 Moving ahead, let me now call upon for a next session with Mr. Anand Goenka, Executive Director of the Indian Express Group. Let me tell you a bit about Anand Sir first. Anand Goenka is the Executive Director of Indian Express Group, which is amongst the world's largest digital news media groups, reaching well over 190 million unique users a month in six languages across the world. Anand was awarded a Dean's Scholarship for his Master's in Print Journalism from Enberg School for Journalism USC. In a news environment flooded by either advocacy or clickbait, Anand has steered the expansion of the Express Group's digital business in tune with groups enduring values of fairness, accuracy and courage. Forbes magazine says Anand excludes the energy that he promises to infuse into the Vennel Express brand. Economic Times recognises him as India's 40 under 40 business leaders and GQ has listed him as one of India's 50 most influential young Indians. So without further ado, let me call upon stage Mr. Anand Goenka Executive Director of the Indian Express Group. He would be sharing his inputs on moving a legacy brand to the world of clicks and scrolls. So let's give a huge round of applause to Mr. Goenka. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Anurag. Thank you to Exchange for Media. I think it's been 16 years Exchange for Media has pretty much been my home page if anybody still has a home page but it's been my home page for over 16 years now and Anurag's been a friend for over 10 years of those 16 years but so thank you for having me here. This is my first physical event in over possibly two years so I'm very excited to be here and I'm sensing a real palpable energy in the room after Diwali and after the festive season. I think any consumer-facing industry there is this energy that comes after Diwali and certainly I'm seeing that here together, seeing that here as well. I think this really reflects a bit of a bounce pack that we have had after the COVID-induced pandemic and so just wonderful to kind of be here and witness that energy and that physical presence. Since I'm here and since we're doing this physically I thought maybe I could start with a bit of a quick show of hands if I can just ask how many of you have spent some time in the United States you know beyond a short vacation? I can get a quick show of hands. Only people have spent some time in the US beyond a small to one five-day six-day vacation. Okay, great. So friends I've spent six years in America. I studied there in college and one of the things that I always thought kind of got lost in translation between India and America between our two cultures was just how much importance and how much value we give to hierarchy, to social hierarchy. Short story and I'll try to keep it short but you know my first day in college I must have been 17 years old and this very old white bearded professor walked in and he kind of went far away and had to go and pull a chair behind his desk to start the lesson and I was sitting on the first was I jumped up and I went to help him carry that chair and he looked at me like I was crazy. He almost got offended. He said listen young man I'm perfectly capable of carrying my own chair. I don't need your help please take your seat and obviously all the all the students in the class thought I was trying to score brownie points and get a few extra marks for no reason and so it was a very it was a very embarrassing moment for me but I just thought that really showed you know this difference between India and America or between Indian culture and American culture or really any culture which is any civilization which is old and America because we just have been trained to almost be servile to our teachers. I mean I'm using the word servile and it's a negative word but I don't mean it negatively. It's actually if you look at any old civilization any old culture we just have all these social structures all these hierarchies that we are subconsciously always kind of you know feeding into or we are kind of playing roles for you know in the UK they had structures of you know whatever Earl Duke Lord you know commoner they had this they had these whole structures Japan has structures China has structures. In India I think we've got so many structures right it's just beyond I'm not talking about the caste system but you know if you think about whether it's younger and older sibling whether it's parent and child whether it's teacher or student employee employer devotee and priest Raja or rank young and old we kind of keep conforming to these to these structures to this hierarchy and I must say that you know none of these hierarchies have really bothered me as much as the young and the old. I think one of the reasons that this young and old hierarchies always bothered me is because you know I've I have grown up maybe many of us have grown up hearing people of the older generation I won't say Anurag's generation but maybe a little bit older than Anurag generation you know say things like India's biggest strength is its young population but they never ended up listening to respecting or empowering the young population. I think one of the reasons that our media and marketing industry has bounced back so quickly after the COVID induced economic downturn compared to all the previous