put the COVID-19 impact into perspective and to present a forecast for H2 2020. We would like to thank our presenting partner, ABP News. Thank you for joining us in this interview. And also, ladies and gentlemen, I would now request all our participants, whether you are joined us on any of the social media platforms or on our very own platform, I'd request all of you to join us in the digital conversation using our hashtag, which is PMAR 2020. So do let us know, tweet to us, use any of our platforms and do converse with us because this is one of a kind event that we bring to you here. And now, for the welcome address, may I invite on the screen Dr. Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Business World and Exchange for Media to say a few words, please. Thank you, Jati. I think Sam and Vikram have put this together because I missed the February pitch medicine advertising outlook 2020. But as you rightly said that COVID since March has dominated headlines, it has impacted the branding, advertising, marketing domain. And luckily, the festival season is round the corner. 14 November is Diwali. We are almost three months away from Diwali. Today, the IPL principal sponsor was announced. DREAM 11 has paid 222 crores to be the IPL 2020 principal sponsor. We had Exchange for Media.com broke that. And subsequently, everyone has picked that. So really, we are talking at a time where the advertising and marketing activity has started to pick up. The billion or the trillion dollar question is how much advertising will come back? Will we make up for the loss of advertising in March, April, May, June, July? So how much advertising should we expect in September, October, November, December? So that's the question on everybody's mind in the advertising marketing media domain. So Sam and esteemed Vikram, everyone at Madison has put together this media review which everyone in the media marketing advertising industry is looking forward to. I don't know to steal the thunder from Sam's presentation, but I can only say that looking at the reported confirms that whenever there is a rain, look for rainbows. Whenever there is darkness, look for stars. So there are lots of rainbows and lots of stars in the pitch Madison advertising report 2020, the mid-year question. So I look forward to both this exchange for media and as a media owner in business world, I look forward to looking at the numbers. I think the only hint I would say the environment is improving for a lot of sectors and you'll see the granularity in the report. So all the best for the festive season. It will be better than what it is now. That's a given how much better you'll know soon. What will be better? You'll know soon. So back to you, Kathy, for getting Sam and the Madison team. Thank you so much, Dr. Bhattra. I know there are so many questions. What is it going to be? What are the predictions that were told or in fact mentioned in the February edition of the report? Would they be true? How different they are? There are so many questions like Dr. Bhattra mentioned and all of them will be answered by someone who I'm going to invite next on the screen. It is now time ladies and gentlemen to listen in to a man who honestly needs no introduction. But let me just try to say a few words about him. He is recognized as one of the most influential persons in the media and entertainment industry and continues to lead Madison as the largest independent media and advertising agency in the country. With more than 30 years at the forefront of the media and advertising industry, Mr. Sam Balsara, Chairman of Madison World, has an ocean of knowledge and insights that very few in the industry have. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I hope all of you are ready to listen in to Mr. Sam Balsara who will share with us the key highlights from the mid-year review of the Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2020. A very warm welcome to you, sir. Thank you, Kathy. And good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This time I come before you under unique circumstances that I have not witnessed in my 48 years of working life. And I'm sure nor have you. The transient nature of everything around us has once again been reinforced by the pandemic. In the past five months, the way we live, the way we spend our money, the way we work has all changed. And this has had a catastrophic effect on the business world. And of course, our advertising and media world was no exception. Since so much change has taken place in the last few months, we thought you would welcome an opportunity to hear our views on what happened in quarter one and quarter two, especially quarter two, and what one can expect in the second half. Now, it's generally known that in quarter two, ADEX has collapsed. But let us see to what extent. It's also not so widely known that ADEX, in fact, contracted in quarter one two, that is Jan Feb March. Perhaps for the first time in many decades, we estimate a drop in H1 20 of as high as 39%. And this is made up of a drop as high as 65% in quarter two and a drop of 8% in quarter one versus corresponding period last year. Even the poster boy of ADEX, Digital, which has been driving growth of ADEX in the last few years, could not withstand the impact of COVID-19 and contracted by 7%. Of course, this figure is insignificant in comparison to the 47% drop that traditional media witnessed. Looking at it, quarter one, in quarter two, traditional media suffered a drop of 71%, whereas Digital got by with a drop that was half of traditional media at 35%. Television and Digital seem to be bouncing back from June, but other mediums like print, cinema, and outdoor have not been so fortunate. Print is showing some signs of revival from July. It is significant to note that ADEX has shown a negative growth in H1, even if for comparison purposes, you exclude events such as IPL, ICC World Cup, and general elections from H119. The only growth we saw in 2020 came in Digital ADEX in quarter one, 20. In absolute terms, ADEX has degrown from 35,110 crores in H1 to 21,298 crores in H1 2020, a drop of almost 14,000 crores. We believe ADEX has not seen a drop as dramatic as this in anyone's living memory. The performance of TV ADEX in H1 has reinforced our view that TV continues to be the staple diet for most regular advertisers, and it continues to be the largest contributor to ADEX with a 38% share in H1. Digital has displaced print, having grown in share from 20% in H119 to 30% in H120, whereas print has lost share by 5 percentage points dropping from 30 in H119 to 25 in H120. We see a wide variation of growth rates amongst different mediums in H1. All traditional mediums de-grew by more than 50% in H1, except TV is de-grew a little less by 43%. The least drop was experienced by digital, as I said earlier, at 7%. In terms of category growth, whilst every category shows a drop, telecom travel, clothing, fashion, and durables were the worst hit. FMCG predictably showed up to be the most resilient and its share moved up to 38% compared to 33%. It had in full year 2019. Despite so much talk about auto industry facing a demand slab, auto still comes in as the second largest sector with a 8% contribution. Let's see how top advertisers behaved in H1. Predictably, the top 50 list has as many as 20 FMCG advertisers and the top 10 list has as many as 8 FMCG advertisers. Hindustan Beauty Leaver continues to top the elite list by a wide margin. Amazon has dropped in rank from number 2 to number 4 as we believe e-commerce adoption galloped, indicating that they did not need to do so much advertising to maintain and grow their sales. The top 50 advertisers together now spend 83%. Last year, it was 78% of their budgets on a combination of television and digital, which seemed to have become the top advertisers' favorite mediums. This also indicates that large advertisers are over-indexed on their spends in TV and digital. HUL in our estimates spent about 1,300 to 1,500 crores, followed by PNG, Rekit, Amazon, and Maruti. Cadbury, Lactose Methcline, ITC, Colgate, and Gaudridge Consumer makes it to the top 10 list and grew substantially up in rank. In our list, we have 13 new players when compared with 2019, all featuring in the second half from rank 26 to 50. Some among them are Pepsi, Rohit Sarfaktan, Shadi.com, SBI, Abbott Healthcare, and Ultra Tech Cement. Among the top 50 players, there's a lot of change in ranks. Only three players maintain rank, 24 gained in rank, and 10 dropped in rank. Prominent amongst those who lost rank are Winnie, Reliance, Mahendra, and Vivo Mobile. Surprisingly, Dream 11, which was part of the top five advertisers in our list of 2019, for the first time, now doesn't feature in our top 50 in H1, perhaps due to absence of live sporting events. But as we heard today, they're coming back with a bang, having won the IPL naming sponsorship bid. Let's come specifically now to quarter two and see what has been the impact of COVID on Indian ADEX in this quarter. For the first time, since digital registered its presence in ADEX, in our estimate, digital medium has de-grown in quarter two and de-grown by as much as 35%. Of course, traditional medium dropped at double the rate at 71%, resulting in an overall de-growth in quarter two of 65%. Coming to individual mediums, in quarter two, more than 80% of ADEX contribution is by TV and digital together, highest till date. Print contributes to a marginal 18% while radio, OH, and cinema were all insignificant. Print contribution has come down to 18%. OH and cinema grew and almost black out. Radio registered a billing in our estimate of just 71 crores and ended with a share of just 1%. Predictably, the months of April and May, the first two full months of lockdown, were the worst ever for ADEX. Despite the huge Philippine viewership and higher time spent by audiences, TV dropped dramatically in ADEX terms by 61% and even good discounts offered by many media except news channels could not bring most advertisers to ADEX. A large number of advertisers disappeared in quarter two from ADEX. We see that almost more than half the advertisers disappeared from print and radio and a quarter from TV. After two disastrous months of April and May, as Unlocked 1.0 unfolded, ad inventory on TV and digital started to come back in June 20, but perhaps at a slightly lower price point. Full recovery will take time and depend on when the lockdown ends. Let's now take a closer look at individual mediums. First, we'll start with television. TV ADEX dropped by more than 40%, 43% to be precise in H1 and registered a market share of 38% down from 40% in H119. Now, as I said earlier, if you think this degrowth is because of the absence of Lok Sabha elections which took place in H1 or the absence of IPL and World Cup, I have to tell you that even if you ignore these three mega events, the drop in H1 is still a whopping 28% and the drop is 42% if we consider only quarter two. It is also significant that like most of the other mediums, traditional mediums, in quarter one, that is Jan Feb March, when COVID had not raised its ugly head in