 session. So we do have a session with Mr. Ajay Sharma who's the managing director and CEO of Badinath. That's another homegrown brand which after COVID is doing even better because immunity health has become so important for everyone. So Salil, let me start by asking you what has changed in the last two years when it comes to businesses and hence what does marketing need to do to be able to come up to the expectations of consumers? Yeah a lot has changed in last two years. The big shift that has happened is what they buy to how they buy. So that's the biggest shift I would say if there is one shift that I have to put my finger on and that's very very important for every business and business person and marketer. And what I mean by it is what they buy earlier all the companies and brands were focusing on creating a very differentiated portfolio. People trying to come up with nice products, people trying to come up with looking at the white spaces in the product portfolio, their product portfolio and offering it to the consumer. But what happened in last two years is the entire focus is shifted to how they buy and how they buy is not only limited to the final purchase. It's right from the beginning the search, the consideration, the comparison. It's the whole nine yards after that the buying actual buying how it happens, the experience of delivery and then the post delivery if it's a product like ours, installation and then the instant feedback which you know goes back to the brand. So that entire cycle that entire loop has become very very critical because the consumers have become very very tech savvy in last two years. We've seen a rush on technology and that shifted the focus as far as businesses are concerned from trying to create differentiated products actually trying to I would say it is a it is a fight for survival. All the new businesses which have come up in last few years are not on very highly differentiated products they're more on the the new purchase behavior of the consumer which is highly digital centric. Absolutely and Mr. Kapoor you started your career in consumer derivatives then you went to media then you launched the OTT platform much ahead of the current OTT Gold Rush then you are back into consumer derivatives you join one large venerable brand and then you joined Orient Electric in the last few years. Now we talked about the terms SOHO you know or SOPO depends you know you can call whatever but basically searching information online but buying offline. However the beauty about the last two years is while online grows offline is equally important and growing. How do you explain the fact that both of these are growing? Online is growing and when it comes to Orient Electric you may not want to give specific numbers but when it comes to Orient Electric how has your D2C or your e-commerce play got fortified post pandemic? Two parts to the question. I would say that offline has really not grown as online has grown and I'm not talking about the actual sales and online sales versus offline sales I'm talking about the entire process of purchase the and it's not new we all know when consumers they step into offline store they look at a model or they look at any product they actually go online to look at the information about so the the search about the product the reviews about the product everything is happening online so I would say the pre-purchase all that stuff was happening which was a which is called word of mouth it's now word of digital actually so that entire thing has shifted drastically to digital rather than being offline and then comes the actual purchase actual purchase can happen off online and offline but we've definitely seen most of us huge shift towards online as well and then within online there are two parts what you have aggregators and then you have this the entire new of D2C brands which have come up and all the existing brands also creating their own D2C which is like their own own shop in your digital shop you can see the the the ease with which you can go direct is is is really has really changed so you have the whole stack available there's a Shopify there's a ship rocket and there's a payment gateway and you understand all those two three things you put them together the entire stack and you go online so I think brands have realized this fact they have they understand that the consumer is highly digital centric now she searches she evaluates she looks at the reviews she goes through the entire digital journey before she decides to buy what to buy and where to buy and that purchase can happen offline and online but the initial journey initial part of the journey is definitely much much more digital as far as we are concerned yes we are also in a process of putting a D2C you own setup but I think within the overall picture of the existing brands the aggregator pieces much much bigger as compared to D2C right now and Salil if I may ask I see you advertising big time on television and I recently read an article about 45 days back in the Howard Business Review which said it was a beautiful article I sent it to some of my media owner friends and it said how in the US mainstream media is coming back with Avengers the budgets on mainstream media are coming back in a big way day so online is growing there's no question about that but online as the price has become very very uncompetitive second is there is a lot of online fraud you know there's a wastage and hence a lot of large brands are going back to television advertising newspaper radio outdoor they have shifted their budgets from online to mainstream media and I see Orient Electric doing TV advertising what is your view being at the helm of affairs at Orient Electric in terms of how brand building in media has got impacted in the last two years mainline media traditional media legacy media whatever you call it has always been there so if you look at our own homegrown digital brands nobody can miss that they really went big on TV be it one of the largest payment platforms or be it one of the largest head tech companies they're all digital brands not only they are digital brands they're setting up offline retail so the tech brand if I get I know what you they're setting up B2C physical counseling centers and other edutic brands are also setting up physical center so you know while you talk about physical retail not growing there is a touch and feel in this country which is not going to go out of fashion that soon so this is not going to be the digital part versus the physical part it is going to be on the channel and the degree of it will vary category to category product to product industry to industry I think the marketers will understand it they already do and their understanding