 Hello and welcome to all of you to our first webinar of this lockdown season. We are all in middle of a major crisis. No matter how much we talk about COVID-19, we really do not know how long this crisis is going to last. We are making plans, we are giving solutions to the clients, we are making plans for ourselves, for our business partners. But these are all estimations and possibilities. None of us knows exactly where are we heading. There's nothing definite about our plans right now. I feel there is one definite thing that we can do in these times is to stand up for each other, the need for solidarity. And with me today is this esteemed panel, the industry veterans who can explain more about what exactly solidarity in these times can mean for each one of us, for the entire industry, for every stakeholder. And although it's just a formality, but I'm going to introduce this panel which I doubt needs any kind of introduction. With me today is Mr. Sam Balsara, Chairman and MD, Medicine World. Mr. Ashish Basin, CEO, APAC and Chairman, India Dan. Mr. Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Media Brands. And Mr. Amir Jaleel, Group CCO and Chairman, Malin Lowly Ntaskar. Welcome to each one of you. To begin with, I would want to start with Mr. Balsara. I think he's the senior most amongst every one of us. So what do you mean? How can we define solidarity at this time for the industry? And what are the measures that industry can take to be together? Well, I think solidarity, to be honest, I don't think solidarity was top of my mind. But now that you've raised it and the discussion is on solidarity, I guess solidarity at a time like this means not trying to take advantage of any situation that may come your way, to be completely fair and transparent in your dealings with your clients, with other agencies, and most important with your employees. And I think we are being fortunate that I think as an advertising industry, by and large, I would say we are a reasonably unified lot. And I think if the lockdown continues and by all accounts, it does look like, you know, it's going to go beyond April 15th, probably I'm sure under Ashish's leadership, we'll come together on the three-way platform and take some decisions on what we collectively can do to ensure that we have lives and vocations and jobs are safe once the industry gets back to normal. So that is what solidarity would mean for me. Ashish sir, would you want to talk about solidarity? So I think the immediate thing is keeping our industry safe because at this point in time, that is, you know, and I hope it doesn't happen to us, but it is coming close, so in various parts, so we are in it together. I think safety and happiness of our employees and our people, because as Mr. Basara said, we are pretty united in this. But the fact is that if we were together, you know, ensuring the matured makeup of our people, our employees, of our partners, of our vendors, you know, and of our clients, I think that to me is the immediate need of the heart. And to help each other, because finally, you know, we are the media business, at least we feed off media, so we have closer to what is happening. There's more small examples where we can do, you know, people in trouble or we can help them out, people, sick people, not able to read, so our own employer is the ecosystem, the family. So I think there's simple, simple thing which could be done, which will, you know, both physically and emotionally, which will raise the morale at this point in time. Ashish sir. I think Sam and Shashi have both covered it. One of the things I'm very proud of, and I say this not as Dan Hedward as a member of the Advertising Fraternity, I happened to me at present, the president of three years of high, which position with Sam and many more, much more illustrious people than me have occupied before, that as an industry, we are actually pretty much, we show a lot of solidarity even in times which are not of crisis. Of course, in times of crisis, there is need to show even more. I think the first thing as leaders, according to me, is that we have to be real and authentic. We have to communicate a lot with our people, with our partners and everybody, and everybody has to understand that this is an emergency situation, not business as usual. And therefore it is going to impact a lot of people. It's going to cause difficulties to a lot of people, hopefully for a short period of time and hopefully we'll all come out of it. But first of all, we have to be true. One of the ways we try to show solidarity is that there are a lot of issues which are pretty common to all agencies. So for example, at times like these liquidity is an issue. So we collectively then talk to our friends on, let's say, on the media owner's side and try to tell them the problems that we are having and work out with them how we can accommodate each other, keeping their problems also in mind and seeing how we get over it. Also, I feel that this time if we can all come together, there's a very good initiative which actually Sundar has started, Sundar Swami has initiated, which we hope to take through the three years or five with the help of senior people like Sam and Shashi guiding us is to actually write to the government, put up some of the things that they can do at a time like this, which can help all agencies and on that bit. And of course, like Shashi said, these are also going to be times where there's going to be a lot of anxiety to people working in the advertising industry. I mean, am I going to have my job? Is there going to be a, you know, how is this going to impact me? So there's a lot of anxiety. There's a time we can all come together and communicate. And like I said, in this, we have to be real. Yes, there is going to be problem. Yes, there are. This is not business as usual and business is going to have an impact. But if we all work together, we can find a way to spread the pain to make sure that particularly, you know, the lowest end of the pyramid is better taken care of and we tied over this difficult period and come out stronger at the end of it. Amir, you would want to add something to the to the meaning and definition of solidarity in these times. I think, you know, this event is far beyond, you know, professionalism. It's a humanitarian sort of crisis, right? It's a huge crisis. And I feel that it's opened our, you know, minds and hearts and eyes a lot. You know, it's exposed to us the fact that we are all sort of interdependent, right? It's not just about our industry. It's about like, it's about everything like marketing has understood how interdependent it is on the littlest person, you know, the person at the factory. We have understood how much we are dependent on our production. These are professional examples, but you know, that if your domestic health had has gone for a wedding in the middle of this, I mean, you're finished. So it's huge and it's human this crisis. And this crisis has exposed interdependence. And I think it has converted a lot of people into better human beings. So as people, we are understanding each other better. As people, we are getting more empathy with each other. And I feel that what happens is that, you know, when it's never happened before that the entire world almost is having a shared history. Usually shared history is, you know, you in your company, you come together, people have been, you know, you've grown up with people in your college or in your school, you have shared history, right? And that shared history gives you a sort of bonding and coming close to each other. But now this history is being shared by the whole world. The whole world is experiencing those same exact problems all everywhere. So this shared history, both professionally and at a very human level, it's going to join us all together. I think we are all going to become saints because, you know, we will get each other so much. We will understand each other so much. You know, there was, you know, although I agree that there has been solidarity in the industry, but there's also been pettiness. There's also been bickering. There's also been many other things that have been happening, right? All of these things I feel will disappear. They'll just go away, you know, because now we are all in the same sort of lifeboat. And we have to take it, you know, to some kind of a show together. So this I think is going to change hearts and minds of people, both professionally and at a human level. So that's my understanding. So this was Jaleel's creative. That is why you should have one person from creative industry also talking about solidarity while we all looked at very practical aspects