India, TV ADEX dropped by 13%, which is a poor reflection on our state of the economy. TV increased its dominance in TV ADEX with a share of 56% higher than the 2019 figure of 49%. This is primarily due to increase in advertising by newer, what we call COVID categories and personal hygiene, like sanitizer, hand wash liquids, disinfectant sprays, and multiple products related to immunity building and of course, lower spends by other categories. E-commerce including OTT and other social media platforms also contribute to 8% of the overall TV pie. All other categories showed a degrowth in H120 with highest drop being witnessed predictably in travel, tourism, telecom, beverages, auto, and durables. An analysis of FCT being by various donors shows that all genres have degrown by at least 10% to 20% in H1 and some like music de-grew by 44% and English movies by 41%. This drop is much higher in quarter to 20%. Despite there not being any live sporting events in quarter to the drop in sports is much lower at 15%. TV FCT volume also dropped by 13% in H1 and by 21% in quarter to. The COVID-19 period has seen a spike in media consumption and total viewership on TV despite there being no original content all attributed to the stay at home and work from home norms. However, unfortunately, this rise in viewership has not translated into TV ad-ex because of lack of money, advertising money in the market. A sharp drop in ad-ex is on account of the fact that many advertisers, 1171 to be precise, skipped advertising altogether on television and many large advertisers who continued to advertise brought down their advertising budgets. TV has been the first to get off the block and June has brought in cheer for TV ad-ex signifying that some categories cannot afford to stay away from TV advertising for too long to sustain their market shares and for fear of losing share to competition. This to us is also an indication that advertisers have confidence that demand will revive and advertising can play a big role in fueling it. This revival has sustained in July and the indications are that it will do so also in August. Let's now take some time to review digital. As I said earlier, digital to suffered a minor degrowth of just 7% compared to other media that suffered a contraction of 40 to 55%. In absolute terms, digital ad-ex in H1 in our estimates stood at about 6,500 crores. Looking at digital ad-ex in H1 by its various verticals, in our estimates, search, social, video, and display each contribute between 20% and 30% to the total pie. Video maintains a share of 30%, continuing to be the largest contributor. Social media with a spike in spends came in next with a share of 26%. E-commerce advertising platforms have made their presence felt with a 10% share. Digital now contributes 30% in H1. It was only 18% just two years back and has firmly displaced print, which declined in share from 30% to 25% in H1. Imagine a share gain from 18% to 30% in two years. During quarter 2, digital media unfortunately also suffered the COVID effect and dropped by a substantial 35%. Of course, this drop must be seen in comparison to the drop of 79% in print and 61% in TV. Categories that have outperformed through COVID-19 period are what we call EFGH, E for E-commerce Entertainment and EduTech, F for FoodTech, FriendTech, and FMCG, for gaming, groceries, and government, and H for HealthTech and health care. Let's take a look at our old favorite print. The second largest medium in ad print, of course, suffered a major setback in H120. Not only did quarter 2 see a drop because of lockdown when newspaper distribution stopped in many parts of the country, but quarter 1 also saw a drop of 17% because of a slowing economy. The full H120 in our estimate has degrown by 51%. In absolute terms, H120 print ad-x is estimated at 5,237 crores, of which as much as 4,020 crores came in quarter 1 itself. Categories like FMCG, auto, and education continue to be the main contributors and contributed almost 40% share to print ad-x. It was 38% in 2019. Education, with a 16% contribution, has overtaken FMCG as the largest contributor to print ad-x, dethroning FMCG, which came second at 15%. Despite the setback faced by the auto industry in the market, it ranks third in contribution to print ad-x at 14%. So it's 16, 15, 14. Publications across languages show a drop in space consumed of more than 50%. English and Hindi publications continue to dominate and contribute close to 60% of total volume, similar to what it has achieved in recent years. The only positive sign that print publications can draw from this lockdown is the increase in adoption of their e-paper versions. And sooner or later, most publications can be expected to monetize this trend. In terms of volume or space consumed, there is a 53% decline in H1 and not so surprisingly, a 77% decline in volume in quarter two. Print suffered a major decline during April, May, June, COVID-19 quarter. And in our estimate, dropped by almost 80% and registered a value of just 1,200 crores approximately. All publications took a big hit during the lockdown. As a result, the print medium, which has in the last few years contributed at least 30% to total ad-ex has dropped in share to 18%. However, some green shoots have begun to appear from late June. Over 14,000 advertisers, or more than half the usual number, disappeared from print ad-ex during April, May, June quarter, having reduced in numbers from as many as 70,801 in quarter to 19 to 28,608 in quarter to 20. Now let's see what happened in outdoor. Overall, outdoor ad-ex declined by 55% in first half of the year and closed at 760 crore. On account of this, OH share of total ad-ex, which has always been above 5%, has come down to 4% in H1. Outdoor advertisers were quick to realize that because of empty roads, the effectiveness of outdoor would dramatically decline. And therefore, the OH industry recorded almost nil billings in quarter to with some campaigns trickling in towards second half of June 20. Even quarter one was a bit lackluster, with ad-ex having degrown by 13% in Jan 5, March over the same quarter last year. While lockdown across cities and towns led to no specific spending in outdoor, many municipalities mandated outdoor owners to display corona messages free of cost, adding to their woes. The lockdown has significantly changed user mobility pattern and current traffic movements are very different compared to pre-COVID traffic movements. Realizing this, we at Madison launched an extension to our site evaluation tool to measure traffic count, which showed that traffic is back to around 50% to 60% on major arterial roads and circles in metro cities. But revival in outdoor ad-ex is yet to take place in any noticeable way. Let's now take a look at radio. Like print, radio has also been severely hit by the slowing of economy in quarter one and the lockdown in quarter two. The cumulative impact of drop in both these quarters is that radio ad-ex has dropped to half its size, dropped by 52%. In absolute terms, radio ad-ex stood at just 569 crores for H120. In H120, radio held on to its market share of 3%, same as H119, because other media also dropped in size. Almost every category on radio seems to have got affected by the lockdown. BFSI, auto, e-commerce, FMCG, and real estate, though are the categories that stand out. In terms of category contribution, BFSI leads the pack contributing to 13% followed by FMCG at 10%. The ad inventory of most radio stations dropped by more than 70% in quarter two and dropped by more than 40% in first half. Even good discounts offered by many broadcasters failed to bring advertisers back into the radio market and we saw 50% of advertisers drop out compared to normal times in these three months. Like in print, almost half the advertisers, as many as 2,000, disappeared from radio in April, May, June. Like for TV, radio listenership too has increased in the last few months, but radio could not monetize this increase, mainly because of lack of money in the advertising market. In absolute terms, radio addicts in quarter two did a billing of just 71 crores in our estimate, registering an 87% drop. With this drop, radio's market share in addicts dropped to just 1% in AMJ quarter. Lastly, let's take a look at cinema. The nationwide lockdown due to COVID pandemic has knocked out cinema as a medium with all cinemas ordered shut in quarter two. Quarter one registered also a lackluster performance with cinema addicts in our estimate dropping by 16% and doing a billing of just 176 crores. With quarter two being nil, H1 dropped by 52% as compared with H119. Even as cinemas remain close till date, indications are that when the open will be allowed to operate at only 25% capacity for a few months, which will no doubt add to the miseries of cinema owners. So let us now come to the all important forecast which in the current fluid circumstances, you will agree, is a bit of a challenge to make. But nevertheless, we have ventured to predict a range in which we see addicts settling in H2. We expect addicts to recover in H2 and grow at a dramatic rate that will range from 60% to 72% over the subdued first half of this year or grow 6% to 13% over the second half of 2019. This will lead to a full year addicts contracting by 14% to 18% and addicts value to reach pessimistically to settle a little over 2017 level or optimistically a little below 2018 addicts level. H2 addicts will, of course, primarily depend on demand coming back in markets, which will depend on sentiment and consumers' outlook of the immediate future, which in our view will also depend on when government and private offices are allowed to open and work on a regular basis. Nevertheless, we are optimistic because we believe that enlightened advertisers will do their best to stimulate demand and will need to advertise to protect their share. They cannot continue with a wait and watch approach for more than six months. Moreover, the two largest mediums, television and digital, have already started showing signs of robust revival in June and July. Digital, the fastest growing medium, we believe has almost recorded a v-shaped recovery. We expect digital to continue its growth path unabated and forecast growth of as much as 28% to 38% over H2 2019. TV, we believe, will also get back in full form. TV has shown early signs of getting back to normalcy and should get back informed by September or October latest, aided by the launch of IPL, impact shows like KBC Big Boss, and many more. Whilst radio, auto, and cinema have not yet shown signs of revival, we believe the festive season should see traction for these mediums. Cinema ad-ex will, of course, depend on when government will allow them to open and when audiences will start visiting them. Looking at Hulia 2020 and comparing it to 2019, we expect digital, the poster boy which has registered unprecedented growth in the last five years to be the only medium to grow on a full year basis. All other mediums, unfortunately, will decline in our estimate. TV should see the lowest decline of 12% to 17% and cinema, the highest of 40% to 60% Our full report