will increase over period of time when they have data in their hands where the interaction and where the conversion is happening much faster that will decide which way they will go but both the both the forms and both the offline and online will coexist coming back to your early question earlier question that will it be TV or how it's TV versus how the brand building is I think TV in India still has that scale it gives you that kind of a scale and and digital gives you more of customized interaction and engagement personalization so that the what you get out of each medium is different depending on what you want to what is the objective that you have if you want to go splash across all the TV screens and do a burst then it is more a TV thing depends on what is the marketing objective if you want to build up the engagement and it's more gradual you can do bus on digital that doesn't work and long-term brand building on digital that also one may question and I'm not saying of course digital has to be part of the plan a large but again there is lots of studies saying and forget the studies look at all the unicorns they spend money on IPL and TV advertising during IPL so clearly TV is not going anywhere right but tell us some things that we haven't still noticed or which are very small in terms of trends which are going to become bigger and bigger in the next few months few years I think there are there are niches to look at as far as media is also concerned a recent example what I can quote is there's a there's a there's a service called my gate they they try to integrate into all the high-rises and they have a penetration in lot of apartment complexes across the country now it is essential for every resident out there to have that because that's how you welcome your guests or you they let you get your guests or anybody who is visiting you you by default on the screen of your consumer and then you start pushing the products so that kind of a stuff where you get an entry which is a backdoor entry into the consumers screen and mind share and then start pushing the products that's a that's a new one the other one which is also coming up is the digital OH so you know forget the standard out of home that we have seen all these screens which are being put at various offices restaurants and apartments imagine all of them connected somewhere with the common service and at one go you have one campaign or one ad or one product showing across the country in all those areas these are the new things which will develop and I think technology can you know help us scale any small thing to whatever level that we want to this is the kind of a personalization this is a kind of scale that can be built up with the help of all these new things which are coming out of the picture so all the old traditional media will also get digitized so I'm actually wondering when will we have the roadside out of home across the country lit up one day showing one particular brand on every road that'll be the kind of a new thing which somebody centrally will control it so so this is something that we are going to see now coming up and I think a lot of people are working on such things let me ask you you worked across sectors how are leaders business leaders and I said marketing is about growth and marketing is business you know if marketing creates growth then marketing is business tell me what are leaders doing to be able to make themselves relevant in this post pandemic scenario it's been a it's I think it's been a tough journey for all businesses in last two years there have been multiple challenges whenever the demand is high there were supply chain issues and for whichever sector there was no demand they had some other issues of survival so I think all the businesses were trying to cope up with one or the other challenge I haven't seen any business which said that we did not have any challenge so if the demand like you know last two years the consumers have really focused on themselves and their homes be it their education be it their looks be it their what they needed in their house to you know improve the house so most of the stuff went there and now when things have opened up most of the stuff has shifted towards travel and other experiences because they didn't step out for a long time so wherever they went there there had been a supply chain challenge for whatever has been going across the world in last two years on the other side they've been businesses which were totally challenged because things were shut down and whichever were more dependent on the physical presence those businesses didn't happen so mostly you know the business I don't want to miss the words but I think it's been a survival issue for all the businesses across the world so people are trying to all the leaders are trying to cope up understand and then within this there's been a big shift of consumer the way she buys the way she interacts with the brand the way she wants the brand to attend her that thing has also shifted more digital so it wouldn't be wrong to say that the mock tears and the business leaders are actually coping up the customer is evolving faster than the businesses thought it would and so little the average age of CEOs and CMOs across the corporate India is coming down now I'm not saying people like you and me don't understand digital but there are people who were born digital natives right and clearly their appreciation of what is happening in that space is better than us is that a fair comment to make that depends on the learning capability of all the business by adaptability what what what are when leaders are hiring when you are hiring a CMO or a brand manager what are you looking at in them which in some way brings the basics but also is able to bring skills that the CEO may not have so what are the skills that you're looking at in a brand manager today or in a CMO that you possibly didn't look at six years back eight years back ten years back so clearly the digital component or digital quotient if you want to call it that's become very very critical it doesn't matter the age actually doesn't matter why because people can have different interests at different points of time but yes definitely the digital native as we call them that generation certainly has an edge because they're actually using the product see the learning comes more from the using of the usage of the product so I think all the market year the CMOs it's no longer just a CMO it's a CDMO so you know you have a digital angle which is thrown in and that's very critical for your understanding because that's how you're going to engage with the consumer so if you don't know how the consumer engages with your product with your brand then it's