of it. Jaleel has made it more human. I was not trying to be creative or anything. No, no, I mean for us, it was definitely an additional input. So I want to come back to what you said that you want to, you want the entire industry to go to government about some measures that they can take to help our business. What kind of measures or what kind of help do you expect from government at this juncture? Under the guidance of all the senior people, we're trying to collate that. So I don't yet have a full answer, but there are some obvious ones. So for example, government is a big advertiser itself, right? And there are lots and lots of views at this moment liquidity is a big problem. Not necessarily from my agency, but there are many agencies who are pretty dependent upon government business or have a large amount of government business. If they're, if government can just start clearing its own bills, which are often not paid for, forget months, but sometimes even years, I think that could help. I don't think there's any agency in India because we are in this unique problem that the TDS deducted particularly from media agencies tends to be disproportionate because, you know, our commissions tend to be two and a half percent, but the TDS tends to be relatively in a relative sense much, much higher. So there are, there are always refunds that we need to get on income tax. And those are sometimes stuck up for years. We need that the industry needs that money at the moment to pay its salaries, to pay rents, to keep the thing going. So there are some practical suggestions like these. And as well as if you look around in the world just yesterday or day before, Singapore had its second round of, second round of, you know, reliefs that they gave. And for example, of course, it's a small country and a well off country. And maybe it can afford to up to $4,600 salary for the month of April, the government will give 75% relief if you don't remove the person or like a subsidy. And for the rest of the months, they'll give 25% relief. So we, I don't expect that we'll be able to give what Singapore government can give, but I think over a period of time, we need to put money back into the pockets of businesses so that businesses can continue to run. So we will collate all these suggestions and we will put them forward to the government. And I'm hopeful that some, if not all of them, they will be open to them. How soon are we likely to do that? But we should do it pretty fast. We're in the process of collating it and three years of high should be able to collate it. And hopefully within this week itself, I would like to send this off. Once, you know, I have the guidance of people like Shashi and Sam and Sundar and all of them, all the senior people and our exec approves it, then we'd like to collate it and send it off. Sam, I want to come back to you and ask you to give this long standard career. Have you ever seen a situation like this where the viewership is at its peak? Everyone is consuming television, yet there are no or minimum advertisers or people are shying away from advertising. Have you come across a situation like this ever in past? No, obviously not. I mean, this situation is unprecedented. As Amir said, you know, at no, I think at no time in the history has the whole world been locked down the way we have been. Of course, I think the closest and recent memory that we came to was in 2008 during the Lehman crisis. But I would say India was a little more protected from it. At that time, again, you know, business took a hit, advertising took a hit. There was a negative growth in advertising for the first time after a few years. But there has never been a time like this ever again. And I should think that what is going to be the most difficult task for both people at the agency end and the advertiser end is to kind of get the economy going again. As to how do we get, you know, it's also a little easy for us to suggest that, you know, those who are able to keep their brand equity up at a time like this are the most likely to sort of benefit when things normalize. But when companies don't have physical money to pay, I guess it's not easy for them to advertise. So I guess we need to put our heads together to see once the lockdown is lifted. Whenever it is lifted, it is now becoming reasonably sure that it won't be lifted on April 15. Whenever it is lifted, how do we sort of help in getting advertising rolling again? Because I would suspect that when industry is just coming out of a terrible cash crunch, you know, it will be difficult for boards to take a decision that okay, next quarter, let us spend this on advertising. So I think we need to put our heads together to come up with practical ideas that would make it easy for industry to revert back to normal as fast as possible, and probably within a quarter. I would not, I read a view, I think on your E4M, somebody saying that industry is going to be back with a vengeance when the lockout is lifted. I think that is, in my view, is not going to be likely. I think, you know, it'll be, it'll have to be unfortunately a slow start. And we'll have to put our heads together to see how we can accelerate that. Shashi, you want to add to that? I mean, what are these practical solutions that you can give to your clients right now? Can you hear me? Shashi sir? Yeah, me? Yeah, yeah, I asked you what are the examples that we have to give practical solutions to our clients? I think it's premature to get into a solution anymore because just now, as Mr. Balsara said, we don't know how long it will last and the extent of the damage. I think what he was trying to say that people are saying it'll be a quick recovery. I think what was implied in that is, and I didn't subscribe to what he's saying, that it'll be slow. It's not going to be easy and it'll take time, you know. So all this is nice to say we shaped and you shaped all that recovery, but it's going to be slightly long. And I think it's premature to put out, I think, you know, it'll look very unsurmountable. You have to break them up, go client by client and break them up into small manageable parts. So each client has some strong markets, weak markets, strong customers, you know, depending on the work category. So without generalizing, I think a little bit of micro discussions with clients have to happen. And then, but that is a bit critical. Nazia, perhaps I can come in with a question for Shashi. I've been noticing that Amul has been particularly active, I think in recent weeks. So maybe Shashi, you could share with us your views on how this came about, because I see Amul as a conservative advertiser. And as the client is fond of saying he spends less than 1% on advertising. And I should think his products are in short supply. And yet Amul is advertising. So how did it come about, maybe he could share with your viewers and all of us, the reasoning for that? Sam, I think my, my interpretation of this is it's layered and multi-level. So while your right supplies have been limited like all manufacturers, but probably Amul is a lot more, is a lot more, you know, larger infrastructure. They penetrate and there are multiple production centers all over the country, especially for milk. So it's probably chances are it's not as dry as a lot of other CPGs, you know, they are doing like milk, particularly milk is the backbone. They are going with that all the way. So firstly, Amul may be in a unique position because of the infrastructure that they are delivering a lot more. Secondly, I think Mr. Sodhi and all credit goes to him. You know, what you spoke about band building earlier. So while there's immediate demand, but there's also moments of happiness, small moments of joy. So if you see the communication, a lot of it is around Marky Mamta, you know, which is the small moments of joy in a time like this with the pressing all around. At least you're seeing even the news channels, if I may say so, are very morbid and all kind of stuff coming out, not only to the virus, also outside. So I think there is a possibility which Mr. Sodhi, if you know him personally believes in Amul, believe in that it costs. And the third thing, which probably what you are seeing is because there's no one else advertising at this point in time, the channels are probably overdoing it, you know, with the bonus saying and the leverage they're getting. So that is, I think, it didn't benefit, which has happened. You know, probably if the bonus thing was X, not the bonus thing is Y, which is why the visibility is a lot more. And also the clutter is less. So that's just the spin-off which is happening. But I think the larger point is that the