 which is a panel discussion on role of content in driving business direct to consumer. Let me please invite our panelists. First up, Sagar Bokeh, head customer and shopper marketing, food and beverages start our consumer products. We've got Amin Lakhani, the chief operating officer of Mindshare South Asia. Jain Mehta, the senior general manager of planning and marketing, GCMMF Amun who's joining us. We've got Isha Nagar, the managing director of Nepal, India. We've got G.B. Sreethar, the regional director, India, Middle East and South Asia, Singapore Tourism Board. And the session chair of this panel discussion is going to be Kurpreet Singh, co-founder and COO, one-digital entertainment. But with this, I'd like to humbly invite and welcome all our panelists and our session chair for joining us. What an incredible start we've had to our content down today. And your smile says it all. Thank you for bringing in the energy and exuberance. And welcome once again, Kurpreet. The stage and screen is all yours to take it forward. Thank you, Bhavna. Thank you so much. I think the stage is for all the senior leaders who are present with me on the panel. I just feel like a kid right now being the session chair. But I'll just try to play my small role of navigating the discussion amongst some of these marketing tycoons who are sitting out there. I mean, some of the brands. I mean, people like Jain from Tata. These are the brands that they have been doing marketing even before I was born, possibly. So I'm just saying I'm here to take learnings along with the audience from everyone out there. I would just like, though most of them need no introductions, but I would just like to set it up for the context for the entire audience if each one of us can just give quick introductions about the overall marketing landscape that we are doing in each one of our brands and what is our specific role. Jain, do you want to go ahead with your experience of, I think, over three decades in working with Amul? OK, thank you. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure meeting all of you. And thank you, Bhavna and Amishal, for inviting me for this nice, interesting conversation. See, I've been with Amul for the last 30 years. It's my first job, so I'm still learning. And we've been a part of this business for now 75 years. And Amul was among the first, so to say, official advertisers in India way back in 1950s and ever since then. One of the things which has stuck into our DNA is not to think like an advertiser, but to think like a content creator. And I go back to the year 1965 when the first Amul topical came up. So over the last 55, 56 years, you are seeing a lot of content being created without being talking specifically about the products of the brands that Amul had. And you know the journey of Amul, the success, the turnover that we have is more than 50,000 crores. But the focus still remains on creating content as much as so that you are able to retain the customers, attract their attention continuously. And you've seen so many generations also passing by and changing tastes and consumer habits. So this is what is in the DNA of the brand and the creative agencies that work with us or the partners that we have continuously focus on this. The social media changed the dynamics a bit and the Amul topical obviously adapted to the social media like Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, whatever. But the last year of pandemic gave us a very, very interesting chance of using this technology and an opportunity to create content using recipes. Now, this is not a new thing for us because Amul has been the charter sponsor of MasterChef for the last 10 years. And you know how it goes into making a TV show in which you give specific instances, give me my brand name, tell me about your product, tell me about this, that, that. The investments are huge. Please purchase these per whole season. And you get a show and you get measure the ratings. But here we used Facebook to connect the customers, consumers who are at home because of lockdown in the first phase of pandemic and I'm talking about April 2020 and the chefs who are sitting at home. We gave them the chefs the access to our Facebook page and told them to prepare recipes which can be people get home and can prepare easily. We did not say specifically use Amul products. We did not say use Amul name in any way. Only small request was not to use competitor products in your face kind of thing, but we created magic. Now, for this show has been running for last more than 530 days, non-stop since 17th of April 2020. More than 3,300 chefs have participated. You created 3,000 shows and more importantly created content of about 1,35,000 minutes. Now, this is translated into number of days is equal to 100 days out of 500 days. So if you start watching it, this is the content you get and the audience was not local, it was international. We reached out to more than 50 countries and we continue to get viewership and all this done at investment of zero. So if the brand has that capability and the current social media has that power to reach out, you are able to do impossible things in difficult times also and now we are trying to use and leverage it as much as possible in many ways. So this is just thought the introductory remarks and we'll continue to discuss after. Sure, sure, sure. Mr. Jain, sorry, I mean, just to take, I mean, while it was my follow up question later on but I can possibly ask you right now itself because for brands that you are heading Amul and I'll have this lead up question to Mr. Sagar also for data, right? A lot of your products are sold not just in the metros but in very remote locations, right? We are reaching out to those consumers might have been difficult, right? Everyone knows about Amul brand, startup brands on all those remote locations. Do you think, how do you prioritize those markets? Do you think those markets also understand the integrated content, right? Not just on the face marketing but integrated brand integrations within the content pieces. What have you been learning and anyone who won't target those locations