 long day The thing is They asked me to moderate this session and I was like, yeah, I am not a PR guy They asked me to be part of the jury and I was like, I am not a PR guy. I don't belong to this industry I'm a completely creative guy, but when I was seeing the entries for the awards It was very very surprising to and that's why I understand why they brought me into the matrix The kind of digital work that we saw there were some great ideas. There were some precision-driven execution but what we didn't get to see is any great digital drive or Digital idea and I'm completely aware that everything can't be digital when you are trying to influence policy But we would have loved to see execution a little bit better And here's a little tip for all those who have submitted entries and would submit entries next year Try to make your presentation also digital friendly I think we have passed the age of doing PPP presentations and sticking newspaper articles on to your PPP presentations Don't do that There were many guys who might have got a slight advantage also is because they presented their case very well and They did good videos and they were very clear in their communication And I think it all goes with the fact that we are of course talking about PR and communications Right, so I think I think what we lacked is a little bit more on aggression on digital When the whole world is shifting to digital and I think we'll just take 25 30 minutes to understand exactly where that shift is And are you missing out on it because trust me? I work in the digital space and I can tell you the kind of returns The 10x 100x returns you can get on digital is phenomenal Compared to the money that you put in digital all you need is great execution and thought you don't need a platform You don't need to pay you don't need to push All you need is that I think we have and I've been having this conversation with all the panelists It's some very very interesting thoughts and I'd like to start With Shruti, you know, we were just talking about Corporates and Strategy that they had just let's take first and foremost how important is digital? Let's get that back first into play is digital indispensable. Is it a 50-50 and You know, we can't even look too far into the future also the rules are changing every six months So six months to a year maximum, where is digital? Where are we falling short and how do you see it happening? See as I understand Nothing is indispensable in this world right and Same stands for digital or for the better Prints as well as television. How strong digital is today is known by the fact of the amount that anyone anyone of us are in here in this room today spend on the On the internet on the digital medium be it a Facebook be it Twitter be it just going online to WhatsApp chat do anything of that matter, right? You are spending a considerable amount of time on this group So you cannot defy the fact that digital does not exist in the country or digital does not exist in your mind That's that's not possible What depends what's more important to understand is how important that effect of digital is in our lives Right and we cannot defy the fact again that print and television do not exist as Much as digital like this so do print and television you cannot do without either But you cannot do without being available on the digital medium If today you go and tell me that only do a print advertisement or only do television I will probably become non-existent in the eyes of 90% of the population who is Online 80% of the time in the day when you get up in the morning You want to look at your phone when you sleep in the night you want to look at your phone That's all you do you take major you were mentioning I think that was the most fabulous aspect that you were mentioning is that even now on television and print We know Right, I mean I do digital all through the day, but it was you know I was not looking it from that perspective Is that when I'm scrolling through a timeline? You don't look at ads, do you? Until you're looking for an advertisement specifically Does your mind actually rack you to look at a sponsored post or a paid partnership? Do you really pay attention to those things that the brand is spending you don't but as a consumer You're still consuming that you don't realize it as a consumer that you're consuming that but at the back of your mind You'll see it. It's there for you. It's available for you at some point of time or the other It is a consumption that you're doing at the back of your mind when you go to make your offline purchase You don't realize how that online View of a particular ad or something that is a scroll through or something that you saw in an article that you were Reading on a video that you just passed through which might have impacted your actual purchase Decision or your actual buying decision, right? So you don't really realize that on the face of it as a consumer because we still don't want to accept the fact That we've moved away from the so-called and I will call it so-called Traditional media which is printed television as a brand. I am not Wanting to or willing to and I'll talk about a lot of brands together Okay, as a brand we are not willing to yet Leave everything else and go completely digital even though Majority of our population is consuming media is consuming advertisements online So that's Are you then also admitting to the fact that there would be some sort of legacy mindset that is there in this It's always there. It's always there. Do you think you know what we were talking right? It's a simple fact of I will I will have a budget defined Right for any kind and as a brand I'll have a budget defined for something that I want to spend on digital Something that