 In a beating all odds segment, we have with us a CEO whose brand has brought color to our lives. Well, literally. He's Amit Singhal, managing director and CEO of Asian Paints Limited. Hi, Mr. Singhal. Hi there. Good to be with you on this interview. Thank you for joining us. Well, Asian Paints has been one of the most prominent advertisers in the country. How has the lockdown affected you as a brand? The current situation has been very, very exceptional. Yes, we are going through a lot of uncertain times. But as a brand, what we feel is that situations can get tough, but it is important for a brand to keep the brand saliency on. So we've been pretty active. If you see in the last about four, four and a half weeks, in terms of a series of campaigns, which we have done, we've done some two beautiful campaigns on her in terms of really connecting with the customer and really talking of exorting the customer of staying home and staying safe. We've been working on a lot of digital campaigns. We did a live concert with Shahan and Shankar Mahadevan. We also did some other initiatives around the Mother's Day and so on and so forth. So we've been pretty active around the media because we feel that for any brand, times can be tough, but it is important to have the saliency around it. Yes, what we have done is curtailed possibly the spend which would have been in normal times. But at the same time, we've also run ATL, which has been around our Royal Health Shield, which is a brand in the health and hygiene space to that extent. So overall, I think we've been still quite active, maybe not as active. Maybe it would have been in the normal times, but we feel that that is something which any brand should kind of appropriate in terms of even times are not looking very great. Absolutely. Tell me, how have you gone about? You spoke about, you know, you have a few ATL activities. How have you gone about allocating your advertising fronts? Most advertisers literally chose to move away from other mediums and only focus in digital. Has it been a similar approach for you? So we've looked at balancing our spends in the last few months and weeks as we look at it. The largest spends obviously have been towards digital for us as well because we kind of diverted a big chunk of our spends towards digital and we had almost two to three films launched which were there on the digital. So it took a bit of a spend there. But at the same time, we have not shied away from the traditional ATL channels and we have looked at some of our communication happening on the news genre in terms of certain other general entertainment channels which have been there to that extent and therefore have been active in terms of the traditional channels as well. But having said that, yes, there has been a larger spend towards the digital medium to that extent and a lot of innovation which has been kind of done in terms of looking at the social handles and other areas which we have been working around with. And in this period, I think you've come up with more than one digital film and it literally takes us back to your iconic 2007 film by a similar name, Har Ghar, Chup Chaap, Kuch Khe Hata Hai. Tell me, how did you go about making that during the lockdown and most importantly, how did you get Pivash Pandey to lend his voice to the film? Okay, great. So see that entire initiative actually was done in a period of just five days from the idea of germination stage to the actual execution. It was something which we did in five days and I would really credit both the brand and the agency of really partnering so well coming together with the idea and really looking at a very fast way of executing it. Obviously, Kudos to Pivash because in a conversation with him, he really said that this is something which he would like to lend his voice and he wrote himself and that was, I think, a big thing in terms of what he gave an expression to the entire film in a very, very strong way and then started a series of things where we were shooting simultaneously 10 homes through mobile phones and it was almost real situations, real sweet moments which people could relate to, moments which brought joy and happiness to people's lives in this uncertain and exceptional times and really, you know, strengthen the bond in terms of the emotional connect with the homes in a very, very beautiful way. So I would say that it was literally like magic in terms of how it really worked and, you know, Piyush went out of the way in terms of looking at saying that his best voice comes forward in terms of really lending a very strong expression to the film and that's how I think the two campaigns came in. The first one was more in the zone of looking at some of those, you know, daily sweet moments which are happening so that people can relate to them very, very strongly and the second one was more in the space in terms of how we really connect with the homes and almost empathize with homes and in a space when we are staying with those homes for a very, very long time. So both had a very, very different zone and really connected well with the consumers in a very big way. You know, in this period, a lot of brands have had a very CSR-led approach and even in your case, you've pledged about 35 crores towards the relief fund. Now tell me what is the consumer's expectation right now from a responsible brand like yours and how are you going about fulfilling it? So right from the time when this has happened, we have always looked at saying that can we partner the government in terms of fighting this entire COVID battle which is going on. We've also looked at in terms of how we can help the communities around us, how we can help the NGOs which are there. So not only we looked at committing, you know, more than 35 crores in terms of lending it to the government, we've been working very actively with the NGOs in terms of looking at providing food, looking at safety kits, looking at whatever we can do in terms of lending a helping hand. But more than that, you know, the ministries of health and ministry of chemicals approached us and they were seeking from us in terms of saying that is something which the brand can do which would come as a big help to the government. So that came the entire idea in terms of making sanitizers. Okay, and therefore we looked at really entering the sanitizer category and being a responsible and caring brand, we felt that it would be a great imperative to look at in terms of really helping the government, not only in terms of providing the money and looking at helping the NGOs with what we want to do, but also coming out and really providing a strong, you know, strong zone of providing something in the market where there was a big deficit which was happening and that was the whole area of sanitizers. So we've been really working around very strongly in terms of all our manner, in terms of what we can do in terms of helping the communities around, hospitals around and the NGOs around and we think that we are proud of a lot of work which we have done in the last about four and a half weeks in this direction. Okay, about this Sanitizer category, is that something which is very temporary or is that something that Asian pains will continue to do even, you know, after the lockdown is lifted and you know, next year onwards also. So Asian pains always has been responsible and caring brand and we felt that when we got this nudge from the government it was a great opportunity to get into the health and hygiene category and given the fact that we were already working in this category because we have a product called Royal Health Sheet which is an antibacterial paint which goes into the homes and provides bacterial protection. We felt that it is also a category which leverages the existing health and hygiene space in a beautiful manner and therefore as we now go ahead what we are looking at is that our initial production which we have done in our old plant with this viral protect hand sanitizers and surface sanitizers. The initial production is more directed at helping the government in the NGOs but as we go ahead we are looking at saying that this is