will give you details of each individual medium and the figures we expect them to reach. Finally, we would like to end as usual with some advice for all my advertiser friends. Our first advice and actually our belief is that advertisers should not and will not sacrifice brand-building efforts to protect their profits in age 220. They know that advertising is the cheapest known stimulus to stimulate demand and retain and build share. Enlightened advertisers know that share, once lost, is extremely difficult and extremely expensive to regain. Our second piece of advice is that advertisers should focus on supply chain management and make it robust and also focus on advertising inputs in select high-potential districts of semi-urban and rural India. Madison's town and country software tool can help advertisers to identify these high-potential districts in semi-urban and rural areas. And these districts are likely to yield higher returns to advertising investments. Our third piece of advice is predictably for advertisers to focus on e-commerce and set high targets as percent contribution to sales from e-commerce. Adoption of e-commerce during April-May-June period has been very good and high. And key advertisers are reporting substantial growth in e-commerce contribution to sales. Digital adoption during the lockdown period is likely to continue beyond the lockdown. And advertisers should hone in their capabilities and expertise in these channels. Finally, we would like to end with some unsolicited advice for all my media friends. I don't know if it will be welcome, but here it is. In our view, media should be as flexible as possible and try to attract as much advertising as possible and help advertisers maximize their return on advertising investments at a time like this. It is in media's interest to attract as much advertising as possible in volume terms and not in terms of cost per unit in age to 20, especially. This will help bring demand back into the economy and push the economy into an upward spiral which in turn can only benefit media. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to me. The report will be available soon, later in the evening, and we'll probably mail many of you a copy. And hopefully, you will be able to lay your hands on it quite easily. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sam, for that detailed review on the report. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it is time to unveil the much-anticipated mid-year review of the ADP News Presents Pitch Madison Advertising Outlook H1 2020. Here we go, everyone. I hope all of you are ready. Without further ado, we present to you the Pitch Madison Advertising Outlook H1 2020. Let's take a look. We have it, ladies and gentlemen, the mid-year review of the Pitch Madison report. Don't forget to keep your conversations going with us on Twitter or any of the social media platforms using our hashtag PMAR2020. And now, may I please call upon Mr. Naval Aguja, co-founder, Exchange for Media, to share with us his thoughts on the report. A very warm welcome to you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Khyati. And thank you, Sam, for enlightening all of us. And if I remember correctly, I think this is the third time we have done a mid-year review. And this year happens to be the most unprecedented of all. The first mid-year review we had done during the last global economic crisis, which was in 2008. Then we did another one two, three years back, and now a third one. And as expected, this is amongst the most gloomiest ones. And one of the, I think, very critical points you mentioned towards the end, which is advice for advertisers. I think it is a very important role for all of us in the advertising and the media business to ensure that a lot of advertisers who've been focusing more on performance-driven and lead-driven marketing over the last few months, naturally, are moved towards desire-driven advertising. And media rates, obviously, play a very, very important part there, flexibility from media side. And I was talking to a couple of friends in the morning. And a lot of them, especially from television, told me that September looks like a month when they'll be back to an index of 100. So that, I would imagine, is very good news. But I think one of the other important aspects that you know, which your report highlights is the fact that it is not just COVID that has led to degrowth. We were already degrowing in Q1. And as many of you must have experienced, January was a growth month. And then February, March onwards, things started going down. There's an important lesson for us, all of us there, which is that all the, what we call, convergence of TMT in our business, which is technology, media, and telecom, is shaking up our business models. It is disrupting business models. And perhaps media owners especially, and to some extent, hybridizing agency also, agencies also need to be very aware of that larger trend. And COVID kind of accelerates that trend. We might get back to index of 100 in September and the months thereafter. But the fact that the larger disruption that is happening in the media space because of technology, because of access to telecom is here to stay and that will accelerate that as we go along. I was over the weekend reading a very interesting book, which I would recommend to all of you. That's the autobiography of Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney. And he's been in that position for 15 odd years. And he explains how in 2005, when he took over the position of CEO, he consciously presented to the board that because of the forces of technology, they need to reinvent their own business. And to reinvent first, they have to disrupt their own business. And I think that's a need a lot of us media owners in India are already seeing. And perhaps it is also time to look at consumers to pay more, because media is clearly in India under indexed when it comes to getting money from consumers. A lot of that attempt has been made. Entertainment television has become better when it has come to get consumers to paying, perhaps news media and print also needs to monetize the consumer and more. Before I go, as Sam started his presentation by saying this festive season is a critical one, somebody said this is the fifth quarter of the year. Hopefully things will improve, but we all need to look at how, we fight the forces of disruption and post COVID, we come out stronger, especially with the learnings that this has given us. So thank you for all of you for joining us. We look forward to the panel now being moderated by Vikram. So back to you, Khyati, and look forward to the panel, Vikram. Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Ahuja. And definitely it is this very interesting panel that we all are looking forward to. But before that, I'd definitely like to take this opportunity and thank our tech partner, ladies and gentlemen, Appalike from Madison Tert and here is a glimpse of what this platform holds. Let's take a look. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now moving on to a very interesting segment, one that many of you are awaiting eagerly. I'm sure of that. While it has been a really challenging 2020, so far the festive season is also just around the corner and it's something that the entire marketing ecosystem is gearing up for. Now to discuss the upcoming festive season and how it can be leveraged for maximum impact, and it is my pleasure now to introduce our esteemed panelists and the industry leaders onto the screen. First up, ladies and gentlemen, we have with us Amit Singhal, managing director and CEO of Asian Paints. Thank you for joining us today, Amit. Next, may I invite Kunal Bel, co-founder and CEO of Snapdeal. Glad to have you join us, ladies and gentlemen, Kunal Bel from Snapdeal. We also have with us Rohit Gupta, resident Sony Pictures Network. Of course, we are delighted to have you, Rohit. And ladies and gentlemen, we also have with us Mr. Avinash Pandey, CEO, AVP Network. A very warm welcome to you too. And also a very warm welcome to Shailesh Gupta, director, Jhagran Prakashan Limited. Thank you so much for joining all of you here with us today. And I'd now like to introduce you to our moderator for this very promising panel discussion. I now invite Vikram Satuja, group CEO of Media and Out-of-Home Medicine to kindly take over. Also, before... Thank you, Khyapi. And a very warm welcome to all of you who have tuned in. And a very warm welcome to the fantastic panelists that we have here. Hi, Amit, Kunal, Shailesh, Avinash, and Rohit. You know, a lot of what's said, whether it's going to be six to 13% for growth versus year ago, a lot of it is really going to be dependent on how the entire festive months plan out. Typically, the 10 weeks preceding Diwali accounts for 10, this is what, 20% of the year accounts for something like 30 to 35% of the ad-ex in these 10 weeks. With IPL there, this time it could go upwards of 40, 45%. Now, a lot of advertisers and marketers are really hoping that the famed or the expected B-shaped recovery is really going to happen on the back of the festival. So who better to win on this very, very important topic than a person who has a visibility to the entire marketplace, or a person who is probably running one of the... I mean, it's a company whose value has increased in four over the years, probably is one of the ones which has the entire supply line system completely down to a T and is one of the most aggressive growing kind of companies for him to win. And of course, we've got our friends from TV and print who are actually going to be telling us just how each of the mediums are going to set back up. So you know, the way I'm going to quickly go about this is I want to first cover a few aspects. I'm going to cover the supply chain. I want to cover the entire part about sentiment. Then I want to see how people are going to be spending this money. And of course, I'd like to have some nice closing thoughts from all of you. So, you know, let's start with the entire supply chain piece. And I know that when this entire disaster hit us in March, beginning April, even those categories where like FMCG's and all where the demand was all there, even they shut down because very simply, there was no supply. There was a lockdown. So factories were shut, stores were shut. The migrants had gone home and a whole lot of supply had broken down. So let's start the discussion with the reality check. We know that advertising doesn't start until supply is completely or at least moderately inflated. So let's, when I'll start with you, you had an overview of the full marketplace in terms of supply chain working. Do you think things are back to near normal now? Thanks, Ikram, for having me and the pleasure of being here and great to be with all the esteemed panelists. You know, actually, I do feel that at the outset, this will continue to be a volatile year where we'll have moments of euphoria and moments of pain followed by more moments of euphoria and pain. And it'll take some time before all of this probably stabilizes nicely. So