can take learning from you. It's a good question because we connect with the rural audience in two ways. They are our male producers also and they are also our consumers. So the brand has to reach out in both the dimensions. It's not just the idea of just selling a product to them. It is also saying that how much trust they need to have on us as they are the owners of the cooperative. So that's an additional responsibility but I'll focus right on the selling part. Distribution is a game which most of the panel this year and a lot of people in the audience have been playing. So that is conventional. You try to reach out to them by appointing distributors in every single Kaluka, every single 5,000, 10,000 population town and so on. That's the easy part. Then comes the difficult part of communication which means you look at mass media or the conventional TV, print, whatever. Digital actually came in as a boom now. And we realized that all this while we've been talking about largely in English and Hindi and with the new technology it's not possible to do so in that seamless manner. So over the last one and a half years we've created a brand pages in 11 different languages. So we're creating content in Marathi as much as in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kerala, Malayalam, Udia, Bengali, even Arabic and trying to share our messages, our stories and telling me the recipes also are being done in those languages with the chefs of inclusion of that particular region. So that is, and now the audience is also digitally savvy. You are able to reach out to them, talk to them in their languages, listen to them also in their languages. And that makes a very interesting part. So and now further we are expanding to prefer more other languages. We are talking, we are looking at languages but not state languages like a Sindhi or a Pojpuri and so on. And trying to reach out to the audiences in a much more simpler way. So that's easy for them to understand the brand. Then focus on availability of products using technology. We have a Locate Amul app in which anywhere you are sitting in India within five kilometers, you can get the names of Amul retailers, Amul distributors and the shops having list of the Amul products which are currently available. And I would invite you to try that out also right now. So this is how technology is being used both ways in expanding distribution and also communicating to the audience in the right sense. Super, I think localization of content marketing is the key, right? I mean, which everyone right now is been focusing on. Mr. Sagar, from your point of view, Tata also runs a wide range of products, right? You are not focused about a particular, just one of those products and as the head of consumer products marketing, you just want to share your experience. How do you prioritize and how do you see the entire content marketing ecosystem? I'll first talk about the content marketing or to the rural audience and adding to the learning that Mr. Jayan shared. I would say two more learnings to really add. I think first there has to be genuine, it has to be customer first. Most of the stuff that we create is advertiser first or the brand first. Now two examples I'll give. One, during the lockdown, we realized that people were sitting at home, obviously in the month of April and May, there was IPL to happen, IPL really obviously got shelled off. So we had created with GEO, I mean, as you know, obviously GEO has a very wide reach across rural platform. We created something called IQL, India Quizzing League and we really obviously the natural connect with Tata Salt as a product, Tata Salt is iodized salt, right? And iodine is supposed to help the mental development, right? And we created content across languages, across around 15 languages, 15 different, different Indian languages and we created different clubs of different cities and Quizzing, I think, general knowledge and creating content on that hub, crores of views got created. I think using the insight that people are sitting at home, they are missing out something, a brand with a connect of a proposition really wanting to engage them effectively and at a fraction of course, I think it would have cost us somewhere around 15, 20 lakhs in the entire investment of both media and the content creation. But I would say the return that you would have got in multiple of crores. So the first thing is that really finding that insight what is very relevant. Second thing, I think the content can essentially do is really able to create an emotional connect. So I will give an example, the rural audiences I think are fairs and all these things are a big draw. So three, four years back in Puri, if you know, there's a Rathiyatharaj. So, you know, two kilometers straight, there are around a million people which are stranded. So what we had essentially created, we had created a Popsicle, which is basically, which was basically powered by Tata Salt because dehydration is a major issue, right? And it was latched on big time and we created that content, put that digitally and put on various platform that almost went viral. So the idea is that if you are creating a connect, finding a good, seamless, the consumer first product, product connect, I think content can really do magic for you. Other area where I believe content can really play an important role is in commerce. Obviously, when I say commerce, I don't think it is as effective as a direct funnel performance marketing, but we have to have a role. So we started something with a start on neutral corner where we had dual objective of creating sticky audience who believes in our thinking. So Tata Sampan as a brand which we created, we were in the philosophy of the brand was to say that Indian homemade food has the power to really provide health and nutrition like anything else that people really, really wanted to say and a good quality. So essentially making every single Indian household, nourish the household through native Indian food and a lot of wisdom around it. Like say why spices are good? Why the protein from legumes or pulses is lean, right? And many such