going to be tough on so I think that component of the overall capability has definitely grown in terms of share within the overall capability of the individual my last question before I take two audience questions so keep your questions ready if you have any for Mr. Kapoor and I'll bring you in to ask the question Salil if you have to make three predictions for the future what would those be especially in the context of business and marketing if we met 12 to 18 months from now what would have happened give us three trends even if you don't want to call them predictions so what is happening already will further gain momentum however we will see much more stuff happening on personalized products right now which is more on personalized media and engagement so I think 3d is 3d printing is is something which is which is pretty underrated and underused right now it definitely grow the second thing which will happen is the large dependence on two or maybe three at most you know partners or aggregators will further you know the long tail is the share of the long tail will grow on on media digital media the third one is that the players apart from Google and meta will grow yeah so there is yeah so there are people who are going to be more on the niches which will grow so somebody from sports will grow big somebody from you never know but the way things are going with the point of view on the IPL broadcast right and digital rights prices I think it is good for the consumers as long as there are people competing for the rights and I'm sure the value is there and they will it's going to be tough but I'm sure there are marketeers who will bite into it the third one that's a very diplomatic answer you're my friend so that's how I can ask you I know you stay away from controversy in every way but you know because you've been you were with LG you've seen how LG built the brand in a very short by burst of advertising cricket was big then you were the CEO of DTH business at Disney you worked at Voltage now you're here clearly you know understand media and you understand the rights I I was writing a piece and I didn't write it eventually on the cricket rights and I texted Ashish Basheem and he said Anura cricket pedo kabhi hindu saambe payasal noose hotai nahi koi bhi value pick so that's the view of somebody like Ashish Basheem so I said there has to be some merit if you're saying that so clearly some people mirror the view you have shared but some people view that this is just good for PCC I it's not necessarily good for people who who are very consummate business professionals entrepreneur who really overpaid for it so I'll give you another angle here I feel that the cricket rights always when they're sold every year they're sold at a much higher price and every year we all feel that it's beyond the reach of the marketing marketing budgets that a lot of marketers have but every year they turn out in profit so yeah so and every time there are people who will bite into it and I'll tell you why because it's not one brand which is going for three decades or two decades earlier there are brands where you know you mentioned where I have worked and we would go and compete then there are brands which came into some other category and then the digital brands there's a lot of VC money there's a lot of private equity money which came in and you saw all the digital brands spending the money however I see a little lull in a year or two and that could be only not that the marketers don't want to spend the money and they don't see value of course they see the value the kind of eyeballs it generates nobody nothing else care the only love which might come is because of the the cash crunch which is temporary probably a year of liquidity stuff and which is because of you know global liquidity issues and inflation issues so that could spoil the party temporarily however in the long run it's never expensive okay we'll take two questions if there are any question I'm kid you want to ask a little any question can we get a mic to uncut he's not allowed Punjabi from Delhi he's from Bangla yeah it's better so sell it I think on the last point which you have raised around liquidity which I think is it's a fact now but while you said party is over but I think don't you think I never said party is over you can call it disrupted temporary okay so while I see it as a rationalization of that party right so there was a lot of irrational decision-making that was happening because of excessive liquidity so don't you think the rationalization is important for the ecosystem to be sustainable right while it's growing it needs to grow sustainably instead of crazily I fully agree with you and we're not talking about cricket rights here I was talking about that party this one the other one that you are hinting is also temporarily disrupted because it will it will separate as they say men from boys more stronger business models from the ones which are only dependent on cash burn which is good and this is always the time to build up stronger fundamentally strong businesses right but it's the the you know you know that things swing to extreme but 2008 happened 2009 was a bumper time and nobody at 2008 time thought that it will happen in six months one year time come back so far you know the the community the bankers and the and the financial community always swings to extremes very optimistic very pessimistic so you don't know when it will swing back I think same happened during the COVID down turn this way exactly exactly we all wrote off things and suddenly things came back in one quarter so see one thing I'll tell you when India is going to grow there is no question and of course the government can play a positive enabler but it will grow it has natural traction it is a market which is the biggest market it has an aspirational consumer the digital transformation in the last year has been accelerated by at least five if not ten years and you know again I must tell the audience Ankit is from bobble.ai and he applied for business world's 40 under 40 awards and and there's a reason I'm mentioning and he won of course and I was sitting in the jury and you know one of the jury members post everyone's presenting this ask we discussed the person who presented you know bobble.ai is possibly a zero to one company either zero or one if you know that concept but Peter they be very big because you're trying to change the basis of a business right it's a new so clearly for the first time look at UPI you know I used to say that in India we don't build product companies I mean UPI is a product company for I mean right look at ONDC read the latest cover of business world we have four pioneering people on the cover and who in various teams are