at least from retail e-commerce and at least online retail e-commerce standpoint, there was, we were down to zero for a couple of months, probably starting in March, going until mid-May. And then after we saw a fairly sharp recovery where, you know, e-commerce companies were reporting anywhere from 100 to 130, 140% of pre-lockdown volumes by July, which is sort of consistent with our experience as well. That said, you know, I think we all started celebrating a bit too soon and come August with a lot of the, you know, we have, our country has floods in many states right now. There are these intermittent lockdowns that are happening, sometimes on the weekends, sometimes on just irregular days of the month. And all of those are wreaking very, very significant havoc on the supply chain as we speak right now. But hopefully this is temporary and Reigns will subside in a month's time. And by the time the festive season is upon us in a month and a half or two, things should improve considerably. At least we are all banking on that as well. Because at least on the e-commerce landscape, we've seen that a lot of our, the sellers and the brands on marketplaces, they are depending very, very significantly this year on e-commerce to drive their sales. And as I was hearing Sam earlier to make up for lost time during the festive season this year. So I would say my current view is cautiously optimistic. I won't call it, you know, undeniably optimistic and I won't call it pessimistic for sure. I think I'm somewhere in the middle and I would say most people would likely be, most people who have a digital bent in their business would likely be feeling the same way. Great. Thanks. I'm at Asian Games with arguably got the strongest supply chain in the entire country. Is there any advice that you can give companies that are struggling on this court? Okay, great. Thanks Vikram for inviting me and I think good to see, you know, great panel here to that extent. See when we look at our category, our category is something which is close to a discretionary category. So, you know, there is, it's not something like a food or a digital consumption which kind of really goes on. It's something which is really discretionary because you can always put off painting and you can really kind of look at deferring that to some other date. So from our point of view for us as well, you know, as Kunal said that, you know, most of the April was a washout and it was only till about, you know, the first week of May that we really started kind of really getting back into shape in terms of what is there. And given the fact that we have huge plants across the country, one to stop and start a plant is not something which is very easy. Okay. And when you stop a large chemical plant, you know, there are processes and things which kind of go into it which is not really easy to restart in a jiffy to that extent. And therefore I think it came with its own kind of problems in terms of what is it. But I think given the, you know, the way we dealt with it, the good part was that we were anyway staring on a large inventory which we had because we closed a little bit abruptly in March given the lockdown the way it was announced. And we had good material with us in terms of looking at really fulfilling the pent up kind of demand which was there in the market to that extent. And that kind of really helped us. And, you know, the real focus which we really maintained was looking at the entire tier three, tier four in June because that's something which these cities were largely not really kind of plagued with COVID. So to say, and they were literally kind of a little bit normal in terms of their disposition in terms of how it looked. And therefore I think May we did quite well with almost 80% of our base in terms of the volumes we could do. And I think June was spectacular. You know, we did a double digit volume growth which was there, but a lot of that stuff was also stimulated in the market by us by doing a lot of work around really getting the paranoia of the customer's mind in terms of looking at how safe painting can be and how they can get people into their houses to kind of paint. So overall, I think the supply chain kind of shot back very strongly and given the fact that our supply chain is very technologically controlled. I think we kind of got our forecasting models very strongly aligned in terms of looking at saying that by not expending so much of working capital you were still able to kind of control your inventory at the same time, looked at catering to the demand which was coming which was patchy across the country. We didn't know that there was a clear pattern which was coming out of it. But I think we sailed through it well and as I kind of look at it, I think what a one. Overall, when we look at it, you know, we were down almost by about 40% on top line, okay? Which was not bad given the category in terms of what we are. And since then we are seeing an upward search whether it is July in terms of seeing in terms of the type of things which are happening to that extent. And while, yes, what Konal said, there is this whole paradigm change of sporadic lockdowns which kind of keep on coming in all shapes and sizes on all days kind of a zone. You know, you still seem to be sailing off still better in terms of looking at what you can do in terms of stability demand to that extent. So therefore, I think the supply chain has reacted extremely well in terms of adapting to the new norm in that way. And as we see it today, I think things are not going to change so fast, okay? And I am not giving it till March that things are going to change. But I think as marketers and as corporates, we need to kind of see in terms of how do we adjust to this new norm. And within this new norm, we start keep on looking at in terms of stimulating demand, looking at new ways, looking at innovation, looking at new marketing norms in terms of what we need to do, new media strategies in terms of what we need to do. And therefore, I think while there are monsoons, we are seeing monsoons slightly more positively because I think given the larger agrarian economy we are, I think we see that definitely this will have a good effect with respect to some of the rural incomes which are going to come about as we look at future. And therefore, I think we are definitely seeing that there might not be up search in terms of what looks like a big festival season. But I don't see that it would be something which would be an absolutely blank kind of a state in terms of coming in. So there is some level of optimism there in terms of how things kind of look at. And I think supply chains are really getting to kind of get it to it. Great, so we've got some great learnings to start the state of the bats. It is going to be a volatile year. There is a need for better forecasting, having good amount of technology to actually fuel your entire supply chain. And of course, being close to your market to see which ones are working and then to all the other concerns of your customers. So while this is from the marketer standpoint, even from the media supply chain, Kailesh, one of the issues that advertisers keep on asking right now is as far as print is concerned, there is a real concern that has been clearly come back and his calculation back to what it was earlier. And given that we don't have too much data to ABC or whatever, even IRS won't be coming for a while. How would you like to convey the concerns of people about print supply chain being back in scale by an uproar speed? Thank you Vikram for making me a part of this panel and thank you everybody for making me be here. As far as supply, can you hear me? Yes, yes. Okay. As far as supply chain or for us, the circulation is concerned. I think in our area of operation, which is basically North UP, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, our circulation was affected in the month of May and June, in the month of May and June, but from July onward, and our effective amount which was affected was not more than 60%, 40%. So we were still doing a circulation of about 60, 65%. But slowly and surely, our circulation now has come back to about 80, 85%. Why I say that because 15 or 20% which we are still affected is because of our NCR market, Gurgaon and Delhi. The effect of the newspaper circulation mainly happened in the metros where there was community living or where there were tall buildings. Here in our area of operation, we do not have too many multi-stories like Mumbai or Delhi or Gurgaon. So our effectiveness of the newspaper, in fact, in the entire COVID time, newspaper really played a very, very big role for the local citizens because they were actually getting the information which they wanted, which was in and around where they live. And the newspaper really played a very, very vital role. So I do not know where this perception of a thing came that the circulations have been affected. Of course, most of our clients and agencies are based out of metros and metros were one of the main reasons why this whole thing followed. But as far as our area of operation is concerned, still as we talk, we are sitting out in around 80, 85% of circulation and our supply chain, which is hawkers and to the last mile has never been affected. Let's hope your voice features of people sitting living in the high-rises and the metros are also the high-rises. Rohit, general entertainment is another one which has got affected by COVID because that's the time when GEC has always been the place which has got the lion's share of the ad spends. And then of course, the entire program, fresh programming shut down for two, three months, share of general entertainment went down. I know Sony did reasonably well, but very well in that period because you were still able to hold on to audiences, but in general GEC had some kind of setback. Now, as you move with fresh programming, hopefully coming back in, you're going to face the second double, the double value of IPL, which typically erodes another 10, 15% of GEC. What is the clean up from a general entertainment standpoint? What is a message you'd like to give out that all is well as far as eyeballs and that supply chain is concerned? So thank you for having me on this panel. Yeah, it's great to be amongst everybody here. So quick one, just to recap how the TV business has progressed. April really hit us bad. We were down to 20% in terms of value. And since then it's been going month on month. And we've done enough for that thing to a multinational company that had got it out of LA. Most of the time, when it was the biggest, and happy to say that we see better on each of our forecast. So, April was better than what we predicted. And July was really the surprise. And August looks extremely good. We've got at least 85% before there was a lot of progress. That beat any one of the expectations at the time people started early in May, June. So volumes are back, discounting which was a big role in the first quarter to get volumes in there. That's kind of slowly going in the first two coming in. We are now, all the main line