 All right. And on that note, I'd like to invite the captain of the ship, Mr. Anurag Batra, chairman and editor in chief exchange for media group and business world to deliver the welcome address. I may read out from your notes. Don't want to do that. I'll have to take your fee away. Please give Ratnika a big round of applause. She's a very brave person. I met her at an event which she was hosting for us on 10th January. And, you know, I am the one industry that I should be a brand ambassador of is out of home because I spent most of my time out of home. But the other industry if I could be a brand ambassador is entrepreneurship and events. These are two things I know a little bit. She was hosting a BW disrupt event and, you know, I have some pet peeves and one of my colleagues did something. And, you know, she saw me in a very aggressive mode and then she, she out of the blue texted me and she came to meet me in the office. And, you know, she's been very brave. Brave people should be celebrated. I am brave too. I got married 18 years ago. So I think we should celebrate brave people. But that's another day. Today we are here to celebrate the out of home industry. I'd like to acknowledge the presence of Mr. Stuart Taylor, who's the global CEO of Kinetic, who's come all the way. And we've allowed him without a badge. That's because of our respect, sir. So please give Mr. Stuart Taylor a big round of applause. He's the global CEO of Kinetic. He's been an entrepreneur. He served on the board of Guardian. He owned his own radio station. And he's done a lot of things before he started leading Kinetic. My old friend, Suresh, a young friend, but goes back a long time. Suresh, the fact that you're at Kinetic gives us hope because, you know, Group M is the position and Kinetic is at a position where you can grow the industry. And if the industry grows, you grow. I have lots of friends in the room. I did work in the out of home industry for a little while. And my ex-boss yesterday called me and after that sent me a text saying you disappoint me because he sent an article and it wasn't printed in the magazine. So Nandan called me, wrote it, now works for a, you know, diverse firm which engages on gender diversity and stuff. This is an industry that I know a little bit because I worked in it. It has changed for the positive in the last 18 years that I've moved away from the industry actively. I used to be the head of the office of Portland in Delhi. I had the great pleasure of having team members like Gaur Gupta. That's where I lost most of my hair. He's the sponsor of the event today. He will not come. Some people feel great. I sponsored the event, but I won't show up. You know, it's like a statement of like, you know, like I'm God's gift to humanity, but that's okay. Which Gaur is. He's a very close friend of mine. He worked with me, but I want to tell you that I did work in this domain and I was taking Suresh's viewpoint before I came up. The industry has moved forward in a way that it has improved. And if you had to take the initiatives that have happened in the last few months, one is the, you know, every industry has an association which in some way brings some standard practices. It creates a safety net. It creates training. The outdoor industry, out of home industry has the Indian Outdoor Association. I think in the last few months, the membership has gone from 80 to 350. So that's a very positive step. It has involved agencies, media owners, intermediaries, printers. Most importantly, it has set up some standard operating procedures. Payments is a big area. Every association, whether it's an INS or IBF or an outdoor association can help in streamlining payments because I think that's the biggest area where, you know, in how PO's come. So things have improved there. Let me also tell you that the media industry is growing. Our Pitch Madison advertising outlook, which is in its 18th year forecast that next year the outdoor industry will grow bigger than the normal average of the growth of the industry. And the growth will be more than it was last year. If you look at the out of home industry on an average, it grew by six, seven percent. There are players that grew by 10 percent. If you look at the other survey which Group M brings out, which Pitch Madison doesn't bring out. It says our out of home will grow at 13 percent. So we're at an inflection point. And the beauty about Outlook is the out of home industry is that the out of home industry is getting integrated with every possible medium. It is getting integrated with television. It is getting integrated with your mobile phone. It is getting integrated with cinema in some way. It is getting integrated with retail. Every kind of medium is coming together. So out of home is really an industry that will grow along with every other domain and subdomain. I also want to talk about the fact that since the time we started this forum more than 10 years back, this is the 11th year, transparency and objectivity are two things that have been talked about. Ethics. I think we've improved usually because the environment that exists is very competitive. Players that are ethical, long term and a partnership oriented are growing. I can also point out the fact that there are unique out of home opportunities. Some of those opportunities are represented in this room. For example, armor, for example, bar talk, for example, with YOMA. They are not traditional out of home opportunities. And there are many more that I may or may not be aware of. Digital screens. You cannot talk of any domain, whether it is a business domain which is editorial, without talking about digital and digital screens. Suresh was telling me that this commissioner of South Mumbai told the municipal commissioner that they are giving up, floating a tender for 100 digital screens in Mumbai and then if it goes well as a pilot project, they'll replicate it across their municipality. Now, if it happens in Mumbai, it possibly will happen every year. Again, because I come from the media domain, apart from exchange for media, I'm part of