economic downturns that we have seen I think the reason we have bounced back so quickly this time is because more so than ever I think corporate India's fight back was led by the under 40s maybe even the under 30s. I think if you look back at every other economic downturn that we have seen over the last 20 years marketing especially marketing has taken three years to recover. India has probably taken a year more than the world has but this time in six months we have bounced back and look how much stronger we have bounced back just look at the value you had this year. One small data point to share India's total advertising pie was considered to be 54,000 crores last year. Anurag please correct me if I'm wrong with the numbers. We expect by 2024 digital alone will be 54,000 crores of advertising that's the kind of growth that we're kind of expecting and seeing I think that's pretty incredible and and I genuinely believe that's largely due to the fact that this entire fight back was led by the dynamism the entrepreneurial spirit and the technological talent of the under 40s. I think our industry owes a lot not just to the 40 under 40 we're honoring today but the 40,000 under 40s in our industry whose creativity and imagination have helped us emerge from all the havoc that COVID caused us and if we just look at the list of the winners that you'll have tonight you've got new age digital companies like Spotify and paisabhazar.com and Bazi Games and you also have traditional companies like Kotak Mahindra and Dalmia Bharat so it shows that across the board companies have leaned on youth to kind of lead this bounce back. Our marketing ecosystem has adapted to technology at unprecedented pace, storytelling and branding has become more purposeful, performance marketing has embraced infinitely more formats so whatever short term impacts we were worried about I think it's safe to say that the long term effect on marketing in India has been both multifaceted and performed and look this industry is sitting on some major shifts. Apple has suddenly dropped its guillotine on several programmatic ad networks with strict privacy policies implemented literally overnight. Google's decision to eventually ban third party cookies will one day become a reality and between regulators trying to protect user data and brands constantly auditing and suspiciously looking at ad fraud and the users demanding superior user experience I think we're sitting on a very challenging journey ahead but all of this I think seems pretty trivial compared to what we've gone through over the past 24 months. The Tibetan monk Thich Nhat Hanh said no mud, no lotus. I think the under 40s and the industry have shown that they and since I'm 35 and I said my age so many times as I can say one more time since I'm under 35 I can say that we are ready to walk through whatever mud you throw at us and we will find our path to the lotus. The new space as well I think has displayed a lot of dynamism to walk through to the mud and of the pandemic. This makes me extremely optimistic both as a stakeholder in the news industry and as an engaged and responsible citizen. I'll just take a minute to share some data points for my optimism with you. You know when I joined and started working at Express in almost 10 years now I was told to succeed in the internet. You have to do ABCD, Astrology, Bollywood, Cricket and devotion. I really believe that COVID has challenged that ABCD. The infodemic created so much awareness and caution towards fake news. Domain authority and trust became just as important as speed and user experience when consuming news. At the Express group, I'm not plugging Express here at all but I just want to share as an example there are many other companies who have done similar interesting things. But at the Express group since COVID and post COVID we have grown from 120 million users a month to 200 million users a month which makes us one of the world's largest digital news groups. This makes us one of the world's largest digital news groups but we're not even India's largest digital news group so that just explains to you the kind of potential that India has. I think specifically those of you who are very familiar with Indian Express and read the paper or even the digital product would be familiar with the explain section where we kind of explain news to you in a very non-polarized fashion. It's just domain authority explaining to you the news and breaking it down to make it simple. Our explain section online has grown from 2 million to 17 million users a month. Just explaining the news. No left versus right. Just simple authority and incredible voices. And we're doing all of this beyond the simple text form. We have a daily news podcast. Considered to be India's most listened to English podcast is the three things where we break down three news. We explain three items of the news every morning. So these are all I think examples where outfits like the Express that invest in quality journalism have a lot to be optimistic for. Because while news is getting commoditized on the one hand on the other hand it's creating a quality filter in the news and information category for brands and advertisers. It allows us to be more aggressive and diversifying revenue streams towards subscriptions. I've been quite impressed