auditors are fully, fully now ready with the first coming. Nobody's holding back. So whether it is arcade, you see couples, the dance, everybody whether it's big pause or any other format, nobody's holding back during the festive. So everybody's coming out with their painful pitch out into the market. Because the TV consumption has grown up substantially. We couldn't monetize it earlier. Now it's time to monetize it. And I think while IP is there, yes, there will be advertisers over there, but it's not going to be easy because today we need to understand that when IP happens in the first quarter, there are no options for advertisers, except IP, because there's nothing against it. Now every broadcaster has a couple of properties and these are properties which are always great. So I think advertisers have a profit, but yes, there is room for everybody. And like I said, in August, July, August, especially we're brilliant. And I see if the, as Sam also mentioned in his report that TV is very strong and going to come back, well, yes, I think the comeback will be faster than we expected, at least on TV because the kind of reach which TV delivers, there is no other medium. And the accountability which TV delivers there's also no other medium. But digital is growing. Today, a lot of brands are moving away from digital because there is no accountability on digital. So I think when the money is tough, people need the best ROAs and today TV gives you the best ROAs. So I think in tough times, we've also seen in 2008, TV was a medium it did relatively well because of the accountability. And I think that will play a key role in for large advertisers to look at. Because every dollar they spend, every rupee they spend, they want to see what returns them. Okay, so from the advertisers, the marketers saying going for cautious optimism, so far both print and TV have won for total all-out optimism for the second half. That's great. All right, sorry, I want to, I want to, I'm not saying all out, but I'm saying to what the situation presented us the first quarter we said is going to be doomed. That's not going to be the case. Yeah, I would completely agree with you and I hope it stays that way. Avinash, I'm going to ask you a slightly tough question and that look what the, we saw an unprecedented increase in share of huge channels that went from 7% to 21% with COVID. That was a brilliant opportunity for news to reinvent itself and sort of hold on to the great share growth that it got. But unfortunately, they just did more of the same and now three months, four months later, share is back to eight, nine percent. Isn't that a hugely missed opportunity? Well, that's the difference way, different way of thinking from the, from an agency person to a person who is responsible to disseminate news and information in these critical times. As my colleague Salish said that the people in Bihar and UP are consuming and seeing things very differently than what the people in Delhi and Bombay Metro saw. And so at that point of time, yes, the way the news is always, I'm sorry, it's in public platform, I can't use that word, but in the overall the pecking order, the way the media planners and buyers have put the news, GC, sports, XY and then followed by news was all upstaged. Everybody wanted to be on the news. The problem with the news broadcasters are twofold, one on the supply side and one on the demand side. A, we were too many. B, most of us were chasing the same goals which is how many COVID cases happening and what preventive measures you can do. So there was not so much differentiated content available everywhere else, though people wanted to know more and more about it. And third one, there was not so much of demand if you look at in the end of March, April and big and most part of the May. And because of that, FMCG's companies were the only one who were chasing the advertising inventory and thus it created pressure on the advertising sell side to sell, but we had on the other hand, Vikram and Sam sitting negotiating the, determining what price these guys would be able to sell at and that actually ended up giving all these broadcasters a lot of discounts. More importantly, what I would like to say what Amit said is that that when we talked about V-shape and U-shape recovery, you know, in India, Indian economy, I always tell my people is driven by two factors, marriages and festivals. June was a season of marriage in India. So even if you look at the threshold and if you remember the news that came at that point of time that one IT grad got, was getting married in Bihar and they forced him to come despite having a COVID and some 100 people got infected. Your scale went down, but still the marriages were happening and certain amount of purchase which goes with it like you buy house, you buy what is inside the house, you travel, whatever mode that it is available, you buy clothes and you consume a lot of products. And that's what actually June inventory you can see on different TV channels was of a very high level. Festivals are muted, but still the expenditure will happen. And hence I'm quite hopeful that what a famous Harvard economist Richard Witter said in month of May that India is the only country which will have a faster U-shape recovery. Nobody is going to have, if you look at a shorter term, it's U-shape recovery, but if you look at a long term period, it is a V-shape recovery. But India has a faster recovery because our economy is not dependent so much on import and exports. And we are a largely consumption based economy. We all consume what we produce internally. And hence I see for TV channels, media sales people who are watching right now has a huge opportunity still to leverage because the audience curiosity about news is still that high. I hope I answered your question. You didn't actually answer my question as to how they didn't grab that you could sort of retain some share growth, but I think you still talked about the importance of news and that remains, of course. I spoke about the importance of being a Vikram Sakoja. So. No, but I think there's a great segue into the heart of what we want to talk about today, which is, what does it take to stimulate consumer pending? Amit, there are some advertisers who believe that it's their job to stimulate demand and marketing and investment actually leads demand. There are others who we are finding who are waiting for some kind of top line recovery before spending because they just feel that P and L management is very important. I would like your thoughts on the psychology of advertisers and your advice on who should take the lead in this matter. And in that connection, you've briefly touched on it. Also, do you feel that the which pockets of India you came to come from? Okay, Vikram, my clear thinking on this area is that if you're always waiting and watching what the game is and then kind of reacting, I think half of the game is lost. So I strongly believe that you need to be on the front foot in terms of looking at really adapting yourself to the situation rather than saying that for the time being, let me kind of watch my bottom line and see in terms of what really happens and then play my cards as I kind of go ahead. So I would say that say for like us, we felt very clearly that advertising is not like an on and off switch that you can switch it off as you want. And it kind of really, as Sam also said, it takes a lot of time to really get back to from where you work in terms of brand saliency, in terms of possibly a certain messaging which you want to give to your consumers. Because I think these are the times when consumers also kind of test you, okay? Today if you can't take that loyalty for granted in terms of saying that the customers who have been with you for some time will always, and today's consumer is changing very, very dynamically from that point of view. So I would always kind of pitch in the favor of saying that brands which look at simulating demand and look at in terms of preempting the change which is happening and therefore kind of navigating in that area, in that way would be something would always kind of gain. And that is something which possibly is something which a brand like ours also would kind of focus. So for instance, I wanted to give two examples. What we did very clearly at this point of time when we saw that this whole paranoia of people not painting and not getting into, they're not allowing anyone to get into their homes, we started a very strong campaign and it was a full-fledged campaign on TV which we did with respect to safe painting. And the fact that today, while those safe painting people look like astronauts who are coming into a house, it was something which kind of gave customers a very, very strong kind of a reassurance and got that paranoia of their mind that today in this environment, if there is a maintenance-led activity, there is something they need to kind of do about their homes that cannot wait forever. And that is something which kind of really stimulated a lot of business in terms of what really happened. And today, what we are really realizing is that we need to kind of understand the pitch. Today, look at consumers. Today, home has become a very strong place and today people would do anything because you are spending almost 24 hours in that home. And we kind of approach that very strongly from the point of view of saying that the whole kind of area of Harghar can be a very, very strong point at this point of time even if people were not kind of really thinking of painting and you could do small little things in terms of really kind of looking at doing stuff within your home. So you simulated the demand and we launched something which is like a small DIY repairage for the customers to kind of take. So I would say that I would very, very strongly bat for people who would kind of really preempt and really look at adapting them to the environment and look at simulating rather than waiting and seeing in terms of how they want to react when good times come, okay? In the marketing world, sometimes I feel that good and bad times is what you make out of it, okay? And it is up to a brand in terms of how you want to kind of really take the trajectory which you want to kind of take. And I think that's something which possibly is the game which possibly some good brands would always play as you kind of look at the longer termings of how you want to be in the game. So I think that's first part in terms of what you asked. Second, you spoke of some which pockets that you think in terms of which are going to be important and looking at how it kind of goes. I would still kind of give a lot of pitch for tier three, tier four cities because I think geographically when you look at some of those geographies they are still relatively doing much better, okay? The disposition against carrying on life as usual is much, much more. And the whole area in terms of the paranoia around the COVID is much lesser. But and I would say that today what we have seen is that when we look at the pan India kind of a thing almost across geographies, okay? You