I want to spend on the other mediums of communication to reach my consumers, right? You will spend more on a medium where you know your consumer is But are you really doing that? Your consumer is digital today. Your consumer is majorly Consuming all social media platforms today, but are you still spending majority of your budget to communicate with the consumer? You're not because traditionally you're aligned with the fact of wanting to do friends of wanting to do TV Because at the back of your mind, you know that unless you do that, they will not recognize you They will miss you That's enough You know from B2C to B2B what I what I am completely, you know, I'm I'm a novice and this please explain this to me I I spend my life doing sort of B2C because I do content creation Basically, B2C but on B2B, would you then say that digital is still important because then you have to do targeting You have to be very specific to who you're reaching out. How important is digital in B2B? See, this is the power of digital, it's analytical Which we want to highlight in all our conversations, which is not that intense Except when it comes to traditional media So analytics in digital drives the campaign, its success factors are defined, your targeting is defined, and you are not limited to any geography When it comes to B2B, you may probably have customers across the world and we are referring to most of the enterprise technologies firms and most of the companies today are doing business abroad. I mean 60-80% of their numbers are outside of India They want to reach out to probably a particular profile of people You know, I want to only reach these finance heads or cross Manufacturing chemicals, auto wear, etc. That is only possible by going deeper and deeper into digital You cannot do that micro-targeting on a mass platform I can't let go of print and television While I know that it is digital You are pure play digital So you have let print and television go And you are okay with that We are completely okay with that A, the analytics which plays a very powerful role in the entire roadmap of the campaign Second, you go very deep in your content You can really advance your content because you know the hundred ladies audience size you are targeting Are exactly understanding what you are writing or what you want them to communicate Which at a broader level or a mass media you cannot go deep So the mass media stories are quite shallow when it comes to focusing them on digital You can go very deep on your content So that's the second big edge on digital And the third of course is you can play videos So the way to express that content again goes very, you know You really have multiple ways to express that creativity And the fourth biggest advantage is there is no limitation on your word count or on your placement etc Which we really find all the kind of content All the style you know in that 30 seconds, in that 20 seconds slot on a mainstream media You are struggling to communicate What can you communicate in the 10, 20, 30 seconds But here you have the opportunity to go deep, deep dive, talk about research, talk about your analytics And you can actually establish your message in a much clearer manner Surya, from a technical side in life you've gone towards digital content strategy You're looking at the creative aspects of things You've talked about the platform, let's talk about creativity Because I'm a little more comfortable in that It's an honor because we are digital content creators How important is it? Because you know in the traditional format, the delivery platform really matters If I have a big delivery platform, I can go a little soft on the content creation also Because I already have a captive audience How does that play completely change in digital? How does the strategy change from print and television into digital? How is it different? And may I also ask you Are we still in that zone of television or print? No, I think that's a very good question actually Because I think we need to plan for channel specific outcomes And what we're getting with, let's say a TikTok Is very different from the type of engagement that you'd get on Facebook for example So along with every channel you're getting different means of selling different stories And which is why the creative aspects also change Attention spans are probably at the lowest level You've got five seconds to make an impact in terms of grasping that consumer And then go on to tell a longer story if you can captivate them So no matter how you sort of want to send out your message You have to plan for the channel first Because you want to look at your audiences and where they are and what they are talking about Today I think there was a good point about how even B2B is using digital And how focused they can be And I completely second your point I mean it would take me ten minutes to find out all the Twitter users in India Who are interested in let's say artificial intelligence And I can even go down to the level of actually understanding all the conversations that they're having So if I want to make a statement and if I want to sort of broaden them into a different area of conversations Then I would have the means for doing that How I would tell a story, of course, and we've heard it through the conference Creativity is absolutely essential because it's the way that you tell the story There has to be a personal story So frankly storytelling is absolutely critical But how you tell the story in what format and what channel you're using to reach out to your audience At the heart of our campaign For the benefit of the audience, one is theory, the other is practice And I always want the audience to walk away richer in sort of understanding how things have worked