business world. So I can tell you that media as a category relies heavily on out of home. If you look at out of home advertisers, media will be among the top five categories. For example, if you look at some of the marquee out of home spaces, Google has taken it up. Facebook has taken it. Netflix has taken it. For some reason, I'm going to Hyderabad very often these days. My new investors are from Hyderabad. So I have to go there very often. And we've been doing events. And when I land in Hyderabad, the Hyderabad airport, which possibly some part is with Lakshya, at least that part is with Lakshya, has this Radha TMT, Rana Dugubati. How many of you noticed that? The Hyderabad Rana. So, you know, it's done in such a fashion that it looks like the airport is owned by Radha TMT. You know, it's everywhere. I know the promoter of Radha TMT is a very close friend of mine. I had dinner at his home last Monday in Hyderabad. And he told me how much he paid for it. I mean, he paid a lot of money, but he's getting an ROI. So out of home advertising can in a lot of ways, you know, create that halo. And he's doing that when the steel industry is not necessarily doing well. So he's spending more money in building a brand. I can keep talking to you about out of home. I'm not an expert like Suresh or Mr. Taylor. So I won't, but I just want to tell you that the industry is changing for better. If I had to put red flags, I'd like to put three red flags. One is I brought the issue of, latest issue of business world, which is on women entrepreneurship. It's a survey which says that it's difficult to be, it's difficult to be an entrepreneur in India, especially if you don't have hair. Shiranga, it's easy, you have hair. But for other people who don't have hair, it's difficult. But for women, it's tough. And we did a large survey. So in the out of home, I know your wife is an out of home entrepreneur in Calcutta. He just told me. But mostly the number of women, I'm glad I can see some women colleagues here. But in the out of home industry, both at the leadership and the middle level, there are less women. I'd like to see those going up. I'd say that women bullshit less. I'd say that again, I keep saying that. Second is the fact that agency and owners have to look at a long-term view. Our industry sometimes tends to be very transactional, you know, as if you're selling. But the best value comes from collaborative partnerships. And last but not the least, again, this is the issue that is being discussed. 18 years back, I used to go for meetings. My boss would send me to, Shiranda would send me to meetings, is measurement. The out of home industry still does not have a robust measurement. With the integration of out of home industry with every other media, I think now is the time for measurement. And with people like Suresh at the helm of a leading agency, I see Mr. Sen was also somewhere. Mr. Bandula, you know, he's like the godfather of this industry. He was, and let's be very honest about it. So I just want to say that when we come back next year and my vision for the out of home domain is a two-day conference. You know, this is a conference we don't make that much money as we make in other conferences. But we don't do everything to make money. We do things to make sure our industry creates new leaders, creates new benchmarks. We're able to celebrate the best advertising and we're able to bring out an agenda change and a conversation change so that the leaders of the industry note and it seeps down. As Ratliga mentioned, tonight we have the neon. I can tell you that, you know, I just came for a, you know, I was invited by the ministry to be on the board of these national entrepreneurship awards and I looked at the process and they called me to look at the process. I can tell you the process was very good and I said that to the secretary that really your process is exceptional. But I can tell you that ours are the most honest awards and I can tell you we do awards in every domain. And, you know, we do it in the news broadcast awards domain and I lose friends every year we do it. I can only tell you that people don't talk to me for two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, five years. But really we do it honestly. Nobody in our domain can influence it. Whatever we do, we can say that we do it with a very, and we do it through a jury. And again, our jury as you will see in the jury AV is such an accomplished and knowledgeable jury and such powerful leaders that be difficult to influence them unless until they really get influenced by another jury member's view. So really tonight when we celebrate the winners in the out of home domain and there are two people awards, I know those are the only two awards I know who those award winners are. I can tell you if I was on the jury and I know a little bit about this domain and about this industry, I would give it to those two people. So I can tell you that if you won, I congratulate you. If you were in the shortlist, I still congratulate you. About 62 brands participated in the awards, 40 odd agencies participated in the awards. We got 350 plus entries. We shortlisted 120 and today about 30 odd winners will be celebrated tonight. So that's the process. I hope you'll agree with our award winners. Awards are a lot about three things. One, it is about perception. I can tell you again, that's an area I know a little bit. Second, it is about elimination. Awards are the process of elimination. So you keep eliminating, eliminating. And third, it is the quality of how you present the awards. You know, I keep saying to this, a lot of my friends reach out, but we did so good work. You know, our prime minister is a great guy. He's leading the country. He's there, apart from the fact that he's brilliant, his perception is bigger than reality. You know, if he comes back as the prime minister, he'll come back because there is, perception is bigger than reality. If he doesn't come back, he'll not come back because perception is bigger than reality. So really, I can tell you this is the most honest awards. I