with both the Hindu and the Ken their efforts at digital subscriptions and all the exciting brand solutions that we are seeing around us that Anurag also alluded to. If I can just ask the team here to queue up this short video that we had put together. The Indian Express brand studio has done some incredible work here over the last couple of years in marrying Express' standards of journalism storytelling original reporting with the brand's objectives. So we are creating this beautiful marriage between brand objectives and our journalism all to give the user something which is very unique and fresh. If I can just show this short trailer. I don't know if it's queued up. It's a CD that we launched on the National Cancer Awareness Day. I think that was last week in partnership with Aditya Birla Health Insurance. Can we just play that video? I removed my left breast. I asked my husband, you know, let's get that artificial thing done. So he said, no, okay, he'll do one thing. When I had to go for my classes in college, there were a lot of instances where the bus used to be in front of me and I couldn't run. Cancer is not the only thing. Life is uncertain. I had a policy before my diagnosis. So I think I was lucky over there. So I thought just a short example to share with you of the kind of intimate relationship that brands and journalism can kind of now do and get into. So I think it's an exciting journey in front for all of us. Congratulations to all the winners. My best wishes to exchange for media and to my old friend, Mr. Anurag Batra. You know, he may be a decade older than me, but I think he has more energy than all the 40-year-olds, under 40-year-olds in the room. So thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Anand. I would request you to stay back here with us. That was really quite an insightful session. I would now like to call upon Mr. Rohail Amin, Senior Editor, Exchange for Media and BW for a quick Q&A with Mr. Anand going here. So over to you, Rohail. Everybody, let's welcome Rohail as well with a huge round of applause, please. Thank you so much. Another one thing, I mean, we're talking about digital and online, but the offline energy is great. I mean, great wipes, you know. It's so great to see it. So the topic is moving a legacy brand to digital first and you spoke, you showed the numbers that Indian Express has had during the COVID thing. But I'm sure the story has a granular part of it, you know. It's not just the numbers just went there. Give me a sense of what all went into building those numbers. You know, I think one of the things that, this is working, hello. One of the things that's important is really the, I think COVID forced everybody in the company to become the Chief Digital Officer. I'm sure most people, you know, working in traditional companies will kind of feel that we were always talking digital, digital, digital. But I think COVID kind of forces you to actually be digital because, you know, it was the older people in the room. I must say it was the older people in the room who took the most initiative because they I think felt the most threatened. So this idea that, you know, you know, young energy, young talent, of course is relevant. But the entire organization saw that they always appreciated the need for digital transformation. But I think, I think COVID made it, you know, become something that we should do tomorrow to we had to have done yesterday. And I think that just gave us that one level more of growth and just push the whole, align the whole organization a lot faster. So our whole journey, whether it's Jansatta, the Hindi paper or whether it is Lok Satta, Marathi paper, it's a, Lok Satta is the largest newspaper city of Mumbai and a large digital presence as well. But it was always two worlds, the digital world was a different world and the print world was a different world. Getting them to talk was something that my finest diplomatic skills I couldn't make that happen. But I think COVID made that happen. So I think that was... So you get the audiences to go to digital, but then making it sustainable, revenue-wise, you know, making them pay. How do you ensure that data readers, you know, the granular paths that you have, the technology, they come together in a favorable way? What are the best ways to also do it? Because there are some people here who are running, who are part of the traditional media. What is the best way of doing that? You know, I think... I think digital, maybe five, six years ago, was a tick in the book for some brands. The larger brands obviously took it more seriously. I think now it's like, you know, it's just much more emotional involvement. You know, the reason I showed that Aditya Birla clip, I promise you, I mean, it's a hypothetical, but I really don't think that two years ago I could have gotten, or we could have gotten, I mean, I didn't do it. Our brand studio chief Malika is here. You know, I don't think we could have gotten into a conversation with the chief marketing officer of Aditya Birla Health Insurance and the digital team and our brand solutions team and create a concept like this. And actually, you know, it took a lot of time. It took hours. It took months, but it took hours of conversations over and over again, you know, there's a meet my brand objectives. Content