positive is they try to create all around this, you know, which is what they believe in. And I think that's a great strategy to have. Hopefully, it'll have a long-term impact. We're going to measure what happens, maybe three months down the line in terms of radical discourse and other things. Actually, one of the things we should do as an industry is to watch, you know, I've actually lived with this slightly longer than most people in India because of my AIPAC role, because China was the first country that went into this. So we've been, some of the other of our offices have been in lockdown since before Chinese New Year, which is from January itself. The irony is that today, in all of AIPAC, the only offices that are working are in China. So Shanghai and Beijing have opened up and Wuhan, we have an office in Wuhan that is also partially opened up from this week itself. So we lived with this a little longer. The phase that happens is that everything just goes downhill, downhill, downhill till it reaches a very sort of low level till the lockdowns, et cetera, lift. At least that's what happened in China. And we should study that very carefully. It's also happening in South Korea because it's following a pattern. So if you look at Italy, Italy is about a month ahead of China, whatever is happening in China, including the plateauing, et cetera, is happening in Italy a month later. Perhaps US is another month ahead of Italy, et cetera. So it then goes down. Then it comes to a level where slowly business starts coming back, starts getting some confidence and the brands that start advertising first are the ones whose distribution opens up first because it's not as if even whenever the lockdown is lifted, like Sam said, it's unlikely it will be lifted on 15th of April. But even if let's say 30th April or whenever it's lifted, it's not as if there will be a switch on and everything will be back to normal because productions have to start, labor has gone to the ground, they have to come back. It's definitely the next two quarters are going to be painful. So some product categories start advertising first. We should study that and start going to those kinds of clients first, whichever ones were opening up first and say that, look here is a chance where you are relatively better off, media is cheap, you can start getting back. Also because digital consumption continues to be more even after this is there, there are opportunities for performance marketing which can help you drive sales because the first thing the client needs at a time like this actually is liquidity. If he doesn't have liquidity, his own business cannot run. So I know we are brand builders and storytellers and that's our key job. But at a time like this in a moment of crisis, our job has to be to help him clear his stocks and get sales going so that he has money so that his business can start getting normalized. So I think there are some learnings we can get for markets which have suffered this maybe a month or two or three before us. Mr Jalil, most of the bigger campaigns are on hold right now but still you have clients who are coming up with a lot of COVID related ads. What kind of communication are marketers looking at right now? What are you suggesting to them? See, I think all of us whether we whether marketers or brand builders of any kind, we are trying to keep a connection on with our clients. The time is very, very sort of scary. There's a lot of fear among people. At the same time, people are discovering very, very different parts of life in many different ways. I think what we are suggesting to people is and what we should as an industry also take on a role which has been a traditional role in that. See whether it's a crisis or whether it's not a crisis, our greatest tool that we employ is creativity. And if you ask me, everybody is in the crisis at the same time now but in my experience in a company as big as Lintas, usually what happens is one client or one brand is always under crisis. Some crisis is happening somewhere. The difference that we are seeing now is that everybody is under crisis at the same time. We are trying to think what we know best. We understand how to keep connections with people and we know how to solve problems with creativity. So we've been doing and we've been advising our brands and our clients like this and we are also planning a little ahead because while this crisis was coming on, we were planning for the crisis, when the crisis hit us, both as a government, as a country and as marketers and as an advertising or a brand building agency, we were thinking a little ahead. We are now thinking ahead for when the lockdown will be out of the lockdown. So I think it's our dharma to always think ahead what is going to happen, how people are going to react and how to solve all that with creativity. There is one more important point that I want to make because of the illustrious panel that we have here and it's a very different point from what the topic of your conversation is. See, I think this situation that we are in, we have some very illustrious leaders in media here. So I want to make a point about media I think we are in a situation where media needs rest. Really speaking, there is so much, people are not finding media, especially news media, to be dependable. There is a kind of fear that is what media reporting, is it right? Are they aligned? Are they all speaking the truth? Somebody made a point just a little bit in the beginning of this webinar and that point was about authenticity at this time. I think because we are in the center of this industry and Shashi you are there, Sam is there, all of you, all our voices are very important because we are connectors to media. I think we should make a representation to media because I have never seen actually and this crisis has brought this to the fore. I have never seen media look down this much upon. Every person from every part of society today has something to say about media. And we are- That's been on for quite some time. I see little connection with COVID-19. That's been on for a while now and it has just gone to another level. Of course with the increase of crisis, it has increased further. We are live on Facebook right now and I'm getting questions for all of you. We are left with only half an hour. Sorry, Amir, I had to cut you. I want to finish all the questions. The first question has been asked by some anonymous attendee. He wants to ask will it hamper the industry in long run? Well, depends what is long run. In the long run, we are all dead. But I guess of course I think the impact of it is going to be there in the long run. If long run is meant to be one year, I think we'll definitely be impacted for the financial year 2021. I think there is going to be a serious setback. I wouldn't go so much as to say it would impact the next year. Hopefully we get back to normal. If the lockout is lifted, say one month from now, then I should hope- I would say I should hope that by the festive season, which is just by say by the sera, I think we should get back to our normal self. But it does mean that more than half the year has got wasted. Shashi sir, why when do you think this- I will not hazard a guess. So one way, like Ashish is saying, we also tracking markets and how they're behaving in terms of the epidemic and also in terms of the recovery of the business which is happening. But as Abir said, we don't know what's happening in the country just now. We don't know what the numbers are. We don't know what to pan out. So I would be- and please also remember that the US is affected and in a way the US economy reflects the global economy. So I would at this point in time, I mean I'm hoping and praying what Samsung is right. I would also desire that, you know, by Diwali, we are back in action. But it's very difficult to predict. I would not put my, you know, one day my mouth is- I'll just lie low at this point in time. Yeah, Mr. Jagi. I was thinking and this is only a theory. I think we- because of like the population that we have, which is a much younger population, I don't know. But it could be possible that because we have a younger population and we have more numbers of that kind of population, of course they can be quite mad. They can, you know, younger people can, you know, do all sort of strange things. But in this kind of a crisis, coming out of a crisis, I think younger people will be raring to go. And that says, you know, that puts our country, I feel, in a better position than many other countries, especially, you know, on the European side and things like that. So I feel very good and positive that coming out of the crisis, at