don't have to tell you, you know, I just want to, and I want to tell you that next year, I called Sonia who really put this together. Of course, lots of people, Priyanka, everyone has supported her. But I can tell you that one of our best is running this award in the year where I met two jury members on the flight. I came back from Bombay last night. I told you I'm the best guy on out of home. I'll be again back in Bombay tomorrow night for our impact of 50 women awards. And on Friday, I'll be in Calcutta for our real estate conference. I can tell you that I met two industry leaders. I won't take their names. Both are very senior and they had gone for judging of the go-of-est. And I ended up asking them, so how was the judging? How are the quality of entries? What was the quantum of entries? I can tell you the last year because of demonetization, GST has been a tough year for advertisers, for the industry. I think we've done out of home advertising media industry is done particularly well considering those things. So while the quality and quantity of entries may have not been like the years before, I know that this is an aberration. This is a new normal. In some way, we'll have to accept it. And hopefully all the good work that the government is doing in terms of infrastructure, in terms of creating jobs, in terms of making sure India is marketed, you'll see the results of that in terms of the economy doing even better over the next few years. I wish you luck and I hope that I continue to be your friend even if you win an award or you don't win an award. And I'd like to say that out of home industry is at a juncture where it poised to become mainstream. And I remember I wrote this column 12 years back, some of you are new in the audience. I wrote in this column, I used to write for pitch. There was a time I used to write a column for pitch. I wrote, I was in Kans, I used to go to Kans. There was a time I don't, no one doesn't send me anymore. But it was 3 a.m. in the night and I was getting a call from Mukesh Gupta of Graphi side. And he's also my neighbor. So I took the call and he said, he realized that, you know, I'm sleepy. I told him I'm in Kans. I was sleeping and he said, no, no, I'll talk to you. I said, no, no, tell me. He said, I have just read your article that you wrote in pitch. And, you know, you've been very insulting on the out of home industry. Because I wrote that in our industry, there is the, I simplified, I said TV, television, radio and outdoor. I mean, I had to make it simple. I said, television is the Brahmans, so on and so forth. And out of home is whatever. You can figure out. Okay. He said, that's not good. I said, you have to read my full column. Why I'm saying that. But I can tell you that if I wrote the same article today, you know, I wouldn't say the same. We are poised. We made significant investments in technology. Some of the players represented today are, you know, investing significantly in technology to make sure the offerings are measurable. And that kind of measurability and honesty will grow the industry. I want to share my last story and I've shared this at every out of home conference. If you're bored, then it's okay. You know, I remember I joined J. Walter Thompson. I used to be in media planning. Mr. Sanjay Chakravarti used to be the boss, right? Like a young executive. Worked for four years. And Mr. Sanjay Chakravarti was notorious for reading too many newspapers. He was always relaxed. I've never seen a boss so relaxed. Like he would read newspapers two hours, like sit in his cabin. And I joined HTA and then I was given out of home. And so London hired me. And then I met Gaur Gupta and I asked Gaur, tell me about the industry. So Gaur of course told me the right things. But I didn't believe it. I thought Gaur was lying to me. I said, these are not possible. So one of the things he told me is that there is this guy called Mr. Singh who had said, I've forgotten even his first name, whatever. Good, I've forgotten. Some Mr. Singh who used to own lots of shelters and space in Delhi, which he doesn't own. So most of you know who I'm talking of. And he said he changes shelters two, three times a day. And he builds all the clients. I said, how is that possible? How can you do that? So I didn't believe it until we used to have NGC, Maruti, and one more as a three large client. And I remember I was crossing Asian Games Village complex. There is a bus shelter. And as per us, there should have been a NGC hoarding. And there was some other client. So I called Gaur and I called that guy. He said, no, it is not possible. It is NGC. I said, I'm standing there. I didn't take a photograph. I don't think there was mobile. It was that ubiquitous then. I came back and on the way back in the night, again, I went to that and he had changed it. It was NGC. So, you know, I believe that the, you know, I'm, I think we've come a long way from. Yes. So we've come a long way. I'm saying this because this was how out of home was perceived. Again, I said perception is bigger than reality by bringing measurement by strengthening the association by bringing better quality of people by upgrading our beliefs. I think we can grow the out of home industry. And as I said, the neck this year isn't is an inflection point and the out of home industry will grow more than 11% because that's what we've said. The other report says 13%. But we'll be happy if it grows 15%. So I wish you luck. I'm sure you'll be meaningful partners to the brands that you work with, to the organizations that you work with, and you will be socially responsible in the kind of advertising you display. And we're talking in a time where the me to issue is a big issue where in advertising, you started to look at, you know, because I wrote my article yesterday for impact of 15% what kind of role models we are creating. I don't know how many women winners are there. We don't have women women winner in those two people categories. Next year, I'd like to see women leaders in this domain winning. That's what I'd like to end on. Thank you. God bless you.