 Welcome to Exchange for Media. It is that time of the year when most brands are loaded with discounts and offers. However 2020 is not a usual year. This year saw one full quarter under lockdown hitting the businesses all across sectors. So do festive offers and discounts mean the same this year too. We can find out this and much more from our guest today Mr Ravi Santhanam, Chief Marketing Officer at HTFC Bank. Welcome to the show Ravi. Hi Nazia, hope you are safe and sound. Yes so far. Thanks. Wish the same for you. Thank you. So Ravi your bank has just announced several festive offers but considering that this is not a normal festive season, many people have lost their jobs. Corona is still very much around. There is fear to step out. How is your festive offer different from previous years? Two three things which are very very different for us compared to last year and looking at the current pandemic situation what we have done is we have done lot more work on online side of so that you will see a lot more online offers available from our side including a partnership with Amazon to start with and on the offline side we have gone much more wider in terms of regional partnerships. So we have 2000 plus regional partnerships that we have executed this time so that even if you have to travel you can find that offer within very nearby focus specifically on regional stores and regional offerings. Last if I remember right we might have had around 750 odd regional store offerings but this time we have just multiplied it and we are going across the country and we have more than 2000 plus regional offers already in place and in addition we will be actually adding a lot more in the next techniques. So these are the big changes that we have brought in. Also I wanted to understand if the categories are same I mean like home appliances, phones, auto clothing or the categories have changed? While the categories do stay almost whatever you just said is continuing to be here and we do see a large amount of pent up demand in these categories you just mentioned. I think mobile today for example or a laptop today for example from being a fashion device it has also become an education it has also become a work from home device for many people. So the use cases of the same electronics have changed the use cases for many people when it comes to whatever other things you said do the bills have changed like for example a lot of people are looking at dishes, a lot of people are looking at vacuum cleaners, a lot of people are looking at air filters. Now these are all things which people would have said may not be necessary but the current pandemic situation the health consciousness of people and because of which you see a lot more on the health side mobile is now a device iPad or app. On the television for example they come almost to education device at many home where people are just putting in the device and they are using the smart TV for themselves with their online classes. So we have seen work from home and work for home as four distinct categories that have emerged and we see a lot of action in those areas. That's one side of it where the traditional categories are finding new use cases. In addition what we have seen education is we have a tie up with most of the leading educational online education providers and some of these online education providers as you know if you want to go in for a two year course for your kid in say 11th and 12th these are pretty expensive. So we have BMI offers and all of these people. On the health side also we have a lot of offers on online gyms as well as medicines and other things on the health and wellness side and we'll surely very soon be announcing a very very big partnership between those four most health service providers also in terms of under health. So we see the traditional categories being there and in addition they're also adding a lot of new categories where we see because of the pandemic and because of the consumer changing behaviors and things are moving. In fact wanted to come to consumer behavior. We last spoke six months ago when the pandemic had just started. So what are your observations in the six months? What kind of unemployment has increased? A lot of people have lost jobs. Finance becomes a very very important part of you know is an important part of everybody's life. How has consumer behavior changed in these six months? See if I have to look at March then April and May. April and May was more of a shock but most of us had experienced anything of this in our lifestyle. So it was like supply just being stopped. Demand was there but supply was just getting stopped and come June, July, August we slowly understood what is this all about and we slowly started unlocking a little bit over there. Supply started coming back and what we have seen is slowly the confidence is coming back. The offline is still a little bit of a struggle for us compared to say what we saw in January but the online has picked up. But if I have to look at July it was better than June, August was better than July and September is also better than August. So which also means that the ecosystem is slowly learning to live with this and over a period of time what we have also seen is consumer behavior. At least now this what I call is the fatigue of staying at home has come. You need to be extra careful about our customers. Definitely our customers to be extra careful about their own personal safety and everything but we do see a sense of fatigue. I'm sure you're hearing that from all of your friends and colleagues and all those stuff saying that how long. So that's the reason why if you ask us what is it that we are planning to do this is also basis this kind of fatigue that we see in the market. People are getting the confidence that slowly over a period of time if they know how to handle this like for example wearing their mask and maintaining social distances they can go about many of their things which they used to do earlier. Yes maybe a travel is a little bit of a problem. Maybe dining out is a little bit of a problem but there are options of dining in. So we are seeing again dining in again travel it will take a little bit of time. We slowly started some dream shoots happening from that side also. We don't hear people wanting to go to nearby places for travel. May not be foreign travel over the next one one and a half years maybe but domestic tourism and domestic travel I expect to increase over a period of time. So from a kind of not knowing what to do all of us that situation including me as consumer you as a consumer. Now I think we are coming to learn to live with it and we do see the majority of the pain area is over and there is a clear outlook in terms of a far better outlook of what is going to happen then say compared to a me and compared to August also. I see a definite improvement in confidence coming back for the last few months. So you just mentioned that July was better than June and September like things have been improving. So but Q2 was a complete washout. So if I have to ask in terms of numbers you know what kind of recovery we see in Q1 was a washout you can say calendar year. I would not even want to hazard a guess because all these percentages are not necessary in the right way of comparing. So when you have a zero revenue in the month of say in April or May and then if you do two you can say even it is infinity and that does make no sense. So what we always do at least in HDFC Bank is we are taking January as because January is one of those 31 day months and how are we against January. So that's what is our pre-COVID level because February is the 28th month and even in March also around March 15th onwards we started getting into this kind of partial lockdown full lockdown shutting down at various places kind of stuff. So if I look at January