practices, right? We created content around it and we saw that in couple of months, around four to five like organic viewers, people visiting thrice three to four times and obviously the brand was seamlessly viewed because our products were essentially based on that philosophy. While we did not get huge weight in terms of number of customer, but there are many people who would buy their entire range from us. So I believe content depending upon what the objective has really power to transform the way brand are perceived and objectives across brand love, brand memorability as well as sales. You know, I think the content really will use well, can really serve all these objectives. Super, thank you so much. I mean, at MindShare, you represent some of the biggest brands out here and beyond media buying, MindShare also has a very, very strong, robust content building capabilities within in-house only, not just from a creative point of view, but from an end to an execution production point of view, right? What have you, your learnings been in last few years, right? And today, like I said, you are not just an agency who's just buying media for brands, but also overall developing fully content, their brands integrated into content solutions. Okay, thank you, thank you so much for that kind introduction. So first and foremost, I think let me, let me just put this very, very straight, that the win in and in our entire journey is about understanding consumers, right? I think that is the heart of everything that we do. So if you're seeing the consumer and watching him migrate from one platform to the other, it is very important to see where the integration of consumers are going, right? So that's at the heart at the center as a pillar of, the second part is when you look at digital and data, I mean, they have actually democratized e-commerce or rather commerce in many ways. So when you put both of these things together, wherever there are consumers and there is technology available or there's data access available, you can actually enable commerce and start, you know, I mean, doing things like for example, it just needs to be a Instagram post or you can do a radio call or you can do a voice call. And you know, you can have a click of a button and you know, you can start doing, you know, transaction in place. So the criticality, the critical thing is that what content should we serve to a consumer and at what stage of the journey, right? Very important to understand the consumer journey, you know and therefore intrigue him, you know, allow him to engage with that consumer, you know, engage with the consumer will depend on at what period of time are you showing that content? For example, you know, somebody who's not feeling well, you know, who has a headache and somebody not feeling well. In his mind, he's searching for an answer to that and suddenly, you know, a simple add of an headache pops up, he'll have 100% attention. But somebody is in a party mode. You know, you throw in 25 ads of, you know, headache. I mean, it will go down as a blind spot. So I think, you know, and if you apply this principle, you know, it becomes very, very clear as to, you know, what kind of content will you create for a consumer at what point in time? So I think that is our day job. The day job is that how can we really, really, you know, find where the consumer is in his journey and therefore, how do we intervene that journey and place our content in a manner that is very, very greatly retrievable. If he's already on a marketplace platform searching for a product, you know, should we waste time on storytelling or should we waste time or invest time in telling him that, you know, you have five products and this is the best product available to me. So I think that's the piece over there. But if he's not enjoying IPL or he's enjoying a POV and all of that, that's a great time to go and build the upper funnel narrative for him, right? And mind you, the biggest proud moment is, you know, clients, our own clients, who will talk about their work. One client has already spoken about the body of work that we do. Another client will talk about the body of work that is done. And what is intriguing me and, you know, really, really exciting me is that CPG clients are most evolved. You know, we know that they're most evolved because, you know, they understand marketing. They have a 365-day approach, you know, weeks on air in the conversation, always on in the conversation. And that's an established norm. But how can a cement client create content and, you know, engage with consumers? It's something that we will learn. I mean, that's really exciting to me that how can you go in a very, very non-involved category? How can you create consumer engagement and involvement is something that is clearly engaging? You know, I mean, you know, impressing me now. So more on this, you know, I mean, I can keep talking. Yeah. Sure. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I love to touch base on, like you mentioned, because I always feel there are brands with whom the content flow of the storytelling goes very, very organically. And like you said, there are brands, there are brand categories where it's a little tough to ask to how do you integrate that category within the entire storytelling experience. And that's where I think agencies like you come into play. Mr. Shirithar at Singapore Tourism, right? But Singapore has been able to do, I mean, I'm just saying, I look at Singapore not just as a country, but also as a fascinating brand, right? But they have built in the last 50 years to right now the hub of tourism, not for the leisure tourism, but from an entire business ecosystem point of view also. Do you want to just share some insights? And how do you operate? Do you, I mean, how do you see content marketing as a key priority area from your marketing point of view? Thank you. So for Singapore tourism, we have been in India for more than two and a half decades now. And the biggest challenge for us has always been, how do we communicate to our varied audiences? Then you're right, Singapore is a familiar favorite for many Indians, whether