least, you know, because of the population that we have, we probably will do better. The next question is for you only. What form of advertising strategy would you suggest during these times? Vanilla advertising or building upon the connect through a series of engagement activities? See, we, we depends on the industry depends on the category. We, there is no blanket solution to anybody. We are, we are working with people where they are absolutely behaving certain categories were absolutely behaving as if there is no crisis. Everything is going normal. All their normal plans are on exactly as before, right? So they continue to do their brand building when the sort of lockdown gets over, all of these things that they're planning for will get produced and life will become very, very normal. There are certain other brands and certain certain categories were completely focused on the here and now. So to those guys, we are helping them figure out how they should behave as brands and as, you know, sometimes even as the corporates. So we are advising on all sort of brands in different manners. So that's my, that's my answer. Some Mr. Pavan Prakash who has said, hi Ashish. And then he has disappeared. I just thought I'll tell you. And no, no, no, he has come up with this question. Good point on categories. That would be first active post the lockdown, which are the product categories that you would see getting active first and the big players like automobile handsets could take what kind of timeline to come back into business. So somewhat similar to what Sam and Shashi said, my thinking is on similar lines. Unlike Shashi, I am willing to put some money where my mouth is. That's the beauty of Shashi never puts his money where his mouth is. But I think definitely this quarter of the calendar year is definitely going to be slow. I mean, that's a no brainer on that. There is one very important element in the Indian economy, which we always miss out. And that is the monsoon because our rural economy is still unfortunately even 70 plus years after independence, very, very dependent upon the monsoon. And if the at the moment, what is happening consumption has come to near zero except for essentials, we need the consumption to start for industry to start. If the monsoon is good, if the rural spending happens, then you will see that the consumption starts and then from Diwali onwards, like Sam and Shashi both said, you can hope for an upswing to start. We'll be lucky if we end this year with a 0% growth. We'll probably end this year with a negative growth from this calendar year, the way things look now because it's good to be optimistic. But at the same time, you've got to plan for the worst and hope for the best. At the same time, you have to be realistic, make sure that your teams get a realistic message because otherwise you'll end up spending more resources than you should and not planning for the right way. Now, if this were to follow logic, then I think the FMCGs will be the first to come back in full swing because that's where consumption will obviously happen. The industries which are more service oriented will come back faster, food industries, etc. E-commerce has picked up very fast in China. In fact, e-commerce in many cases is doing better than what it was doing before because a lot of the physical stores opened later and the e-commerce deliveries started earlier. So that starts picking up. Entertainment, even though cinema halls don't open, but you know, OTTs, televisions, channels, etc. They start advertising a lot. The heavier industries like infrastructure or even automobiles, etc. which need a lot more time to get their production going and their distributors going, etc. tend to be coming in a little later in the market. So far, what we are seeing is that the service industries, quick touch, light manufacturing industries, consumable FMCG kind of goods, they are the ones which are bouncing back first. There's somebody called Mr. Pankaj Bilwari. It asks the same question from Shashi sir. Which category of advertisers will be most impacted and which will be least impacted and bounce back fast after lockdown opens? You want to answer that Shashi sir? So I think it's very close to what Archie said. My view is exactly that. Well, I would say the luxury goods segment is going to take a bit of a long time. So if I was a luxury car maker, if I was selling luxury fashion goods, I think they would be a little more slower to recover. Also, I think in FMCG, maybe the top end of the premium goods might take a little more time than the regular segments. Next question is from somebody. I don't know. He has not revealed his name. He works for either of you. He wants to know how secure is his job. It's about job security has been a concern. How are you motivating your employees? Who are you asking this to? He has all of you because this person has not revealed his name. So he's working for any one of you. I don't know who. So we can start with Archie sir. How are you ensuring this job security? At the moment, I am just telling all my colleagues that there is going to be pain. All of us are going to feel the pain whether you're senior, whether you're junior, whether it's a company, whether it's the individual, an event as catastrophic as this. So once in a lifetime, once in many generations event, there's a kind of stuff your father or grandfather told you stories about, you know, in partition, we saved our lives and ran away, etc. Food wasn't available, that kind of stuff. We haven't, last two generations haven't even experienced it. So when an event of this magnitude happens, there is going to be pain. And I think it is important for leaders to be honest and tell their people that it's going to be there. I think all responsible leaders will obviously try to minimize loss of jobs as much as possible. Almost every company, I can't imagine any certainly my company has has started cutting down on any expense that you can defray with postpone your postponing. Obviously bonuses, increments, etc. will get impacted hiding that you may have presumed that you will do will get postponed. The last thing I want to do is to it's better to cut salaries somewhere or have people voluntarily cut salaries than cut jobs etc. So it depends on how bad it gets. It's got to be kind of a graded response, I guess, depending upon how long this lasts. But in a moment like this, everybody will get impacted. Hopefully leadership will make that the impact is as the pain is as minimized as possible. But there will be pain in that sense. But you know, it's not all doom and gloom, there is going to be light at the end of this tunnel. I've lived through four financial crises, albeit none as global as this or as big as this. And I'm sure Sam and Chashi probably even more than that. Our industry is very resilient. India as a country in the midterm and long term is going to do well. Like Amir said, we have young population very well equipped to handle the future. So there will be light at the end of this tunnel. But in the short term, there will be pain. So the honest answer which I would give, and it doesn't matter whether he's from my company or from any other company, I think all leaders would probably say that that there will be some amount of pain. We will obviously everybody will try to minimize as much as there is. But nobody's going to go unscaped with it. But hopefully it will be temporary and will be short lived. Anyone else would want to add to that? Chashi sir? I just want to add to what Ashish said. You see, this time it's a global pandemic. It's happening all over. And I also have done advertising. 