find that there are pockets which are coming up which are really kind of growing and that is something which seems to be a story. And it is only the metros and T1 which is basically a little bit pulling the whole thing back to that extent because the paranoia there seems to be still very, very high in terms of how is it going. So I would say that today in whole as I see it is I think there are these pockets of people adapting to the new norm across the country especially when you start going into the hinterland look at T3, T4 cities across geographies. I think they seem to be doing well overall. Great, now that's a very clear erection. Kunal, from your standpoint do you think that very simply put advertising will stimulate demand? And specifically if you look at some of the categories which have been very challenged. So hospitality and travel, I don't know what's gonna get them out of this at this point in time, but retail, durable, the entire real estate piece. The, actually the home improvement one it's very nice because that obviously papers and all is something that I mean just hope he's actually used innovation and some great examples to see even on those categories you can stimulate demand but a lot of our clients in retail, durable and some of the real estate people are feeling a little challenged right now. Do you think advertising will stimulate demand even for them? I can more intelligently speak to retail. I don't want to suddenly claim to be an expert in five other industries on this panel but specifically on retail slash e-call. I think retail it's not about advertising as much as it is the consumer behavior of wanting to stay inside. So I think some amount can be stimulated for sure. In e-commerce specifically we are seeing a significant impact of advertising to stimulate demand. I think one thing we have to realize is that because of this pandemic there has been a tectonic plate shift in the amount of time spent online. And I don't think that's going to after everything the seven million people are vaccinated and whatnot. I don't think that's going to go down materially from here. It may actually grow from here. I don't think it's going to come down. And that has various implications for how advertisers think about where they want to advertise and how they want to advertise. So what this has done in the near term is because the amount of time spent has increased so considerably it has driven down digital CPMs quite significantly. And what that means is advertisers like us and others are really pressing the pedal on digital advertising as we speak. And we are seeing at least in our experience I'm sure experience of other companies in our space where they are because of the increased advertising that they're doing more and more consumers are coming and buying. It does help from a behavior standpoint that we're able to save consumers the visit to the stores and the visit to and potential risk that comes with it. But not withstanding that I think there is this general trend we are seeing which is about taking the goods to the buyers rather than taking the buyers to the goods. And so through advertising what we are seeing is we are now able to take essentially our goods to the buyers because they're just spending so much time online. I think some of them just want to reference the part about that Amit nicely mentioned about the small towns and the hinterlands. We are seeing tremendous growth in both time spent as well as ad engagement or engagement with advertising online from consumers in small towns. And that is driving a significant push of or significant pull I should say of sales from those parts of the country. And we've added in the last three months maybe over five million new buyers. And did not spend anything on above the line advertising et cetera we've been very focused on digital. So digital has that type of throughput today to drive such a large number of consumers in the midst of a pandemic to a commerce platform online. I do want to make a point about festive because I don't know if I'll get the chance on the next round but I do sense that we will see companies spend money in our space and digital space spend money on media during the festive season. I'm sure everyone saw about dream level, dream 11 IPL successful bit today. However, I feel that at the same time there is a strong shift that I observing a few months a few quarters leading into the pandemic and accelerating now, which is where advertisers who have highly trackable spends on most of their advertising to be most of the digital companies are now demanding and expecting a similar ROI out of their mass media spends as well. So people are testing all kinds of formats in mass media that they're running ads like brand ads but the brand ads need to deliver ROI. So they'll put a phone number in there. They'll have various kinds of call to action. Even in print ads we are seeing that. So I think there is a clear shift happening is how the very ROI obsessed advertisers are spending even on mass media channels. So I'll stop there, but I think you might not. You've done a resounding thumbs up for digital to stimulate demand but we've got TV and print friends on this panel. So what is the digital asset? Yeah, I know digitally you've got your thumbs up but I'm just saying that what is your impression about the ROI not coming in from TV and print based on? So there was a big sale, would you not use them? I think we would, but we would probably, we would do it but then we would also post doing it. We would benchmark the ROI across the various channels and then future spends or increase or decrease of future set spends would be a subject to that. But bear in mind Vikram, I think we are in an extraordinary environment where the cost of advertising has gone down very, very materially. And hence the art of digital advertising has gone up very materially. And hence the advertisers are having to think even harder about where should they allocate their money? Yeah, I'm just underscoring the point that Kunal made that with this heavy demand on consumer spending more and more time online, the cost per thousands have actually come down because you're able to buy inventory much cheaper because there's so many more people out there. So I'm just underscoring that point which makes the efficiency story apart from the effect of the story for digital advertising stronger. But Shailesh, I remember you told me this was I think in June when just about after a very disastrous April May, in June you said the first guys to see the opportunity in print were, as Amit also said earlier and all, were really the people in the small towns and the entrepreneurs in the small and medium enterprises, local marketers. Now what is it that those entrepreneurs are getting which cover your ass brand managers or not? What is it that you'd like to learn from the local advertiser week two and tell the global advertisers what are they supposed to think they're missing? Sorry, can't hear you. Sorry, can you hear me now? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So what I'm trying to say is that local advertiser really does not, they want, they advertise to earn, they advertise for action. They don't care about the brand building. If we talk about UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, which in itself are as big as any small European country would be. So they are country in themselves, right? And in June, July, August has been a classic case that August, not August, but June, July has been a classic case where these local advertisers have come and come in abundance. And they have only as I've repeated that advertising because they were getting the return either through home deliveries, which they were doing or calling people to the shop because as Avinash was also saying the effect of this pandemic in our towns, which Mr. Amit was also saying, tier three and tier four. But even if you see tier two, like a Kanpur or Lucknow, I believe you and me, there is no effect when you go to the market or when you go on the road. The life is as normal as it can be. People sitting in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, I do not know what they are thinking, but here the retailers, they mean business. They are only advertising, be it a wholesale dealer or a retailer of a saree or of a cloth, or be it a Kirana shop. They are all advertising and they're only advertising when they are getting. Only good thing which has happened is now the home delivery, they have started doing deliveries or other mode of selling their goods. So that has been- So you'll be willing to tango with Konal on a Harwa story on print advertising. He'll advertise with you and then you'll give him the returns and he'll come and advertise more. Well, we can always talk about it. As I said, we need to go back to the basic and it is an extra, these are not normal times. So you need to think innovatively, you think differently. If we sell it in the Quranic way, that won't really work. You have to rediscover things in a newer way. Keep it simple. Okay. Keep it simple. Okay, Rohit, you've been, I think you've probably been the master of selling impact. Now impact is also just about every format, whether it's Cricket reality shows or whatever you have it, you've really maxed it out. We also believe that impact is the one which actually does a good job of stimulating fresh money from the market. And like you were saying yourself, we've got a little bit of a big ticket impact coming in September, October, November. What is it that you'd like to, what do you think is the opportunity that we should tell advertisers here that this is why you should spend these countries or elsewhere, but especially in these properties to actually grow business? What's your elevator pitch to these guys which you've done it so well? So, Vikram, obviously, even for companies which are very ROI driven and very, CPM, city conscious, whatever you might call it, when it comes to impact, one thing is very clear that in India impact delivers. And that's why advertisers do come back with association on a certain property. So, especially during the festive period, there is so much of clutter, you need to get out of it. And impact is the only way where you get out of the clutter and your brand can stand out because it's just not the value you pay on the impact because even from a broadcaster perspective, there's a brand solution, there's a lot of other ideas which go beyond the 30 second spot you get in terms of brand association with the property. So I think it's critical in this, especially in this period of time in the festive period. And I think that's what stands out. And that's why brands do come back again and again buying impact properties. You can do a lot of advertising, but if it doesn't stand out during this period, you can get lost because there's so much of advertising happening, virtually every brand in India, smallest to the biggest is active. How do you stand out? So I think that while you will buy your regular spots across, you would need one or two tentpole properties to really get your message