it's leisure travel, cruise, meetings and incentives, family travel, so and regional cities as well. So the last two and a half decades, we have come from a position whereby Singapore was introduced to the Indian audiences. Just to give you a quick sum numbers, in 2019, we had invited 1.41 million visitors from India to Singapore, making India the third largest source market for Singapore after China and Indonesia. India is our number one cruise source market. In 2019, I'm talking about pre-COVID. Singapore also counts the Indian meetings and incentive segment as a very important segment for us. So over the last decade, for example, India has moved up from about the fifth or the sixth largest source market to being the third largest. So our biggest challenge in India has always been, how do we communicate to the Indian audiences and engage them? I mean, my job line, job description is very simple, right? I invite Indian audiences to Singapore. But how we do it is a bit complicated. A, we are a destination. So we do not own products. Although we are Singapore tourism board, I don't own any of the experiences like promote in the country. So I work with the likes of the zoo, the bird park, the gardens by the bay, Marina Bay Sands and Resorts, Woods and Tozer. But all of these experiences that we need to sort of accumulate them and present to the Indian audiences in a meaningful manner. So three C's and one A. I mean, I was just thinking, how do we present content marketing? So first C is about making sure our content is created. We are operating an environment whereby the Indian audiences or any audiences are having a lot of content coming at them and trying to say things above the noise and clutter is going to be very difficult. So we have always looked for projects which are able to present our content in a creative manner. Second C is clarity. We want to have clarity in our communications. What Singapore stands for? What are the experiences you can enjoy in Singapore when you come? What are some of the things that you need to look out for? Especially in this COVID-19 situation, although travel borders are not opened yet, what are some of the things that are happening in Singapore? And we need to be able to present that clearly to our audiences because clarity is something that increasingly audiences are looking out for because they are bombarded with so much information and content and knowledge. They are looking for some clear communication messages from brands like the Singapore Tourism Board. The third C and I think the others have also touched on it is consumer centricity. Gone are the days where the messages were push. We sell Singapore. We say we are a great country. Come and visit us. The audiences are no longer looking at that. They are very discerning. They are saying, I'm having a conversation with my friend about a particular passion. Where is the relevance Singapore has for that? So coincidentally, our brand is passion made possible. So I need to be able to communicate to the audiences in passions and conversations they are familiar with. And finally, it's an A, authenticity. I think for the longest of time, Singapore has always been very clear that we cannot overpromise or oversell Singapore. We present content as it is. And lately, we have started realizing audiences are very discerning. So they are comparing notes. They are talking to their own friends. And that's important that we communicate very in a clear and authentic manner. So some of the projects we have done from ranges from Bollywood movies to TV series, recently we had the privilege of working with the wood kids to do Chota Beam, presenting seven episodes of Chota Beam to the Indian audiences. And that was presented as a gift of smiles to the Indian audiences to engage in a child-friendly manner. And these are some of the projects we have done. So our approach to content marketing is simply, how do we bring Singapore even closer to the hearts and minds of the Indian audiences? Maybe I'll pause here and yeah, back to you. Sure, thank you. Thank you so much. Isha, you I think do a very interesting job out here, where brands are spending monies on the content marketing. You act as a source center for them in guiding them about trends by studying the data, by studying consumer metrics, especially in these times of the millennial audience where everyone is trying to catch up with all the lingo. And also not just that, from an ROI point of view, how did the entire budgets perform in terms of the sales or awareness of each point of view? Do you want to just take the audience through what Nipah exactly does? Yeah. Thanks Kulpreet for the introduction. Also sorry, I think the panel got me on a very, very bad throat day, but I'll try to say as much. So a bit about Nipah and how content is so dear to us. What am I doing on content jam? Nipah is a consumer science firm, as you already mentioned, Kulpreet is being 10 years for us in India. And why content has been very dear to us is because in the last three to four years, we have been consulting a variety of brands in terms of their content strategies and also playing a part in terms of really deciphering the only channel part to purchase as well. And as you know, content marketing, one important piece that I have seen in the work that we have been doing for a lot of brands, both for traditional legacy categories, as you mentioned, CPG and for emerging categories is that it is first becoming imperative. It's becoming the rock solid part of the consumer journey. We are seeing because of the advantages that it brings in, the cost optimization that it brings in. And I think on the panel, we already talked about the creator economy booming. It's becoming so easy to create content, first of all, that it's such a lever to the marketer. You don't have to, the dependency is gone. I would love to bring to the table also the fact that the amount of content creators which are becoming D2C marketers, leave no room to not have a role reversal, right? We've seen that with a personalized merge coming out from the content creators as well. The second point that is very interesting in