I had, you know, the express side would obviously be very protective about is this good content user. I think marrying those two things was something that just didn't happen. I think the sustainability of digital is credit to the brands which are finally recognizing that in this commoditized world, in this commoditized content world, we have to look at audiences little differently. You know, IndianExpress.com or TimesOfIndia.com or IndiaToday.com, you know, we are not the same as xyznews.com or Santabanta.com. I don't know if there is a Santabanta.com. Apologies if there is a Santabanta.com. So my apologies to Santabanta.com. But whatever, xyz.com, we have to differentiate premium news, authentic news, important information, you know, credible trusted sources from just anybody else. I think that wasn't happening. Digital news information is one category. Whoever has traffic, I think all that, I think there's a change. I think that's, I think credit to the brands and the agencies. You spoke about the infodemic and it is a big piece in the digital conversation. Where are we when we talk about it now? Have we addressed it? Are there a lot of things to be addressed, like legacy brands? I mean, I think so. I think that, you know, like I've been kind of trying to say is that you know, my Nana started he needed the newspaper every morning. He lives in Calcutta and he was like you know, paper Bandogya and I need the paper. So I started writing for him a letter every morning summarizing the Indian Express the newspaper. And I would kind of break it into the points and I would explain each thing. And he started sharing it around and it became so, it got such a natural traction that we actually converted that format to our morning newsletter. Our morning newsletter today goes to over 10 lakh people who opted in to exactly this format. And the reason this worked is because you know, my Nana, he's my favorite person in the world but he would tell me, Anand, you heard that this happened there's a fire here, there's a bomb last year, whatever. And I'd say, Nana, where did you see it? He said, I think that I think that I think even my Nana, I'm 89 years old today, but he says, who sent it to me has become relevant. Which channel have I watched this news information has become relevant? What is my source, that question which we were all hoping, I was hoping and expecting the users to kind of become more discerning and ask that question what is the source? I think the infodemic has made that happen. I think they've been very, very conscious, this is the source. So whether it is saying this is the source, therefore this news and information of this opinion has that political bias or whether this is the source and therefore I can trust it, both these things are now the audiences are questioning. Two quick questions and I will go to the audience and see if there's anybody who wants to pose a question. One is, you spoke about the American culture and then we have the NYT example and how they mastered the digital. I think that is, that model can be repeated in India or it's totally a different, it's also about the social setup we are in. No, the NYT model is a unique, in the one sense a unique model because they have been pioneers and so everybody can be Apple but can everybody actually be Apple, we don't know. So I would put NYT as the news industry's Apple. But there are so many success models where it has been replicated successfully. Washington Post has done it. Wall Street Journal has done it. The Financial Times has done it. There are many other newspapers around the world in other languages. Dagens Neuter in Sweden has done a very successful job where they have created revenue streams beyond advertising and brand solutions but even from the user. In India we have been slow at that but I think as it should have happened the Netflix's and the Amazon's of the world Amazon Prime's of the world and the Hot Stars of the world, they have invested in changing the consumer attitude to pay for content and once that has happened I think we are seeing some green shoots where we can today expect there will be a significant share of revenue. There should be a significant share of revenue in five years from today which should come from the consumer to a trusted news platform. So ideally if you look, I will think that Express has failed a little bit if in the next five years 8% of our revenue doesn't come directly from the user on digital. I was coming to this question that what is the next in the digital journey of the Express Group? There are plans and there are plans and I think we are one year behind or even two years behind but I think focusing on the consumer and trying to get the consumer to pay for content on the digital platform is a tough journey but I think that's really what the next challenge should be. It's a month, it's a large top of the funnel. How to convert that into how many of them can be paying users? How to marry both those worlds? NYT is on a great job with that. So have so many others. I think that's the journey which I'm excited for. Any audience questions? We have like five minutes I guess so. Okay, alright. I think they are enjoying. Okay, there is one. Quickly, please go ahead. In the global economy there are incidences that I mean digital crime there's malpractices