 for media. As we continue to fight COVID-19, it has been one of the toughest years for the global economy. Every brand, irrespective of sector, had to reinvent itself in these challenging and absolutely unpredictable times. All of this makes this year's WPP Brand 3 2020 report even more interesting and crucial for each one of us. We speak to Dr. Mr. David Roth, CEO of the store WPP India and Asia and Chairman of Brand C to understand more about emerging trends. Welcome to the show, Mr. Roth. It's a great pleasure to be with you. I wish I could be in India in person, but as you have used, as you've explained, we're in very unusual times. I could just go through the inside, some highlights of the report and it says that India's top brands performed well against other countries where declines in total brand value were much greater. What were some of the factors that worked for these Indian brands? Well, let's just give a little bit of context. In the number of studies we've now done for brand valuations, probably about six or seven during the height of the COVID period, and we've seen a various varying different degrees of total valuation growth and decline over those countries. I think India in balance has done reasonably well, a decline of around 6%. I think that one of the reasons that we haven't seen a greater decline in India than we have in other markets is the strength of Indian brands. In particular, a key component of brand value growth, which is their meaningfulness and the way in which the brand is also well differentiated. I think that is a testament to the strength and the quality of brand building in India and the history indeed of brand building India over a number of years. I suppose there lies a critical point, which is the amount of money, investment that you make in building a brand has an amazing payback. It not only helps you recover faster, but it also helps you during the difficult times. We saw that at the economic crisis, the world economic crisis a number of years ago, that strong brands recover faster. I think we're going to see exactly the same as we start to join the glide path out of the COVID period that we're in. So that's also my next question. Again, the report says that trusted brands have weathered the crisis better than brands with a low trust index. So as per the report, Airtel is one such brand that showed a significant growth in India during the pandemic. So globally, which are the brands that have been able to achieve the same and what what can Indian brands learn from this? Yeah, I think on a global level, it's been quite interesting because the top 100 most valuable global brands, which the valuation has launched pretty much at the peak of the growth in the pandemic, grew at around 5.8%. So that's a positive growth. And that growth is in sort of value terms are 275 billion US dollars. Now, I think that the big difference in the global is that if you look at the top 10 global brands and our brands in top 100 versus the top 10 in India, for global, we see many, many more digital e-commerce and technology brands in the top 10. Of course, those brands have performed well over the recent months because the world has accelerated the digital transformation that was well underway post COVID. And I think that's probably one of the key lessons that we can all learn from the period that we are in in the last few months is how important it is to put your foot on the accelerator of the digital transformations that will probably go on inside your business. But both from a consumer perspective and also from a business efficiency perspective, those investments in technology and being able to have a direct relationship with your consumers is going to be something that all businesses are going to need to accelerate over the course of the next two years. So you're an industry expert. What are some of the key steps that marketers and brands must take to build trust with the new and evolved consumer? Because this is a new socially distant world that we have entered in. So what are some of the new steps that marketers must take now? Well, of course, trust has always been a key pillar in what defines a brand and also what defines a valuable brand. But I think that our experiences over the course of the last few months and I think the experiences that we're going to have for the rest of the year is going to redefine a little bit about what we now mean by trust. A number of things that brands did that were very invisible to us, especially on sort of health and safety, those aspects of what they do are going to have to become much more visible. And I think that's going to build trust. One of the things that we've seen in India and also across the world is that despite, and I say that in a positive way, despite the difficulties that everybody has had, it hasn't taken consumers' eye and mind of how important it is for companies and brands to operate in both an ethical way and also a way that is good or lessens their impact on the environment. I also believe that that's also going to be a very important ingredient within what makes up brand trust going forward as well. And then the third area which is equally important is the whole notion of transparency. The way in which organizations, companies, and brands work is becoming more and more under the microscope. Consumers really do look to see how brands behave versus their claims and where there is gaps between the two. That's going to, that has been exposed in the past and that's going to be exposed in the future. They are, those I think are the three key ingredients and I would add one more in the spirit of what this next element is and that is value. I think more and more consumers are going to be much more careful about where and how they spend their money and will be looking for greater value propositions and brands are going to have to interrogate their products until it confesses their value superiority and then make sure that that's very, very well explained and communicated to their consumers. How important do you think will be the role of Martek? Well, I think the way in which we as communicators and the way which consumers consume information and data is clearly in the fundamental stages of change. I think one of the key observations that you can make is that some of the trends that were either appearing or there if you really looked carefully before the Covid period was there, those trends are being accelerated now and the ability to be able to really understand who your consumers are, to mine the data that is coming out of all those different digital communications that you can have with your consumers in a way that is open and transparent, that consumers give their approval and permission for and then to be able to use technology tools to be able to put in front of the consumer at exactly the right time, at the right place, context sensitive messages, information that the consumer finds useful and valuable is going to be one of the defining things that will differentiate those successful brands and