the work that NEPA has seen and I have closely seen at NEPA is with the emerging categories. I mean, CPG, I think, I mean, mentioned that, you know, CPG, the categories are so nuanced that there is so much of literature that you would know that this is the first method they're gonna make when, you know, things are moving and shifting towards content, coming in with all that knowledge. But for categories like say our in-home services brand for a sleeping mattress, which is just not related, we're seeing that content is giving, it's democratizing them because it's giving them a chance to, what I say is that it's giving them a chance to give them a larger objective, a larger cause which is not related to the bottom line at all. So it's telling stories, it's also giving like a huge cause, I mean, take sustainability, take corporate responsibility, et cetera. I think that is going beautifully. So the third thing that I also, you know, apart from the emerging categories pieces that I think video marketing is something that we have seen is just doing wonders. The short form is becoming so short. And one trend that we are seeing is that it's just latching on trends. I mean, we see it in reels, we see it at Instagram for business, that categories like sneakers and because our work play involves their categories which is just not connected. But video marketing and the way it's really bringing in the heart of D2C to the core is seemingly very interesting at this point in time. But I'll, you know, maybe play it along but that's the starter remarks. Thank you. Thank you so much, Isha. Isha, you mentioned about trends, latching onto the trends. Mr. Jain, Amul has been, you know, one of the front drivers where you have come up with a fascinating campaigns whenever there are new trends or topical newsworthy things out there. Do, I mean, how do you see, I mean, I'm just saying the trends, riding on the trends and doing campaigns while we discuss brand awareness campaigns and while we, there's a debate on what's the conversion around that, right? How is it driving sales, right? Unlike, you know, when you're doing digital spends on Google display networks where you can generate a lead and see an excursion, you spend this much of money and these are the direct sales out there. But from your point of view, riding, I mean, it's actually a two-part question, riding on the trends, acting on that and as well as building a balance between brand awareness campaigns when you're creating content and looking at it from a direct sales point of view. Okay, I think very good question but equally difficult also. I'll also answer in two parts. A, as I mentioned, the content helps you remain top of the mind and that's what the Amul Talkical does. It's one of the examples I'm sharing right now. The Amul Girl does not talk about any Amul product per se, okay? So that is where we are delinking the mascot and the communication which creates the content which is the central continuation character of the campaign for the last 55 years with the products that we market. So both are delayed. So customer, when he or she looks at an Amul Talkical, they know who's not going to say, I'm going to butter, I'm going to bread, I'm going to put cookies. I mean, the product marketing and brand marketing is different. Now, believe me, unlike most of the companies sitting here or in the audience, we spend less than 1% of our turnover on advertising. So it's a very, very difficult call when you have so little budget and still you are saying that the most valued topic property of the organization is not talking about any of the products. Okay, so this is necessary to remain making consumers remain interested in your product and your brand name and be the main top of the line. And that's how you become topical, create content on topicality and ride on the wave. Then there comes the change in technology and how the brand adapts to it. This is where the conversations come in very handy. I'll just take one minute to talk about Amul's entry into the dark chocolate category in a very, very competitive chocolate market. At some point of time, we were very good in chocolates. And suddenly in the 1990s and up to 2010-15, we were languishing in the bottom of the street. Okay, then we said, how do we get back into the chocolate category? So we didn't want to take on the leading brands head on in their space of milk. We said, get on to the dark space. And we created the entire brand of Amul dark chocolate, the entire portfolio of dark, it's 455%, 75%, 90%, 99%, Peru, Venezuela, Tanzania, all that entire range, over 35, 40 products, share on word of mouth. You listening to conversations of the customers, creating the products around that, and these customers actually ensure that the distribution of the product also happens at the place where he or she is resigning. And all this with again, zero rupees investment in advertising and brand trading. Imagine Cadbury's sales turnover, advertising to sales ratios are in double digits. We were taking on the giant with zero rupees spending advertising. Simple because when you create a small content and the social media gives you conversation, the product is very good. The distribution is not very good. And I was, I'm talking about 2015 to 18 on that era. And still you can see Amul now available in more than three lakh shops, our single bar costs 100 rupees minimum and still your distribution is wide and customers keep asking for more and more various. So listening to customers and adapting and creating brands also is an experience we've had and we've been replicating across various other products also, but A, it's not very difficult to do so, you have to have the basics right. And then the confidence in your customers that they are the guys, ladies were gonna buy your product wherever they are because their friends are recommending it and not the typical brand advertising communication of 20, 40, 60 seconds is next. So this is the power of the medium which we need to leverage. No, thank you so much. I think that's what we all discussed that the power of creating good content where the audience who is consuming