as a parameter we are almost close to getting there. Business is almost close to pre-COVID. We see there are certain areas in every business which you will know like for example travel for example eating out. Yes obviously they are under serious stress online for example is back and more than what is there in January levels. So there are lots of positives that we see in the system and the numbers are more or less back at that level and we are very confident that going forward starting today you will see the animal spirit the festive spirit of the Indian economy will start to kick in. Actually I wanted to ask about IPL and festive season you know how much do you think will be recovered during these next 40-45 days. See the whole industry and all of us as brand marketers as consumers are all betting on this festive season for a phenomenal recovery for the loss of the quarter two or quarter one as we want to do in the financial year. Yes we had a very bad quarter as an Indian economy but we as bank actually had a phenomenal performance if you have seen our performance. This quarter is very important because I think all of us are putting our energy into it and the biggest thing that I might call it a saving grace or a blessing in disguise IPL happening at this point of time. So we are having a lot of consumers sitting at home having the time to watch this IPL and I have seen numbers I'm sure you have seen numbers in terms of the number of hours people are spending on TV as it is dramatically and working at home for example if there is a match which will happen during the weekends now I'm just going to turn my camera and have my TV on without sound then I want to watch it and I have seen the first week numbers of the IPL so I don't know whether I can quote them or not I have seen those first week numbers they are phenomenal. So cricket starved for almost six months so they have picked it up I as a consumer have been watching almost all the matches and for six months I had no cricket to watch so all of us are going to watching live sports again and that's a very big and there's a lot of it writing on it looking at the first week numbers I am feeling confident that's good for us. So this season everyone is confident and everyone is spinning hope but then considering that the vaccine is still nowhere around and cases are not reducing the next quarter again is you know I have been speaking to agency people and they're a little worried about that quarter that what happens after a festival when the idea is over would you want to talk about it I'm not too sure because you know I don't want to have a question. I am of the opinion I'm just going to repeat what my MD said yesterday he said see this glass full or glass empty so I just you know we want to see this glass half okay and we in HDFC banks strongly believe that we need to create the market also we need to create the demand also so one is to say that there is a demand in the market I'll fulfill the second is to say we will create the demand and we at HDFC banks strongly believe that we will create them. What are some of the big campaigns that HDFC is launching in this festive season? So the biggest thing is we are bringing festive treats back again last year also we started on October 1st and this year also we started on October 1st and as we talked about in the beginning compared to last year this year's treats has been and it is better. We have a lot more online play this year looking at the current situation we've added specific categories like education and a lot of other things which consumers are currently doing on the gaming. Work from home, work for home, all those categories specifically. Regional store partnerships have been and in addition we are coming in as one bank right and this is the biggest thing that which a bank like HDFC Bank can offer which differentiates us from the rest of the people who will offer needs. So if you want to buy any kind of mobile things yes we will give you a 10 to 15 percent depending on what kind of price you need and in addition if you want the remaining 85 or 90 percent to be financed I'll give you an EMI offer also on that plus on the TMI offer also there is a loan offer available. There is a specific processing fee available so we are the one we bank we are the one we company in this country where we can give you a deal on the product that you buy plus financing that purchase of that product also and there is a deal on the finance also so that's the difference and that's what we'll bring it to our customers and it is far bigger it's far better than last year and you will see the benefit of it as you log into our site and see today. Also as a marketer you have you I mean you just said you're going big on digital right this year. Sorry this year we have sorry if you talk about the media plan we have bigger media plan this year compared to last year and this year we will be doing ATL advertisements on television. So we are taking ATL route this year one is the current pandemic situation second is what we see as numbers and how television and IPL specifically and all happening at this point of time. So we will be going into IPL to advertise about our offerings and you will see us and in addition to IPL sorry in addition to IPL we are also having a partnership with what start so we are having a hundred percent of the highlights which were present partners so highlights is this and in addition we will also have other things which we have partnered with star will be in OTT we will be in the entire digital scene what I see is people are spending their time looking at screens like for example if I look at my own screen and look at my screen time I sometimes feel very angry because at the end of the day in office I never used to look at screen but looking and sitting at home it has almost been like seven hours six hours screen and then in addition TV. So what we wanted to do this year is whichever screen you are spending your time as a consumer. So whether you are on your mobile phone off screen this year because you know now that people will move out you have done so many regional partnerships do you think outdoor and radio will eventually start picking up as a market you will invest in them. As of now I have my own reservations on outdoor but in the outdoor see outdoor is one is outside in their own and outdoor is one within the shop I am putting lot of energy within the shop so in advertisements will be very big from our side and our partners are also helping us whether it is an automobile manufacturer or whether it is a TV manufacturer whether it is some of the big large format retail stores or the mom shop mom and mom stores all of them are also in partnership with us and you can see us in the point of presence big time being there in addition our own branches under 5500 branches the footprints that will also be big data will take a call in a short period of time Ravi before we wind this up you lead the marketing for such a big banking brand what kind of financial advice do you want to give to people in these times ahead of festive season I mean any any piece of advice that I am not qualified at all to give financial you're very qualified please do share some advice the only thing which I will say is the advice that I will want to definitely give this all is possible with htfcbank festive treats this festive you go and buy something for yourself for your loved ones for your family we extended family have a look at what we have to offer and get the maximum benefit from this Ravi thank you so much for speaking to us we wish you a happy festive season and we wish happy festive season to you as well as you and please do buy something in this festive season from htfcbank so I have to I have to buy all two out thank you I definitely will thanks Ravi for doing this thank you so much thank you