70 to 80% of advertising is controlled by global companies. And global companies will work in a particular manner. So they obviously the American system or the European system is where there is social security. So they move in a particular way. Their psyche is one way to drop cuts. I think as Ashish directly said, there will be pain. But I'm sure all the leaders in the industry and especially on this panel will be separated to where they will take control such as it is in my generation cultures behavior differently. And as a result, they minimize the pain to whatever extent possible. There are many ways of minimizing the pain. Probably seniors will take a bigger head than the youngsters or whatever. So there are many ways of doing it. But yes, I think the fact that this is a mature industry and people should be aware that whatever pain comes will be handled with maturity. Sam or Amir, would you want to add anything to that? No, I would say, well, depending on what is the announcement on April 14th, depending on the lockdown, I would say companies would be well advised to kind of work out their own plans based on their own cash reserves as to how much money they have and how long will it last and take some appropriate action so that that money can last longer than for a short period of time. I think, rather than just go on as if life is normal and then suddenly discover that, oh, you've run out of money, obviously it's better to take some precautions and see that how you could lengthen your staying power at a time like this. And that would, I think, be in the interest of everybody in the industry. Amir, do you have a view? See, the thing is that we all know that our industry is built completely of people. There is nothing else in our industry. Now, that's a good thing and a bad thing at such a time. Good thing because all of our creativity, our talent, everything is dependent on people. If all of that is depending on people, obviously we need people. So people build a company like in our industry. At the same time, because the cost is the highest from people in our industry, we have to consider at a time in the time of the crisis how to sort of control that cost at least in the long term. And I think all of us would like to pledge that we will protect our people as much as possible because our money, our business, our revenues, everything depends on people. But I think long term, this crisis is going to change the industry. And actually it's not the crisis which is going to change, but it's the fact that we went under lockdown that is going to change the industry. I think we have discovered completely new ways of working. We have discovered that we don't need that many. There are a lot of questions, particularly about job security. I have out of some 24 questions I've received, most are about job security. That's bound to happen. Everybody is worried about their jobs. But see impact is definitely going to be there. It's too big a crisis for no impact. But now it also depends on the culture of your company. What kind of culture you have, what particular challenges your company is facing. But large companies, companies with culture will try to protect their employees as much as possible. So that's the short answer to all those questions. Mr. Arvind Kumar has a specific question to Ashish sir. Consumption is near zero because there are no outlets for people to buy. Even e-commerce is unable to deliver. So there is a danger of a run on the stores when the lockdown is lifted. How will brands handle this? I think first of all before brands, you know when you're in a medical and a humanitarian crisis, nothing is more important than human life. So first of all, more than how brands will handle it. From a safety point of view, how will the government handle it is probably a bigger challenge. And that's one of the reasons why they're reluctant to lift the lockdown because so far people haven't shown that they are exactly very responsible when things are lifted. Suddenly, you keep talking about social distancing and then you see a big crowd gathering at places. So first of all, the mechanism of opening up will need to be managed. I feel that they will be looking at other countries and they've probably divided into let's say a red, green and amber kind of zones. So green zones where they've been not too many infections or relatively safer. They might open up a little earlier. They may still do alternate day opening for shops etc. They may stagger the arse just to make sure that there is not enough of a crowd gathering. I feel that they will first open the more essential stores first, more and more. Then they will open, let's say mobile services, those kind of stores. But things like malls, cinemas, multiplexes etc. will probably open after a long time. It'll be kind of a staggered opening in that sense. When that happens, equally on the production side, companies, their whole cycle is broken. Somebody who is factory is sharp. It's not a switch. You can't switch it on and then say from tomorrow production is back to normal or transportation is back to normal etc. For them to ramp up and come back to where they were, will also take a lot of time. Also at times like these, we're going to make sure that profiteering doesn't happen because there will be natural shortages. There's a pent up demand. People are going to come in and like the person asking the question is saying there may be a run on certain type of products etc. So it's going to be a pretty complicated way. Managing the opening will almost be as important as managing the lockdown because if that doesn't happen, forget one is the medical part of it but even the economy can go into turmoil and they can be kiosk if that isn't managed well. But I think the governments are preparing for it. State governments particularly are preparing for it and I think they will do it in a phased kind of a manner, maybe zone wise, market wise, day wise to stagger it out. And companies, some of the companies incidentally have already more than before have already started opening up for supplies because see you might say a particular company is an FMCG company and that's allowed because it's an essential item. But he'll run out of bottles after sometime. He may not be manufacturing in bottles. So you need a glass manufacturer also to be open for the essential item to be flowing and so on and so forth. So more and more slowly in the chain will start getting opened up but he'll happen in phases. Next question is from Sardran market. It's by my colleague Sinha. The Sardran markets are very big on retail. However in the past two years Sardran markets have been hit. For instance Kerala was hit first by NIM and then also by floods. This year the Tamil New Year will be a washout. What is your take on regional brands and regional Sardran advertising? Any one of you can pick up this question. My understanding is that regional brands in fact will be a little more resilient. I mean the fact that they're regional is that in my view they have a smaller pocket of influence but the intensity of their relationship with their customers is a little stronger. Also I don't know if I'm right in saying but many regional brands will still be sort of private concerns and these private concerns are generally more conservatively managed. So I mean unless somebody has been very rash or has made a very big acquisition in the recent past I would think if they are in the broadly in the FMCG or food space they should be a little more resilient if not as resilient as a national FMCG or food brand. Now this question is to Shashi sir and Ashish sir. I mean any one of you can answer this. In fact all four of you should answer this. Is it good to cut 25% salary or to cut 25% workforce? What is more efficient? 25%? Whether one should cut 25% salary or cut 25% workforce what is more efficient? So if you ask me personally from a humanitarian point of view it is better to cut salary than to cut jobs because at this point in time jobs are difficult to find. Number one, number two it's not like America you know psychologically it's a huge trauma so losing a job has multiple downsides. One is finding a job in this time secondly psychologically would be upset and thirdly you know the stigma attached with that so I think if I was to if this is a forcing question as I said it's a forcing where did you asking it is better to do a salary reduction rather than put someone on the road. Anyone else? Do you agree Ashish? Yes I agree with you. I mean try to reduce it from 25. Let's start with five people you have to. I know I would of course fully agree that I think on humanitarian grounds I think the cut would be better than you know sacking people. Now Kishore has asked an interesting question. I would also add one more thing that I think if at all one does need to impose a cut then I think it has to be a graded cut and the people at the top have to take a higher percentage cut than the people at the bottom. I think that would be fair. That is what most companies are doing right now right mostly it's in the decreasing order only. So Mr. Kishore wants to know will there be a different recovery phase for different medias like print television etc after lockdown so which sector will recover faster amongst we can add digital also to it so let's say we have print tv outdoor and digital which will recover faster? Are you asking me? Anyone of you? You can start. I feel that digital will be faster and in digital performance media will be the fastest because like I said earlier people will want sales they'll want performance they'll want quick turnaround. I think a new medium will emerge much stronger out of this which will be mobile gaming