across. And I think that's really tested, it's been tested over a period of time, there's nothing new which is happening. Formats are getting more better. We understand customers requirement far more than which was there earlier. And I think what this is taught us, this COVID period has taught us in our discussions with a lot of brands in the last couple of months on impact has been that obviously, we need to give far better solutions than before for us to be able to get that money. So you've got to think outside the box, think outside the format and see how do you create that association? If you're not able to create that association, I don't think the brand is also going to put in that with you because obviously that comes at a premium. Brand is going to pay a premium and he doesn't get the association. There's no need for him to pay that because you can get enough of 30 seconds for spots across any channels. There are 800 channels in India. And they come from 200 bucks too. So I think the issue, it's not about the ad-ex. I think it's about the association which you're able to create. And that is where the differentiator lies. Great. And Avinash, look, the, what we hear about this entire demand versus house whether it's going to be subdued or it's going to be really rocking. It's a lot of people say that sentiment has got a lot to do with it. Now, it's the kind of talks that you're having. If you're having a good bullish, like Amit is the big bull because he's always got ideas and he's always saying that we can get ourselves out of it. But if you go to several organizations, you have a fair amount of pessimism there and the entire sentiment is not probably the most bullish. I think the stock market for some strange reasons, I don't know who was at stake, but you've all seen the memes where the bull is on top of a building and saying now it doesn't know how to get down. If it can happen in a stock market, in a pretty bleak thing, what do we have to do it in the, if sensex can do it, what can the edX do? What is the sentiment that we have to dial up? So what is that narrative? I can tell you, and I'm not saying this for the first time that Indians are very, very positive-looking people. We are not as gloomy as the Western country. If you look at the basic data of death, okay, by suicide, it's a very, very menendezia. It's a two word. While suicide is a single word in our country, the gloom, the depression, these words did not exist about 10 years ago. We are positive forward-looking people and that's the reason that you saw While in the June, it was peak in Delhi and Bombay in COVID. Bangalore and Chennai still is and they were getting into this. The advertising industry was booming. We have all our channels inventory full. Clients were advertising and as Amit rightly said, the sales were picking. As Kunal mentioned today, the people are advertising and pushing up their sales. Somebody is buying it, right? And buying happens assumption. So for television industry, for the broadcast business that I am in, it is very important to tell the both sides of the narrative that corona is curable. There is an end to it. We don't know when it is ending, but there is an end to it, like an end to everything else. The second thing is this, that lot is happening in this country. You have new reformed education system, which is going to take shape, which is going to change the way our new youth would be 10 years later, 15 years later. There is a positivity we are doing IPL after all this. And so many show, including Rohit's channel is launching new shows. So we have come back from where we are and television as an industry and news channel as an industry, as you can see, we have so much to cover today that even despite the massive flood that Amit mentioned in Bihar and part of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan. In fact, Rajasthan is having massive flood. The normal activity is booming. Retail advertisers are advertising for sale. I will tell you, we have a client. I will not disclose where. Retail advertisers, a single store owner has signed one and a half million dollar deal in the month of June. That's the positivity that Indian entrepreneur has got. And that's what as a bus it is our fundamental duty to encourage that and to make the country happen. And that's what has a new stringing right now. Whether we get the rate or not, Vikram. I'll get towards the closing thing now because there's one part which I just wanted to touch on. The very sensitive issue of rising. Now, yeah, of course, media owners will always say that we have everybody bringing down the price and unviable and marketers, of course, right now things have gone pretty bad for us overall. And we have to try to conserve cost and end of the day, we have to strive to get it. And please, that's how we can advertise. Now, how can there be a sensitive, sensible conversation about pricing? Now, of course, the reality is is a demand supply situation. If the demand is going to be more prices go up, if supply is going to be more prices come down. But if, how can there be a simple conversation because there's a lot of hot air and venting that happens both from advertiser standpoint and from the other ends, and of course, the agency is the one to cool in the middle. Sorry, sorry. So, on this particular one, Amit, just if you can weigh in on this, what is a sensible way of the price at this point in time when it comes to media? Because, and you view one of the most, you've paid premiums, but at the same time you're as tough to negotiating when you have to. So, what's the way of having this conversation because the people on my right right now will think that advertisers are really, in fact, April, May, June, there's been a huge amount of discounting happening and so on and so forth. Now, what is, do you have a sensible sort of rule of engagement on this one? So, obviously, I think one rule is that put pressure on Vikram and Sam and you'll get what you want, okay? So that is a good rule in terms of really looking at it. You know, honestly, feel that sometimes in this entire area, the important thing for everyone to realize is that is there a win-win situation are we creating? I think it makes a lot of sense in terms of saying that if you are all working towards a direction which is mutually great, okay? It will always kind of go in the right direction and see, I always also keep on saying that for some of the channels, it's great to kind of really invest in brands from a point of view of saying that you're not looking at a short term in terms of just a season or six months or a year. You know, you are investing in a brand from a long term point of view as well and sometimes, you know, I would kind of try to look at saying that even if I have to pay a little premium at this point of time, but I have a sense in terms of from where the channel is coming in terms of supporting you, okay? It would kind of go to win-win situation in terms of being with the brand in terms of that property which is kind of bringing out to you. At the same, you know, the media partner has to be also very careful that are you in the zone of only extracting and not really giving? And therefore, I think the name of the game is that if you are able to show obviously the client that I give you 4x ROI at 2x spend, you know, it's something which is really great in terms of what possibly a brand will buy into. So I would kind of really channelize it from the point of view of saying, one, you know, create win-win situations, look at basically not only short term orientations but look at orientations in terms of being for a longer time with each other and look at in terms of what impacts which you can create for a brand which the brand would really remember you in terms of being partnering them in times when their times are not really great. Great. I'm going to now move to the media side and come back to you Kunal after this question. Now Rohit, typically we've always found TV during festival. This is the time when TV takes up pricing. It also is a time when there's a huge amount of inventory and spots are dropped and all those kind of things. So if you have to put the exact thing that Amit is saying right now, how do you think this festive season media owners and talk from a TV standpoint, how should they behave in order to give confidence to people who are already a bit on the fence on whether to spend or not? See, I'd only like to say that Victor, I mean, at least I can say for Amit work is that whether it's this festival, the last festival, the next festival, we've never looked at any festival as an opportunist time to pay this the time. I must get a little extra from, let's say, Amit. We never looked at it like that. For instance, it's a relationship which is built and whatever price we agree to is an agreed price and whatever the deliveries we need to, we will deliver or more. And I think that's the relationship. So if you've seen us, we've never made price announced, hey, we've got a 20% price in fees or 15% price in fees or whatever. That's not the way we operate. For us, we operate, as you know it very well, we operate with very few clients. We don't operate with every client in the industry. We operate with very few clients, but the clients that you operated, we've got a relationship going over years, many years. So one COVID is not gonna make that difference because the client understands that issue. And I think that's the way forward. So again, it's very difficult to answer, to say whether prices will go down, whatever. But like I said in my earlier point, is that if I'm able to create value, which the advertiser, whether Kunal or Amit can see that value and he will pay the price for it. If he doesn't see the value, he's not gonna pay the price for any product. Forget anything, for any buy. So I think that's where the difference is. And I don't think you can be opportunist at this point, especially now. I think you'll never succeed if you're opportunist, especially in this time. So Kunal on that one, he's thrown it to you. So would you go for low CPM or would you go for value? And if so, is it a direct ROI that you're looking at? Or is it an intangible to it? So I think there is always, during these points of market dislocations, there is this temptation of trying to spend a lot of time deal hunting. I at least don't do a lot of that as a company. We tend to figure out what are something enduring advantages or capabilities we can build that are highly replicable over quarters and years, rather than, oh, we got this really great deal of this particular property. We don't spend too much time on that because for businesses that operate at scale, it's highly unlikely you'll be able to get it that over and over again. So they take a lot of time, they don't yield lasting advantages for a business. So what we spend, we are actually almost ambivalent to the price of media. The price could be as high or as low in absolute. What we care about is, did we make more than we spend in the media back in terms of our margin, not our top line, right? So the unit economics of that