it, they become your marketing team and they start sharing it further and without you having to always spend crazy media spends. Mr. Sagar, how critical it is for Tata to ride on the ever-changing trends, right? And especially when you're talking about content being generated on the digital platforms, right? Where you are reaching out to a large set of young audiences as well, right? Riding, just adapting to that. How critical is this from a Tata's point of view? Yeah, I think for every single brand, content is an important part of the strategy. And one of the things that we also realize is for the young audience, obviously the platform matters, right? What platforms to add and also the messaging technology. So one of the things that we had done and see one part of, so we had essentially one pillar of our brand building is generating brand law, especially for a brand like Tata Sol which obviously is consumed by around 75 crore Indians, one of the highest loyalty, one of the most asserted brands. And so one example that I would like to give on Gandhi Jayanthi, we had created one AR-enabled technological intervention wherein on the MG road in Mumbai, there was an installation. If you walk past that installation, you will get a message from Gandhi actually. There would be a picture of Gandhi that almost pop out and say, you're walking on my road, but are you walking on my path? And it actually started many people and then they said that, Gandhi obviously spoke about cleanliness, like cleanliness is next to godliness and showed the pictures of various public places in the city where the amount of filth and amount of dirt is so much, what are you doing? So you walk on my road every day, but will you, on the second October, will you also take me to walk on my path? While it engage a lot of people because obviously those that road, obviously the Ford area is one of the most crowded in the country, it created a lot of imagination and it went viral. So I presume using of technology in a very innovative way, engaging way and to voice a platform really makes an important criterion for brands to really engage. Another part of a very interesting question which you asked, I think to Jen, I would actually want to contribute if I may, which you spoke about this performance marketing and brand awareness marketing and a lot of people asked this question. I would say that performance marketing is actually not marketing, it is sales. And there is a fundamental difference between marketing and sales. I think the job of marketing is to make selling redundant, right? And the basic message, basic fundamental promise that a market marketer has to make is that, how do you create a narrative which has lowest common denominator among multiple people, creates their grabs, their attention and makes them to act, right? While for niche categories, while it may still make a lot of sense, I would say for mass categories and brand which really want to make, they have to create narrative which are very compelling. Also, financially it makes no sense. Let me give you an example. I mean, most of the CPG categories and I think a lot of my experiences are basis consumer product because that's where I spend most of my time. The ticket size is very low. So if I were to really acquire a customer, the minimum cost of acquisition is 150 to 200 rupees, right? If I do the same good quality content, if I do good content, the cost of view is 20 percent, okay? And if I do that at a frequency of three times, four times that is 70 to 80 percent. If my brand is strong, if my messaging is strong, the consideration to awareness ratio is 70 percent. From consideration to purchase ratio is around 60 percent. You work out the maths, right? It will work to some, you know, two rupees, three rupees of acquiring a customer, allowing me to spread myself quite wide, right? And I would presume that and that I would advise to most of the marketers, I think don't fall for it. Let's understand the fundamentals and what will really make the brand. I think the idea of brand is everlasting and really investing behind creating brands that customers want to perform. And one classical example I have given to multiple people that for a same funnel, different brands will have different conversion ratio and the differentiating factor is not the medium choice, but the choice for the brand, right? So, sorry, you didn't ask me that question. No, no, no, no, I mean, this question for everyone on the panel. Mr. Namin, I mean, again, same two questions for you as well, because also as a part and you and your teams, I think go through this every day with every brand, right? Awareness campaigns, what's the sales being driven and also predicting trends, right? And a lot of times you must be getting calls from brands while they would have seen certain campaigns and we should have wrote on that, right? And at times, you guys would have predicted something, but brands might not have agreed. I mean, I think it's just, because I work very closely with your team, so I just love to hear some examples and stories from your side. Okay, so first and foremost, I completely agree with what father mentioned, you know? And, you know, market years just really, really stay away from this entire trend philosophy and, you know, that's also that's something that I completely agree with. The second thing, very importantly, he alluded to what then he actually implied as well was that, you know, you should have a view of what's the customer lifetime value, you know, that you should look at. And therefore, that is where your business model will operate. Now, it's just that I'm just building on this, just building on this line of thinking that many brands who are coming into the market recently and newer and emerging categories like Nipah mentioned earlier, you know, they really don't have the luxury that Sagar and his brands have of 75% loyalty. Now, when you don't have all of those things, how in that kind of an environment do you really, really build a brand, you know, in a manner where you can balance your short term as well as your long term objectives? I think more and more companies