doing a scale which is huge when DC will be the UPI of e-commerce so I think in India finally the scale for everything is bigger so that will sustain in my view the numbers possibly so that's my view one more question if there's somebody has a question the lady there can you get a mic to her we have Ajay Sharma of Bedinath post this and I'm sure it will be in a way it will be an exciting session tell us what is your name and what company do you work for we don't know about how much money in your Swiss bank account that you can tell us privately hello mr. Bhattra this is this is Kamna Hazrati I started my career with you with style candy oh yeah you're Kamna right right catching up after 13 years now I can yes I'm meeting you after 8 10 years so yes 13 years so 13 yes that's why I don't good to you texted me the other day about the link not working right finally worked and I am yes I sent it to me or somebody in the team yes go ahead Kamna go ahead ask the question hi mr. Kapoor so you know in your conversation you were hinting quite a couple of times that's it's it has been a tricky time for all of the market years you know how things have changed in the last two years you were also hinting how you know how the woman are purchasing now so in your field I understand the shift from offline to digital but could you please hint more on you know do you see is this a shift on maybe price wars do you see there is more local brands India has also awakened up to you know local made in India brands so we are nowhere you know no more just buying maybe a Reebok or a Nike we are also happy to buy a campus Sutra or our campus shoe right so in that case you know what what all do you think like not only just the shift from offline to digital but also you know maybe more nuances or maybe more details into it of how do you think that that shift is really happening as I said earlier that shift is not only significant on what people are tracking usually which is the purchase actual purchase offline versus online I think the initiation the development the comparison the valuation all that is very very critical for every brand I think it's more critical and that has shifted drastically to online because everybody has you know a device in the hand throughout and we spend our lives more with this than with anything else and I was looking at not you do so so so that throws a lot of data and that's the way you make a lot of decisions right so this is this component is very critical for all the market years because the entire evaluation and selection and everything is happening while the consumer is going through the digital journey that component has really not sunk in so deeply because all the stuff that you want to promote offline exactly getting shifted to online that is going to be more important and of course we will have the homegrown brands and there'll be various other things which will come up more and more the the I would say the integration and getting digital into our lives is already happening and that will continue that degree and that quotient will keep on increasing okay I think I must tell you I do spend time on the phone I haven't I've looked at my phone only once in this whatever time of conversation and since my friend Mr. Wade Shokla spends much more time than me on the phone I feel very happy I spent much less the time than him though I try not compare but but you know on a serious note I think all we started exchange for media 21 plus years back to build a B2B e-commerce company and my vision and style candy we closed it was not our lifestyle to be up in the night after 11 p.m. mostly but I told you that fashion e-commerce will happen and you know when I started at 13 if we had persisted it possibly but we feel in exchange for media to that time to build a B2B e-commerce business exchange for media is called exchange for media not because we wanted to build a media business because we were building a B2B marketplace for media for buying and selling of media time and space and we were pretty ahead of time 21 years back but I tell now all the time to build it is now one we have relationships with every stakeholder second I think the time in the environment is there so the whole we had envisaged the whole value chain he research copy I'm not time set I have Kia if you want to run a research spot you can do a sass you pay only for that spot you want to then buy you want to do fulfillment because just to give you just so I think in e-commerce there is natural traction today you know my parents were 80 plus search you know and then they get someone to buy my father still likes to go to bang but you know they have adapted to digital fairly well compared to pre-covid so I think everything I'm trying to recruit someone I'll go up I'm trying to buy something I invest fair bit in angel investing and you know I try to find out about the product reviews I go a secret the product you are invested in a coffee company called beingly you know again I like the product and I know the founders right it but I look at online has become a very important part you know of everything we do to taking feedback but for a lot of consumers that's the starting point they still want to visit the store in case of cars they still want to do a test drive in case of homes though people buying homes without visiting is grown but people still want to do that physical loop clovers what to say see the product so that hasn't changed no so just add to that I think some years ago somebody would have told me that I'll buy my running shoes online I would have I would have said no I want to wear them I want to use them and then see if I'm comfortable but now I buy online I never thought fashion will be really big online that people just on the site called boo.com in 21 years back in UK it's shut down to the first website it shut down for business reason and maybe it was also ahead of time but I think I still said touch and feel product to be King any couple of the online beginning I used to say code be boo.com example we're wrapping up yeah but so cars and and even the homes one day with all the VR being thrown in if you have a trusted builder and if you have a good quality VR you might not want to visit it is growing I said so please give Mr. Sunil Kapoor a big round of applause I don't buy sports shoes I'd like my friends to give me sports shoes I have a friend from my school who's the CEO of the best shoe company the most expensive shoe company he's actually novels classmate he's two batches you need to me and so you know I always wait for him to gift me shoes so that's a cute to you Salil you're a consumer durable brand so thank you I must say thank you in advance but give Mr. Salil Kapoor a big round of applause