because everybody sitting here for one month you can see the traffic on mobile gaming in India now starting to reach levels which make it interesting. As far as other media are concerned as advertising comes back I think all media will benefit certainly television will. Medium like print has been under pressure anyway even before this COVID scenario hit us so obviously even if you look at the history historical thing the growth at print will be relatively much slower than the others so in my view it will be that the medium which will bounce back very strong is also going to be outdoor because people have been indoors for long enough and all of a sudden when you know people and there'll be a lot of vacant sites and vacant position that soon as this opens there'll be a lot of people who'll be moving outdoors once travel starts airports all those kind of things will start picking up also pretty fast. Ashisa you want to add? Yeah, fully the same. I'd only add that you know I care for my friends in print because print has a problem of it's not been growing from my advertising point of view and also they have cost because there's you know they might be print so they'll be in this dilemma of how to reduce the footprint in terms of circulation or the size of the paper at the same time attract advertising so I'd be very I mean that's where you know prudence and Basara mentioned will come in very so I'd be very very very very for my print friends and how they how they shape up in the next six months. Sam you agree or you have a different view? Yeah well I would and I think we said this in our last pitch report also I think the important thing for print to do is to safeguard the brand equity that they possess in their title and may some of these titles are half a century or century old so I think the best thing for them is possibly is to you know view themselves as sources of news and you know look look upon a combined digital plus print medium so for for example for the last few days I have been reading my papers you know in the in the newspaper format but on digital so hopefully you know maybe this is opening a new avenue to them I don't like doing that by the way I must mention so if a if a print copy was available I think I would buy it probably the answer to their problem would be that they would have to you know multiply their subscription rate uh you know so that those who can afford the luxury of a hard copy in their hands would have to pay substantially for it the others will read it digitally but somehow their title will survive. So do you all agree that print will will be the last to recover from the crisis digital will be the no outdoor you said. No the last will actually be cinema because cinema going is a habit which was actually picking up pretty well in India you know because single screens were converted to reflexes it was like a family outing and it was more than just watching the movie it was more like a family outing kind of thing but now with all these you know being in a closed enclosed space first of all the government itself will probably may not allow cinema for even a longer period of time cinema houses to open but even when it does there will be a hesitation on people to go into closed AC locked environments for some time eventually it all normalizes but you know it'll be at the back of people's mind so I think cinema will be probably the last medium to recover. I mean next question is for you in this testing time when no one is spending any money on marketing what are the ways to keep make your brand alive please be specific for news content brand currently there is so much content how to be different. So can you can you just repeat with that about the news content what are the ways to keep your brand alive he specifically specifically wants to understand it from the perspective of news content brand so that means the publisher yeah television news channel how to be different when you are a news content brand it's not written sentences you just written dash dash see I think the best brands will look at every crisis like an opportunity this particular crisis is actually much more like I said humanitarian in the beginning so therefore there's a lot of there are a lot of questions here do you appear to be more commercial do you appear to be opportunistic during this time or do you sort of go out there and behave like how a brand should and sell yourself as much as you can do take advantage so there are multiple sort of questions both in consumers heads how they take each brand and in terms of in the marketers heads like that so it's going to be it's going to be a time where you play it very very delicate I feel you have whatever you have to say you have to manage your tonality beautifully you have to see to it that you give respect not just to the person that you're talking to but you give respect to the situation under which everybody is how everybody is is reacting and especially in a time where brands have now become two-way there is no one-way brand available there is one brand that you think is in your head and there is you know like a million brands that's there in other people's heads so it's all a collection of memory or a collection of understanding in people's head about brand especially under this situation you have to play it very very delicate where news brands are concerned I think respectability authenticity being being true to the kind of work the kind of brand that you are the kind of reporting that you want to do all of that is much more important than brand building if you express at this time you know through an ad what kind of brand you are likely to have less impact then the kind of work the kind of news the kind of actual reporting that you put out right it's time to behave in a certain way and not project in a certain way so I would advise every news brand to actually walk the talk and you know less and pay less attention to the talk I am getting a lot of questions I don't know how many would you be interested in answering maybe we can take two more questions and depending on how much time you guys have there is this one person I wanted to take this question it is to Ashish there are a lot of SME agencies who are concerned that INS and IBF have not announced any relaxation on payment rules in these difficult times is the AAA taking it up with INS and IBF Mr Arvind Kumar wants to know I don't know why all the difficult questions you said to me and it's written Mr Ashish well so look as far as the advertising agencies association of India is concerned we represent our members right so if the SMEs are members of the and members of three years of high are large agencies mid-sized agencies and small agencies so if those agencies are members of three years of high then obviously as we talk on behalf of our members we would be talking on their behalf as well I can confirm to you that we are having very productive conversations both with IBF and with INS everybody understands that these are very unique circumstances but that does not mean it's a blank check for people to you know use it as an excuse to delay payments etc wherever there is a genuine case we are taking it up and I have to confirm and I'm pleased to say that we're getting a very sympathetic response from all our media not just INS IBF but also all our media partners in that because everybody understands what this equation is but it's very important in these cases to make sure that you're still making all the efforts getting in the money as much as fast as you can and clearing off your use as quickly as you possibly can this is not a license for you to delay or payments so there's no blanket sort of carte blanche extension or something but wherever there is a genuine case and we have taken it up on behalf of our members I have to say the response has been very supportive from all our partner all our partner associations next question is to all of you do you see any advertising categories not coming back for at least 18 months realistic realistic I don't think airlines you know airlines also don't spend much but I think we'll take a long time to recover I worry for them I'm very scared for them in fact you know there are some seminal events that happen in your life after which life is never the same again and Shashi that mentioned airlines if you remember in the US before 9-11 you could almost in Florida I remember I almost walked it you just check in your bag at the curb and you could literally almost walk it into your pain it was that easy and after 9-11 you know the amount of security travel change forever right and what Shashi is saying is absolutely right the same may happen to airlines