who are launching, you know, in the emerging market categories are actually trying to, you know, find that balance, that how do I win on short term and how do I, you know, kind of also invest behind the long term. And in that balancing act, you know, given the way the consumer is spread across multiple touch points and the proliferation of media and all of that, I think it's very, very difficult. It's becoming a great challenge for them to really find that thin balance. One of the recent studies that I was going through actually said that the new and emerging the millennials or the consumers, you know, the loyalty percentage, 60% plus people don't really have, you know, are not showcasing any form of consistent loyalty. In this kind of an environment where consumers are increasingly going to be flirtatious, you know, how do you really, really make compelling narratives to attract yourself towards your brand? So that's one challenge. And we should all think come together and, you know, solve for it. So that's one part, right? The second thing that I want to say is that in the same set of studies, it shows that digital as a medium is really, really helping influence these light loyal consumers in a certain way. So digital has a great influence. So my second point is that, yes, this entire digital medium and especially for these young flirtatious consumers is really, really acting as a influential conduit. So those two are important elements in our consideration, right? The third important consideration if you move from there is that, again, I'll go back to the previous question, you know, the conversation that we had, is that at which stage is the consumer in his journey? And therefore, once I realize that, you know, this is a person who's interested in, you know, coming in for home interiors or this is a person who's looking at buying a car or these are the people. And then there are many data points which are available. And then we can actually see intent and we can actually see, you know, intent building up, you know, through various digital and through the conversations like Mr. Jain mentioned earlier. So if you look at those data and insight stories, you will come to know that there is a bucket of consumer who's already either in the category or already in the marketplace. I think people who are in the category or in the marketplace showcasing intent, they need a very different approach to activating that family versus people who are going to be in, you know, you want to invite them into, you know, category consideration or, you know, and then their own. So I think these are the ways in which you can actually look at and segregate, you know, different, you know, sets of consumers within the entire universe. And then derive your strategy. So. Super. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Sreethar, I mean, it's often believed, right? That the tourism marketing is a very impulsive marketing where people are taking a good call basis when they're seeing something in content piece when they're planning their vocation. From your point of view, like Mr. Amin mentioned, the influencer marketing, right? How, I mean, is it a big part of your marketing budgets or still long from content planning throughout the year is something with which you guys focus on? So I think a few things have changed, right? Point number one, we are living in a very different environment where a lot of digital natives, people are consuming content, very personalized content has come up. So for us, it has been very important that we look at active and passive marketing. So active marketing has been previously very sales oriented, right? When you are in the consideration of a travel, up pops up some STB advertisement together with maybe our travel agent partners and you decide to book the package and then come to Singapore. But increasingly we have realized that a lot more passive stage marketing is needed where even before they are even considering a holiday, we need to be able to engage the consumers and let them know about what Singapore is and what the destination is all about. So you are right, we have started looking at all forms of content creation. So whether it is content that we create on our own with partners, like say whether it's book my show, National Geographic or Tripoto, which are all platforms which has got different ways of storytelling or Chotabim or a Bollywood movie. So that's content creation with another like-minded brand or platform. Two, of course, is content that we create with our travel agent partners because these are the guys who are actually selling and converting this purchase decisions, right? And then bringing them to Singapore. But increasingly we are looking at influencer marketing, influencer marketing has gone big time. I think Aisyah was talking about it also just now that a lot of us are starting to see influences have become marketers of their own. And we are looking at influencer marketing. So we are looking at them as fashionistas because we sell passion made possible as a brand, Singapore's brand. And we look at their passion points and how do we use their voices in authentic voices? Either they have A, consume those experiences in Singapore therefore they can then talk about them or B, it is a passion point and they are then connecting with the Singaporean similar passion and then they tell their story. So influencers has become very important. The other look at the real, looking at is the vernacular lens. I think the likes of Tata and Amal in the room will know about connecting with an audience in their language has now become so important in India. And we are looking at, so prior to COVID-19 we had 15 cities from which an Indian traveler can come to Singapore. And we have realized that whether we need to communicate in Tamil, of course they can still get these communications done in English and some of most of the time our communications get through. But we have started realizing communicating in native language, whether it's Gujarati, whether it's Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, all of that is becoming very important. So we are