not like a flash in the pan. We are looking at integrating this farm more strongly with our health and hygiene category. We are looking at a separate distribution network in terms of looking at seeing how we can get this product and range in the market and we have already started reaching out to a set of distributors who are ensuring that the products are now getting available at the right shops so that we are able to kind of take this entire initiative forward. So as we go ahead this category is going to be an integral part of our health and hygiene portfolio and we think we are looking at a lot of innovation around this category both in terms of products and service as we go ahead. Coming back to maybe your main business which is maybe into a very large extent hit because the real estate sector is badly hit so no house warmings are going to happen nobody is going to look at painting their homes anymore. So what is your strategy in that direction? So I won't agree with you that people are not going to look at painting their house anymore because we still believe that we will cajole and get people into painting their homes because beautiful homes is something which Asian paints is already always aligned with. So what we are doing is that as we go ahead we are looking at partnering the customer in a very big way. We have launched a service which is called the Safe Painting Service and as part of that service what we are assuring the customer is that when a set of painters come to their homes they come in with full protection with full safety gear so that they are assured that if they are making their homes beautiful at the same time they are ensuring that they are perfectly safe and people need not get worried about they getting any kind of germs and viruses inside their houses and to that extent it's an assured and safe service to that extent. So I think the whole attempt is to hold the customer's hand and partner the customer in terms of this assurance that we are helping them in terms of a very safe service. At the same time we are also coupling the service with a sanitizing service where we are looking at sanitizing their homes with a range of sanitizers which we have so the customers are doubly assured that not only that we are looking at safe paintings we are also looking at providing them a very very strong health with respect to sanitizing their homes as they kind of go forward. So we feel that as we go forward obviously I think it will take some time to a full normalcy which will come back and people kind of really engaging in terms of the whole painting exercise but we are hopeful that as and when people see the merits of such safe painting practices coming in they will be more encouraged to kind of get the painters within their homes, start painting their homes and start getting into their zones. At the same time we feel that there are a lot of construction activities which have started and some of those construction activities will get into painting whether it is exterior painting or whether it is in terms of a lot of other areas which we offer in terms of water proofing and other areas to that extent. So overall our perspective is as the environment opens slowly. We would kind of see that the market would try to start to open out and that is something which we are having an optimism about that in some time the market will open and you know painting works will start construction, some activity in our business. In such times what are your expectations from your ad agency when business is a hit? Is the focus on making video ads at this point or providing business solutions? So I would say that when you look at the advertising agencies they are very strong partners in this business as we go ahead and they align with the kind of work which we would like the agencies to do. So I think from a point of view of one working along with the brand in terms of developing new prepositions which will suit the customer looking at new creators which we can kind of go in terms of really looking which will be possibly standing with the customer in a very very strong way and also partnering the brand from the point of view of providing more fuel and more you know armory in terms of what we can do as we kind of look at this challenging environment in terms of going ahead. So I feel that the advertising agencies would not just come in in terms of just sitting and making creators with us and looking at new prepositions they will partner the brand in terms of really saying that what are the kind of strategies which we can kind of unleash in the market so that we are able to kind of you know get the brand going in the tough times. Okay and another thing is you know miss because very few brands are like literally advertising at this point would you say it's a good opportunity to maybe stand up for your employees even if the direct selling is not happening in a big way or do you want to be there for the brand is that something that consumer will respect you for eventually? So as we go ahead we are very clear that we will look at supporting a lot of integrated marketing activities for the brand and we will really stand up in terms of ensuring that we have a certain brand saliency in the market because that is very very important in terms of really reaching out to the customers and being top of the mind at the customer level to that extent so some of those initiatives as per me would continue obviously it all depends in terms of how much the market is opening how is it basically the situation enveloping as we kind of go ahead and therefore a lot of force in terms of those initiatives will come in depending on how the situation really unfolds. But you know once the market really opens and the lockdown is completely lifted from across the country or do you see yourself going all out to advertise will you be a little cautious about spending money on advertising because people are still going to be afraid of social distancing I mean they will want to continue to do social distancing they might not really come out and buy the way they would usually I mean not just for the pain sector but even otherwise so how do you see yourself moving forward as an advertiser? See I feel that for any brand we should always take a balanced opinion in terms of looking at going ahead so when the market tends to come into normalcy okay it's not that we are going to really splurge the market in terms of looking at a host of market campaigns and a lot of advertising which is going to happen but as I see it is that once really the market opens and with the impending pester season which is going to come ahead we will look at definitely spending monies in the marketing and the advertising and above the line forays which are there and look at balancing the entire initiative in such a manner that we are able to reach out to the customer, remain top of the mind but at the same time balance it in terms of you know how we see the revenues coming during that point of time okay so I think it's a fairly balanced approach we would like to kind of take and see that you have the relevance in the market you have the salience in the market and you are able to remain top of the mind for your set of consumers and just one last question what is the biggest change that you think COVID-19 onslaught has brought to the entire marketing community so I think the biggest change is that people are learning to work from home and we are learning new ways of really marketing and reaching out to the consumers and at the same time discovering that our potential is much much more so I think people are really saving lots of time in terms of not driving to work and spending time in the traffic and suddenly the availability of time is becoming a very very big asset which people are discovering and I feel that post one everything opens we will realize that our productivity has got you know doubled to a more zillion times than what we were doing earlier Thank you so much Mrs. Singal for speaking to us and may you continue to bring joy to people's lives and a lot of color Thank you so much. Thank you for being there on this interview. Thank you.