and other things. They have also been manifold. Reboots of cyber crimes and online frauds have increased. Do you think there are checks and balances for all these things? No, of course. I think we are far behind from where we need to be. I mean the standards and regulations that you see both from both regulators and from our own large companies in the digital ecosystem I mean if you just see all digital economies again like the US as an easy example it's just there's so much investment that goes into exactly what you're saying and keeping that place safe. I think we are far from that here in India but we are getting there. The idea of trust now whether it's for an advertiser whether it's for a user, whether it's for a publisher whether it's for a brand, whether it's for an agency just authenticity and trust has become a big part of every conversation. So everybody is well aware of the chances of fraud and I think there's a lot of effort to try to fix that. There are a lot of hands there. Do we have any more time or are we up? Okay, one. Yes, please, yes. Yes, yes, please. You can stand up and ask. Louder, please. A little louder. That's another question. That's a different debate altogether. We will maybe address it in some other conference but okay, one last year. Hello. I'm also an analyst from AI domain so I remain analyzing how the biggies like media biggies like Times Now and even Indian Express when they flash some breaking news thousands and thousands of boards and particularly for the startup media content kind of portals they used to copy through some kind of AI script. Now that introduced a lot of errors so somebody is translating from Hindi and somebody translating in other languages so how are you going to address these kind of errors which is getting generated through AI engines. It's one of the many problems of being a digital publisher. You break the news and then there's a boss that will copy it. Forget bots, human beings will copy paste it and kind of claim it as there's human intelligence. So it's one of the problems but I and you know we keep having conversations with Google to say that listen you've got a down rank you have to up rank the original you have to down rank those who are clearly not been the first with this news. These conversations remain conversations that is genuine want to fix it how much of time and effort energy is put to fix these things we don't know but I'm trying to operate from my circle of control and my circle of control is that can I convince my consumer whoever is frequenting Indian Express brand can I convince them to come to my brand directly and you know trust that we are giving you the I mean trust that the source is rather than kind of I think because it came on this site or I lost my story because it went somewhere else can I just write it give a better user experience so much so that more people come directly on to my site the pie I think is quite large and sufficient for us to be happy and kind of that to be growing at a fairly good base. Alright thank you we are out of time but what a way yes just please that would have to be a new school of journalism and so see let's look at times in times internet they incubated a whole host of businesses which are not necessarily editorial businesses they are digital businesses but they are not editorial businesses now do you have any plans and you see the value creation there of course there is a burn and a heartburn for a long time before you see the money with the kind of audience you got with the kind of understanding you got of digital do you have plans to do that I don't know it's an unsexy answer but the reality is you know no I'll tell you why the kind of money I really admire times right I think they are just audacious and they are aggressive and they really dream big but one of the things that times did was all of this what you said right like thinking you know whether it's Ghana or Magic Bricks or Crick Buzz they were all products first and editorial was much later I think the express's strength in the environment is that we get editorial we get content well and if I am at 200 million users today I am very confident of getting to 350-400 million users just by doing what I know right now of course after we get to that we can think of productizing but I think right now the next 2-3 years there is a lot of low hanging fruit in just what I do know how to do I mean if express can we are in Malayalam, Tamil, Bangla Indian Express Punjabi, Gujarati there is so much more that we can grow and outside of India the demand from the NRI for authentic news and information about India we haven't even touched so I think there is a lot more in our core business to do before we go down the productizing business it's a lot of money that they have spent credit to them for doing it but we are not quite there yet great thank you for this lovely conversation just a few more seconds here please I would now request Mr. Mahendra Surup founder and managing partner Ankrut Capital to kindly come forward and present a token of appreciation to Mr. Anand here can we welcome sir with a huge round of applause please thank you so much and as well can we have the momento please thank you so much sir for your precious time here today please accept this token of appreciation to Mr. Anand