I want you to be very specific in telling us What are the success stories in digital content Storytelling on the digital platform, on social media platforms What has worked so that we can give examples of how we can build on that What would your perfect or most successful example be in the last year So I'll tell you an example from Ford itself And we've had this problem with the consumer mindset That Ford is not a trustworthy brand because of the password expensive The service is expensive and we've actually picked that up And built on a campaign through the last three years Which is called the Ford Family Wally Feeling That campaign we have mostly and actually I would say 90% resonated with and done on digital media Apart from that what we've also done on digital big time And that's purely, purely digital We've hardly done anything, print and television on that We've done videos, we've done social content All in context with building the service price promise And also telling you that how the service of Ford is actually cheaper And not as expensive as the mindset has been so far So much so of giving transparency to go and check your price online And that's been a pure campaign that we built only on digital By building the digital videos and we've reached a stage Where we have consumers now voicing their own opinions When people come up with concerns online and you know we have communities online And there are some people who will come up with concerns saying you know I think Ford service is expensive and it's extra chargeable And you can be a moderator, you can be a part of the groups right And observe the conversation And we get to see where people who are fans actually come out and say that no You know go and visit here, go see this is my build from the last service It's not as such, contrary to three years ago this was not the case So this time has really helped us build the promise and the trust That we've been able to build in the consumers purely through the digital media When your customers become your brand ambassador That's the biggest success For me looking beyond the lens of campaign particularly But if I look at a service that's come up in the last few years It could be a success story, it could be a campaign or it could be So as a product for service I'd say in the at-take space What Baiju has done is fantastic I mean imagine the market for it We recently did a study that was across 25 countries for a particular client And we are looking at what the youth have to say Or how should they be positioned and prepared for the future I think building is something that is absolutely critical In many of these countries put together So a platform like Baiju and how it sort of exploited the at-take space I think the quantum of people who have moved on to the platform And use that platform is fantastic And I think the way forward is very bright And promising when it comes to a platform like at-take More of this, I mean some of the topics that we were talking about The AI intelligence And the quantified cells is really something that's not very far away I mean there's a lot of people out here who are uploading their data And stats on how the human body behaves So imagine the possibilities that you get in healthcare as an outcome And when we say digital I think we have to look beyond the lens Of just communicating out there And as it was rightly pointed out That the quantum of data that's available to us From a measurement perspective is increasing rapidly And with more sensors out there it's going to explode Imagine 5G coming in, you'll know the whereabouts of your car You'll know road conditions and you'll get distinct Let's say insurance programs made for every trip that you take So telematics and everything is just a stone's throw away That's not because already the bell is going off Not only D2C as a success story is Also because you are purely digital So I think that question can also go to you Is that how much has been done or are we really behind From an international perspective also, where are we? I'm just coming to that, so a very simple example In fact we've been doing many campaigns across the world So North America is fully covered by us In the US, Canada, Middle East Africa is a big campaign And lots of companies from India are marketing all the time South East Asia is purely covered by us Asia Pacific is covered by us One of the campaigns since we are talking about sectors And I'm saying as targeted, there was a medical source Which was particularly meant to only penetrate Uzbekistan Now tell me, this is the power of only going digital So we could take the campaign, successfully get it published In Uzbekistan portal And the campaign was successful I mean it was a tie up of some government, etc, etc Health ministry tie up, but the target was purely Only sluggish in Uzbekistan So that was a beautiful thing And like that we do many stories Which are very very specific to countries or regions And that means there was another one Where do we compare internationally? Where do we compare? Where does India compare internationally? See there are lot of mandates for India Time and again from companies who are sitting abroad And targeting India, quite many stories And from India when we want to send stories abroad Okay, okay So before we are completely booted out Thank you, we are completely out of time But ladies and gentlemen I can at least assure you of this Is that the kind of entries that we saw Great ideas, great potential, a lot of great execution But trust me the focus on digital is a little less And next year when we perhaps might be sitting here I think there would be a lot more digital focus, digital action For sure Thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you