looking at micro influences now. We are looking at vernacular content. So the content creation and distribution has now have to be looked in totality and seeing how the various trends are coming out of India. We are now seeing how we can customize the content for audiences across India. Sure, sure. Thank you, thank you. And I think as a tourism, as a category also fits very, very interestingly organically into creating content, right? I mean, it's not that you just have to reinvent the wheel in terms of, I mean, traveling is somebody which everyone loves and they relate to and when you activate influencers, I think that's why in my experience when we have worked with tourism boards, a lot of them have seen very high ROI in terms of uptake of the tickets being booked for those countries when we have activated influencers for some of these campaigns. Isha, you know, when most of the brands and agencies when they're activating marketing campaigns, right? They are different metrics to measure the ROI, right? There are discussions about what's the overall reach, what's the, now there's a discussion about leave reach, what is the engagement, right? And then a discussion about, I don't care about the engagement also, how many leads, how many clicks did I get, right? I mean, these are different metrics being and nobody, I don't know if anybody knows what's the right metric to measure the content marketing. From your, as a search, from your point of view, when you deal with brands, what do you prioritize and how do you talk to brands and help them understand this entire ecosystem? Yeah, that's a very interesting and relatable question. It hurts a borderline because I think we're just challenged in terms of, it's so used to quantifying the measures and impact that this just like springs up when it comes to content marketing. So you talked about reach, you talked about CTRs. One thing with content marketing that we advise when we work with both legacy and emerging brands or be short-term, be long-term is that when working with content marketing in D2C, don't be D2C, which is don't be desperate for conversion. So I think that is so, makes for a hilarious debate because I think it's so used to the rapid, very rapid feedback loop on CTRs, on the reach numbers, the impressions. We are building a narrative through content. Like I think Sagar mentioned very nicely that work towards making a compelling brand. And that's not a liberty that a lot of emerging categories definitely have, but it cannot solve for instant gratification as well. It might like give you a dish, but it doesn't mean that your conversion numbers in the funnel are going to move overnight. And when we run brand health trackers, we often are faced with that question. Your very pointed piece that what is the correct measure? I think we all are trying to find that answer. There is not like singular aspect to it, but it's very important while measuring that what do you want to do? Is it the imagery? Is it the positioning that you want to really, you know, like see a gap bridging in? Is it really the, you know, the numbers moving in the bottom funnel that you are trying to move in? Because it takes time. To give you an example, we were working on a recent study on a core theme as sustainability. And we thought, you know, CPG clients are going to be the ones who are running green and feature number one, but we saw tech brands. We saw consumer tech brands like Google, WhatsApp, featuring high on sustainability. And like, okay, this is, this doesn't, you know, this doesn't really tie up, but maybe actually it does because it's the work of conscious years of legacy building in, having different perspectives on content to sustainability, which goes beyond green, right? Having a larger purpose. So that's, and we also saw, you know, like twice the concentration increase for these brands just on the peg of sustainability being a hook. And that was very interesting to see. So there is no particular matrix that I can really pinpoint that because it depends upon the objective that we have in the, you know, one in the life stage of the brand, the amount of years that category has really matured as, but yes, like really the conversion might not be the only piece where you should look at content. I think it's the quality of content. When you look at awareness, rather look at quality of awareness that you're bringing in. If you're looking at consideration, what is the quality? Because if tried to now started, you know, creating these proxies in the funnel when you're working with content. And even for pop culture talk, you know, important critical social themes like say LGBTQ, we've seen that, for that maybe awareness is there, but the quality of awareness is the criticality when it comes to content. So that's I think a parallel proxy funnel of the quality of the KPIs becomes extremely critical while working with content as core and marketing. No, no, absolutely. I personally believe that, I mean, content marketing is just one of the vehicles. It's very, it gets very difficult to start measuring ROI from a piecemeal point of view, right? And it's a holistic approach of marketing. I mean, I've seen something, some content piece today. I might not drive the sale, itself today, but when I'm willing to do my research on that category tomorrow on Google, it will be somewhere in my conscience that I've seen something like Shridhar mentioned while I was watching Chota being possibly I see, I saw some visuals of Singapore and now it's sticking into my mind. It might just drive the sale out there. I had a long list of questions you guys have seen I've sent on the group, but we are out of time already. So I think we would wrap it up right now here. I don't want to eat into the time of the next panel. Babna, are you there? Yes, very much. Good grief, what an insightful discussion. I must say absolutely glued to the screen and listening to everyone was of immense joy. Thank you once again to all our panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good grief for me. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. Nice meeting all of you. Okay, bye.