marketeers from those who are going to struggle in the years ahead. So that Martek stack is going to be a vital ingredient in business performance and being able to have a meaningful, valued relationship between yourself and your customers in both directions. So as for the report and even we all have been observing some sectors like OTT platforms or sectors that are involved in digital like Mastercard has appeared in your top 10 brands or TikTok. So going forward in 2021 also do you think they'll be able to hold these positions or it's just a momentary thing because of the lockdown and the Covid? No, I think they will be held on to their positions. Obviously the year on near growth won't be as stunning and spectacular as it was in 2020 but I think now a number of non-returnable gates that we've gone through as consumers in the world which we consume, entertainment is where we consume, media the way in which we shop and I think that those brands are very well placed to take advantage of that. Of course there will be some normalization of it. I think one of the key things that we're beginning to see through data from a number of people who track web traffic is the fact that whilst web traffic has is declining over the course of the last few months or last month or so as lockdown in many parts of the world becomes less aggressive that web traffic is declining but what has maintained significantly above the Covid rates is the transactions that are being made and the conversion rates and I think those type of things are signals to the fact that consumers have undergone a fundamental change in some of their habits and behaviors and probably won't return to exactly the same way as before which means that marketers around the world are also going to have to be much sharper in the way they change and refine their marketing strategies. On the top you must have been involved in preparing reports of other countries also so if I would want to ask you how is India I mean where is India better and where is India weak I mean where do you think Indian marketers or Indian brands need to work so if you can just give us a comparative thing on that. Sure well that's a very interesting question I think one of the things that's always surprised me in a positive way about working in India with our Indian colleagues and our Indian clients is the amazing amount of both intellectual ability that they have and also just a sort of a can-do attitude and a very positive outlook on life and circumstances and I think those three things have been very important in the way in which Indian brands have responded to the challenges that nobody would have predicted at the end of 2019 which overall was a pretty good year when you look back at it for brands right across the world. I think the areas where India has some catching up to do in other markets around the world is in the e-commerce space although frankly the speed with which that's happened over the last few months and also the last couple of years has been quite dramatic in India so that is very impressive but there is some catch up still to do and the digitisation of processes and procedures in order to make things significantly more simple and quick for the consumers. One of the intriguing trends that was definitely around well before Covid for the last few years but is one of those trends that has been accelerated on steroids and that's despite the fact that consumers have had lots of time at home they might have had time at home but they haven't had a lot of time in home in a sense to do everything they want to do so those brands that can simplify things can make their businesses simple make their propositions simple make it very easy for the consumers to understand and get hold of those products to reduce the amount of time and friction that the consumer has to go through in order to complete something that I think is also going to be amazingly important and in that area India has some catching up to do but I have every confidence in the skill ingenuity of Indian marketeers and the way in which they go about doing things that that gap will soon disappear. So before we close I would want to understand from you that what are some of the long term changes transformations and not just in the digital space but in the working of the overall business that we can expect post Covid in India and globally? Well I think if one takes a helicopter view as I said 2019 was a good year on average but I think we're all realizing that it's pretty unlikely that we're going to retailers and brands and manufacturers are going to have as much turnover in for the next sort of two to three years than they had in 2019 so businesses do need to be re-engineered, businesses do need to become significantly more efficient and businesses do need to get really really close to their consumers and there are many different ways in which that can happen. I know that most far-sighted brands now are looking at ensuring they have a direct to consumer channel within their roots to market because we've found over this period how important it is to be able to do things directly between you and your consumer without relying on other intermediaries who might not have the same priorities as you have in difficult periods. I think it's slightly too early to tell now what consumer attitudes and behaviors are fundamentally going to completely change versus what will snap back in one form or another to behaviors that we're all exhibited without really thinking about it in December and January. I think the jury is still out on that and as eager watchers of consumer trends of understanding how consumers relate to brands via the brands and data and our WPB data sets we will be looking very closely for all the signs of where change is happening and how it's happening to enable marketers to quickly adapt and be much more flexible. The only way that all of us can do that is amazing speed and I think that's one of the skills that we're all going to have to hone and refine and sharpen up. We've learned a lot of new skills all of us over of course the last few months that we didn't know that we either had or we didn't know that we needed but the ability to work fast work in teams that are not all in the same place and to maybe get things 70 to 80 percent are correct and done and completed and implemented. Fast is much better than 98 percent complete but just takes you too long to get there and the time you've got there the consumer has moved and changed. Thank you so much Mr. Ross for this insightful interview and the reports that have come out and we hope to get back to you soon once your data scientists have put all those insights together on consumer behavior and we would also be interested in understanding that for you. Thank you for speaking to us. It's a pleasure very much. Look forward to that and please do go to brandz.com and download the report. I'm sure you will find it unbelievably insightful for drive businesses. Thanks very much indeed. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks a lot.