spend is far more important. How much we spend is just a number. And it usually varies very widely depending on like whether it's a print or TV or digital video or digital performance or affiliate networks or TikTok ads or formerly TikTok ads. I think we are almost ambivalent to what the absolute number we're ending. We are very sensitive to how much do we make in terms of our margin on every, let's say, on an index basis, a hundred units of marketing spend. So that just keeps organizations intellectually very honest on building capabilities that can replicate our ROI spending and trying to deal hunt in a bespoke manner. Okay, Chailesh, right on print. You typically sell during season by typically if you come to these great schemes and pop up money, you're willing to give discounts if there's outlay coming in. And of course, there is a lot of impact in when it feels like jackets and all. And of course, the positioning with the bars are fought between top jacket and second jacket and all that. But now, would you like to use this forum today to sort of say how you're going to treat this festive any different because the green shoots of print are just about to emerge the level that print and TV have or TV and VR in terms of resurgence. So is there, on this forum, would you like to talk about how you intend to approach festive? Sure, Vikram. This festive also, as I said earlier, we'll keep it simple. It will be more dynamic than last year. It'll be much more interesting than last year because we understand that from which market from what timing we are coming and Jagran as a company always believes that the partners, the festive time in North is very, very special. And the relationship that Jagran has with the advertisers, we believe that festive time is important for every advertiser. Hence, you'll only see in Jagran, during festive time, we actually, as Rohit said, that they decide a price for a year, but even when we decide a price for a year, festive time, we actually reduce that price because we want to give more to the partners who are getting associated with us. And this year, again, as I said, it is a pandemic time. Everybody is coming out of a tough time. It will be very, very interesting when you see what we do and normally what we do during festive time, we call it a casino grande. And it'll be very, very different this year. Very simple and lot of value for an advertiser because we really want these others. We strongly feel that tier two and tier three towns will decide the economy of the country in months and coming years. Excellent. Activating those markets are very important. Okay, I'm just a little mindful of the time. So I will now just come to your closing comments. I think all of you have said that it requires a fair degree of fresh, proactive, innovative thinking to actually work our way through this entire year. Now, would it love it if we, in closing, you can all go one by one and say, what is the one advice you'd like to give marketers or media that they need differently in 2020 from anything they've done in the past? Avinash, can we start with you? What should people do differently? I think you have spending a lot of money on TV news channels, first of all. It has proven that people watch a news channels more and more. So that's the, because I did not get the chance of the last round to say, so I say, I'll say that it is likely to be the price because thanks to tier two, you will have less and less channels. Remember that in the second phase of the year. And please be innovative by impact because that will reduce the inventory. It will gather attention on the brand and it will also help sell you more. From the advertising perspective, this is the advice that I'll give to all of you. What is the one advice or two things that you'd like to do differently or you'd like to keep to do differently? I think consistency is underrated. I feel that at the end of the day, as an advertiser, you should just keep doing in a lasting enduring manner what is available in terms of the economics of doing it again and again. So if there is a particular method of advertising, whether it could be mass media, it could be digital, it could be a combination, if it's working for you and has been working with you, just keep doing it as long as the ROI is positive. Sometimes one has to be innovative, sometimes one has to stick to the netting. I feel that during this field, for us to crack the code of how to be unit economics positive on their spans, they should just stick to the netting and work with a lot of consistency during this one and a half period. Okay, so both of the consistencies stick to the netting. Rohit, what would you say? So I think keep it simple. I think brands, it takes a long time to build a brand, so I think brand association is key. You've got to see what other associations was worth best for you. And I think that's the way forward. And I think in an environment where there's going to be this year, like any other question, there's going to be a lot of clutter. How does brands shout out louder? That's important to see. So it's just association with the right channel, association with the right brand. That's what I think. Simplicity is the best. Other than that. Simplicity, so you're not going to find different things or getting rid of the same simple and impact what seems to be there. Chalesh, what about you? Any advice on what we should do different? Well, I would just say, do you use the word simple twice already? Yeah, so I will add just one more thing, go back to basics. Don't try too hard. Keep it simple. Keep it sales oriented. That's it. Right now, the time is to get the sales. That's it. Hamid, you get the last word. So your advice to all the marketers when we appeal it to you. So I would say that in this whole maddening environment and the uncertainty, don't forget your consumer. Don't forget the customer. Try to reach out to customer in as many ways you can. This is not a time when you can really stay away from the consumer. So you need to reach out to your consumer, whether it is through digital, whether it is through TV, whatever works for you in terms of reaching the TG which you are kind of thinking of, you would kind of really look at doing that very, very well. And I would say that one of the big opportunities in coming times is I think regional media would I think become big definitely this year as well because I think as we start looking year two, year three, year four cities, I think regional media would be very, very important in terms of looking whether it is TV, whether it is print or whether it is digital, I think all forms would be very, very important. Wonderful. On a lighter note, Hamid Bhai, when can we have a coffee? Yeah. I would like to thank I'd like to thank our esteemed panel that was wonderful and I think it's given us a lot of insight and a lot of learning just to how to sort of navigate the season. I see a lot of measure of optimism out here, that is we can't just go wild on this one but I think we've got to go back to principles, keep it simple, keep your customer in mind, and don't be scared of leading the demand, you should lead the demand so basically do all it takes to stimulate it. Thank you all and I'll now hand it back to you. Thank you, thank you so much Vikram and thank you also to all our esteemed panels for that highly insightful discussion. We've had so many comments and questions coming our way but now I would once again like to invite Vikram to share with us few concluding remarks for this evening's proceedings and also from today's panel discussion. So the virtual stage is all yours Vikram. Okay, I think it's clear to all of us that this has been a very unprecedented year. What Sam actually pointed out was that we actually can get a pretty reasonably high range of growth. He's talking 6 to 13 percent versus 19 and a pretty large 70 percent kind of growth versus 8 to 1. A lot of it is going to be dependent on actually what happens now in the months to come. So I think that is the, he of course gave us five reasons and I think a lot, some of them were very sensible in terms of we must, we must, we all stand for marketing, we believe in marketing and that once again I think this is not the time to think of marketing as a cost but marketing as an investment. I think our panel has also sort of stressed this and I think it's important right now for all marketers to remember that demand creation is their job and this is the opportunity. We have a very optimistic and a very buoyant kind of an Indian population and there are pockets of pain but there are large tracts of land or land of the country which are doing absolutely fine. So I think choose your battlefields, go regional, go smart and actually spend well and you're going to get a great return and I hope you all have a very good festival with the entire Diwali and it's all of us are really coming out smiling at the end of it. Thank you. Thank you once again. Thank you so much Vikram. I think for everybody out here I would remember this very line that marketing don't think of it as a cost but as an investment and ladies and gentlemen with that I think I speak for most of the audience that this has been the most enlightening evening putting the impact of COVID-19 into perspective and also providing a clearer picture of what our H2 2020 is going to shape up like. So ladies and gentlemen now I would like to invite on the screen to just conclude this evening's proceedings and also to deliver a vote of thanks and please call upon Ms. Lara Balsara Wajivta, Executive Director of Madison World to join me on the screen. Very warm welcome. So thank you ladies and gentlemen and all 513 of you to be precise for being with us virtually as we launched this very special report. Thank you also to Avinash and the ABP team for always supporting this event right since inception and even now in these unusual circumstances. A special thank you to our tech partner Madison Turned for jazzing up this platform to make it a visual treat as we all sit in the comforts of our home and watch this. So 2020 has turned out to be a year that all of us want to forget. So when we met in February to launch the report the economy had already slowed down but we were hoping for a 10% growth in 2020 with a subdued H1 but a buoyant H2. Who knew then that within 45 days the whole world would come to a standstill but I think with a 60 to 70% growth in H2 over H1 at the report forecast we can still expect a buoyant H2. I am reminded of Sanjay Bell's passionate presentation when we launched the pitch Madison report in February. He self-disrupt or perish. I guess we've all done this in the last five months and we'll have to do more of it in the next five and as they say when the going gets tough the tough get going and haven't we got going. So on this positive note thank you once again ladies and gentlemen and have a very good evening. Thank you so much to our panellists and of course to our partners and a special thank you to Madison World Team. This is me Kiyati Kawa signing off. Thank you very much and we will see you again very soon.