it might just change forever people may not travel a guy like me who was absolutely never I've never worked from home even one day in my life even one hour in my life ever ever until this happened today even I'm convinced that there is a lot that you can do and have some free time on your hand through work from home so the way we use to just pick up our bag and travel to countries you know without batting an eyelid in two or three months I think that might actually just change forever so Shashi is right airlines could possibly be one of those but I think real estate also as far as India's concern will take a long time business travel for sure is going to take a big big big hit and it's not just going to be because of you know what is happening to airlines but it's it's because of a realization that you know all of us are having yes absolutely without traveling yes yes who wants to be stuck in any kind of traffic whether it is on the road or whether it's an immigration queue or anywhere else for that long-term it'll be good for our environment no traffic will reduce air traffic will reduce yeah this is question about economy sorry sorry I was saying in environment and economy are at cross purposes unfortunately but we'll have to figure that one out this question is for sam although it's it's more about advertising but this person wants sam to answer this our campaigns around coronavirus creating value or clutter I think it has been addressed by and large I think it is agreed that if any brand is trying to take advantage of the corona situation you know then it would not get any positive mileage from such advertising however on the other hand you know they are providing a genuine service to the consumer then I think it would be appreciated so that's that's how I would put it on the other hand let's say I was delighted to see two days ago I hope I'm not spilling the beans that my client Asian pains has readied a campaign on you know life at home and the happy moments that families are spending in different homes I think such such campaigns would actually be widely appreciated young entrepreneur who again wants to ask Mr. Ashish Basin do you think this is the right time to work on business development in the mindset of people clients suitable for it I haven't understood the question even I didn't understand so I'll go to another question he's only written that much so Satish Pierre wants to know do you think consumers media consumption habit change as the lockdown prolongs weaning more towards TV and digital do you think basically do you think there'll be a habit change in consumption patterns after this well suddenly in the short term yes because at the moment you're not getting your newspapers in many places like I'm not getting my newspaper much like how Sam said so and definitely data also shows that television and digital consumption has gone up but that's because people are all sitting at home once everybody starts going back to normal life and things sort of normalize I think more or less it will come back to where it was but perhaps reading news digitally might become more of a habit than it was before you know they say if you do something for 21 days it becomes a habit certainly for 21 days we'd all be reading news digitally instead of by newspaper I can't imagine more than 21 days more than 21 days I can't imagine starting my day without a newspaper you know when a newspaper used to get laid I would be roaming up and down my passage waiting for it to come it's such a habit it's such a habit forming thing but now when you know that it's not coming then you learn to adjust without it right so I think that that change might happen and like Sam said print owners have to now start thinking of digital and print as one unit perhaps in that sense of news but otherwise once people start going back to work you won't have time sitting at home watching TV all the time for sure. Take this one second last question on auto category auto category is already going down for the past one year you do lockdown the sales have completely stopped now even after the lockdown is lifted I feel people are going to be hesitant to buy a vehicle in the next quarter how do brands approach this situation? Shashi sir you want to answer that? So this is a so it's a very obvious thing you know auto is just now is under pressure because of BS4 to BS6 also so I think it's a valid concern that auto is going to be under pressure but you know I have a slightly contrary view and I can't put a time to it but over a period of time this whole you see auto has been affected by you know these apps right sharing which is happening I think with social distancing will be a more long-term phenomenon as Ashish mentioned you know it's going to be slightly longer in terms of habit changes which are happening after the virus you know a lot of people will may may consider going back to the fact that this is an overwhelmed vehicle is hygienic is clean and the right sharing may become so it may not be a dramatic shift but if I was an auto company if I have position myself right I think there is hope it's not that suddenly it may take six months one year but people will when creditors auto finally is all on financing you know so when nvfc start financing auto purchase I think there's hope it's not going to be a do just scenario for the reason which I mentioned I think auto I think auto sector you know sector is also passing through a very exciting phase actually there's a completely new kind of technology that is coming into the auto sector and both from the consumer side I think there's a lot of excitement towards auto so I don't know whether immediately or not but I think the there is a there is an opportunity for the auto sector to use this forced sort of break to consider you know how they are going to come back into people's consciousness because I feel the more exciting you know automobiles that you put out consumers will receive them with as much sort of acceptance and with with open arms but if you stay back and if you try to go back to the old ways then I think that that will suffer Ashish say you want to add look I think I don't think it's going to revive very very fast in the sense that this is not a priority first of all production itself will take a long time to come back to normal because auto is a very big industry and you can't just suddenly stop production and put things back to normal so it will take a little bit of time but just to end this discussion on a slightly more positive note I think the good thing about a market like India is that it is near infinite even now one of the reasons why we will we will do well in the medium term and in the long run even though we are just now very blinded by this immediate crisis the reason is that we have a large population that is going to consume right and they'll there are about 100 to 200 million people even the number was probably going to be 300 million but maybe even after this crisis maybe 200 million people in the next three years four years who are going to come out of the poverty line right and there is a huge country of 1.3 billion people the number of automobiles that we make today versus our population is a fraction of what it what it should be so in the medium to long term it will do well but it's not one of those categories which will suddenly spurred back into normalcy because its lead times tend to be pretty big it's it's one of the backbone infrastructural kind of industries because steel depends upon that the nation's progress in many ways depends upon that so I'm very confident that autos will do well in the long run of course short term there are going to be problems I'll I'll this is actually the second last question after this I'll just read one more question to them I'm really flooded with too many questions so this and this this gentleman has sent me four questions but I'm going to pick up only one so say here them it wants to know what would you suggest and I also wanted to close on this question what do you suggest for the time being I understand the marketing spends can pent up when things are back to normal but what should brands do during these times when the media consumption and consumer attention is at its peak I would want each one of you to answer this because this is also what we want to understand from you and a lot of brands want to know this Sam you want to start hey what what I think is what I'm going to suggest may not be palatable but I would say brands have to somehow find ways of keeping themselves alive in the minds of consumers one way or the other I mean if it is through television digital influencer marketing whichever way I think a long absence would not be advisable it I mean of course that's easier said than done so within the limitation of their limited resources they should find some ways of trying to keep their brands alive that would be my sincere advice to brands so you know to add to what sam said and not because we are advertising I genuinely believe that after the crisis is over when we come back there'll be a lot more focus in brands which are trustworthy you know people will start looking at brands which are hygienic trustworthy and they can you know they feel a confident so and this is the time to build your trust trust is not going to overnight so if you invest in building trust in whichever way you can you know and they can't be a better opportunity because of the way the situation is just now so as Sam said it has to be in your within your means and within your limited way but look at the future that listen who is about you to build up trust and you know much stronger whoever takes the lead in the category will gain other things off first of all I would say that if you don't have the money then don't advertise it's better you don't advertise and then don't pay your bills than in that sense so if you don't have the money just conserve it and just hang on just now because things will look better and that's the time when you when you so if your brand is not even distributed and is everything is it's not there maybe it's not necessary for you to do it but if you can do it then like what Sam and Shashi said there's no time better than this because you'll remain that connect with the consumer will remain at a relatively less price but if you are communicating at times like these you have to either be you have to be adding value to the consumer nobody is in the mind you know is in the mind space of getting just being sold to at a time like this so it has to be something of utility to the consumer I know you make an app which sort of tells them where's the nearest store you can get something or you you know or you or you entertain them maybe you give them content which is entertaining whatever you do in some form or the other advertising at this point should be adding value to the consumer and not just trying to sell something because at times like these that doesn't work the worst example of advertising I saw a print ad of a mattress which said that if you use this mattress you wouldn't get covid or something to that that effect which is in a national daily newspaper I think those are no consumer it'll only backfire for you and you're not only wasting your time you're actually killing your brand by doing that. Amir you want to add to it? I don't know about advertising but I think such an unprecedented crisis is also bringing an unprecedented opportunity so it's time actually for not it's not just about brands it's about brand owners marketing companies marketers all of us actually to think to be a little brave and and to you know move in a little bit courageous sort of fashion people who are who can take on such a crisis and who can see the opportunity in their market in their category who can see that you know just a bit of change innovation something that we do right now will impact consumer tomorrow this is the time to think like that it's the time to be brave it's the time to move and exploit you know the marketing opportunity that this is this is the last question I am not asking this Mr Balaji Srinivas Chary wants to know will the clients renegotiate agency remunerations now as there is no much liquidity at their end this question actually came first but you decided to keep it and save I did anyway I don't I would want each one of you to answer that Sam would you want to answer that well we hope not nothing beyond that well because I'll give you an answer ultimately salaries account for 50 to 60 percent you know on our balance sheet given that situation we hope that clients would also take a reasonable stand so can I add to what Sam said that you know our fees are commissioned a very very miniscule part of the total marketing outlay and I think Ashish has been saying this not only today but even otherwise even before this crisis yeah the critic he was saying you know he was saying something is just coming to he's been saying listen the collections are more important than that money is not much so for a media agency we only two and a half percent is 97.5 percent is more important so I think any mature client will understand that it is better to get efficiency there on the 97.5 percent rather than worry about it one half percent or whatever the pizza Ashish sir I think Shashi and Sam have both said the right thing and I hope that happens but I'll be dishonest if I don't say this but I do as it started in China market no I don't know but I think in India yes clients will try to do a certain type of clients will try to do it there are certain types of clients who try to get you do a lot of work put you on an annual retainer then try to stop your retainer after two three months so they're all kinds of clients ultimately every agency gets the client they deserve and every client gets the agency they deserve so these kind of clients will eventually get that kind of service from an agency so there will be clients who will have a certain view like that but in the end you get what you pay for I mean you want to add something to this I think we are working too much during this time and if anything I would like to you know raise fees rather than reduce so I would like to tell all everybody out there that you know there's so much work happening at this time whether it's happening from home or not doesn't matter it's actually there is a huge amount of work now and huge amount of work later and you know clients and everybody else would understand that this much work that is going in actually deserves a better fee and one last thing sorry just before because again you know we started with solidarity I just feel at this point in time in the industry it's not just you know the point is about the challenges that the industry will face it could be about you know about jobs it could be about fee it could be about infrastructure all of these things but I think because use because the the forum is about solidarity I think we have a lot of associations and different sort of agencies and bodies that are existing I think all of those bodies should get together so you know it's not just about what the years of I will do I think it may be time for all the bodies in the industry to actually come together the ad club the years of I even marketing bodies and form like a like a more you know central sort of body that can talk about all the issues related to media related to marketing and related to advertising at one point so if we can all get together as a result of this conversation then we'll all bless you forever we are trying to put more panels in place in coming weeks we will definitely consider your suggestion where we're actually trying but some people are not available so we wanted to start with the agency so this is not just about a discussion it's actually about having a serious cross yes yes absolutely across association industry wide body actually you know and we have the people here you know I think Shashi can make things move at the ad club Ashish and Sam you guys can make things move at three years of I and there are so many other associations that are there that marketing is a part of and media is a part of we must get together and actually do something that all of us can contribute to you know in an integrated sort of fashion that's a very good suggestion and it will lead to solidarity and equally I would hope that agencies like lindas will also give more support and participate more actively in the associations so that we can strengthen them because when we all speak with one voice it carries a lot of weight so I do hope to see Amir taking a more active interest in Amir or his colleagues taking a more active interest in three years of I will be with you this is a wicked smile on his face sir anything else any one of you would want to add before we close it no thank you very much thank you very much Ashish sir has really summed it up very well that when we all will be together we'll be able to fight this better and with much ease and hopefully we all recover from this crisis as smoothly as possible thank you each one of you for joining us and we'll we keep coming back to you I could only take 11 or 12 questions out of 41 questions that people from industry wanted to know maybe we will have another session some other time thank you each one of you for joining us thank you bye bye thank you bye bye Ashish