 Welcome our next set of panel members will continue from here and Nazia over to you. Thank you Good afternoon. I will begin by introducing myself She's already done it. I'm Nazia and I'm the new edit head for the exchange for media Dot com with me on the panel today are three dignitaries mr. Parup Singh Head of consumers in revenue from the very hot hot star. He's all blowing He has just won the IPL rights Sorry Yeah, the re one He's re won the rights To give us marketer perspective. We have mr. Pavan Sarada head of digital future group and As a digital expert and media planner we have mr. Vinod Thadani has already given us a lot of insight into The topic that we are about to discuss The topic is how premium video destinations work for advertisers Just before we begin I would like to read out run you through some numbers Three days ago, we had the bidding for IPL rights and the buzz is I mean correct me if I'm wrong that's only lost it because they did not quote for digital I mean that's what I've been made to understand So that is the reach of digital now and it can be a game changer And while the star has won the rights for those who do not know the highest bid quoted for digital rights was rupees 3900 crores by facebook like From some 80 crores. I think when you bought it last time 300 crores. So 300 crores to three thousand nine how Three thousand nine hundred crores. So I think we were trying to calculate it some something like 672 percent increase in the Three that is how we calculated it. So it I mean Roughly 800 percent so with that kind of I mean the background was already set by mr. Thadani So we start with the first question premium video destinations of audiences which are hard to reach through tv How do I mean this is for you How do platforms like hotstar manage to penetrate through these audiences for their advertisers background on online video I think the initial evolution as I think minot was talking about The initial journey of digital has been a lot on text SMSing Then into a lot of snacky content. I think it migrated to photos And then went into snackable content, which is clips movie trailers and music videos And I think at hotstar. We've always been confident that there is a role for long-form storytelling and the the consumer behavior that we are seeing where people are Going to social platforms and consuming Content multiple times fair of a day is more dictated by constraints than by choice And when you live in a world when data is expensive and data is slow You do different and develop And and we've always been consistent that once these constraints go away We will see the benefit and consumers will migrate to good stories And I think that's the way we've always Kind of held our belief and that's quite evident Innocence geos come in the price table is dropped From 100 rupees a gv. It's moved to I think 10 rupees a gig Which clearly is a huge disruption that's happened For us. I think the journey started with the mobility. I think The first consumer behavior which led to adoption of hotstar was appointment viewing That the shows that you love came at a certain point of time and you might not have the Ability to watch it during that time for various reasons and I think the first kind of You know phase of growth for hotstar was driven by mobility. I think the second Kind of phase of hotstar growth is coming from a simple fact that A large part of India is still a single screen household So and and you end up watching content You know your your viewing habits is dictated by your family and the people that you watch with And I think we are creating a space of personal screen for for these audiences Where they can watch what they want to watch and they don't need to be dictated by What the the head of the family either the father or the mother need to watch So I think that's the second wave of growth that we that we I think experience Which is single screen. I think the third phase of growth that we are realizing is People do have a larger You know repertoire of shows that they want to watch Today it's been dictated by by by television because of fixed slots But there's an amazing amount of content that exists which could be new or which could be old But because of the technology that we guys are enabling, you know, we we do invest a lot on Machine learning and soon into artificial intelligence that once people come into a platform We see what they're consuming we are able to understand what they likes and dislikes are And we should be able to surface content which doesn't need to be the latest and exclusive It should be something which which could you know appeal to your taste spaces what your viewing habits are So that's how the the evolution is moved and I I do think that The way we've looked at the evolution of online video in the last two years The next 18 to 24 months are not going to look anything like that And and if you just kind of you know paraphrase how India The the digital landscape is developing And kind of compare it with China and us which you know arguably are more advanced than us The the kind of movement is clearly to lots of online video consumption Both in terms of numbers. So, you know, we know it spoke about 200 million users You know our estimate is in the next three years. It's going to be 500 million users So our estimate is that there'll be half a billion people who'll be watching online videos So both the width is going to increase and the depth is going to increase. So today on our platform We see people spend 51 minutes a day watching content on hot stuff And you know again tv I think is two and a half hours a day on an average in India and so, you know, this this number used to be much lesser So it's been growing at a phenomenal pace and I I do think in the next three years The world is going to be very different. So the the kind of sentiment that's driven by Snackable clips or short form video Is is something that's not going to be a consistent consumer behavior over a period of time Business objective, right? What we actually decided was while we have the reach and we'll do the reach bit But when you're talking about data and when you're talking about getting into sales, you don't need 100 million people Right, you need 5 million people And if I can segment that data to that 5 million people and ask them and give them relevant advertising, whether it's Whether it's incentives to walk into the store in this case Whether it's couponing or whether it's any kind of promotions At at the end of the day get them to buy the product. I think that's where This advertising is much more relevant rather than like we say spray advertising on television versus Targeted advertising much more on digital Next question is about long format streaming video. You spoke about it in your previous answer But we want to know about it in detail that how has this shaped hot stars proposition for advertisers So again, you know, we have a very contrarian view of the world And I don't think anybody has anybody in the world seen something like hot star And I'll tell you why because if you look at the most advanced markets like us Um, youtube I think is the biggest free Ad supported format after that the biggest online video platform is netflix With 65 70 million people and there's no other market right the rest of the inventory on video is is publisher driven So And obviously youtube is obviously trying to get into a very different mix as well So our simple, you know thinking on this one is Um If you look at the scale that we have On on hot star if you look at which means we can drive reach and as venote said At the end of the day, you know to power and these 200 million numbers don't matter at the end of the day What matters is what are the right contextual audiences that he can reach out to convert them so that they come to Future big bizarre and and kind of make their purchase. I think that's what is is the is most relevant And I think we do have relevant scale When it comes to it. I think the second part is engaged audiences I think that's the kind of biggest benefit that comes from long form Storytelling is people are sitting and watching content Which means that for an advertiser that translates into higher viewability Because the biggest challenge in this industry is and I think we've we've lost our principles over a period of time That brands have been built When the message has been told to the right people at the right time and in full You know an impression on video is the most criminal way to look at it at the end of the day Marketers like power and spend so much time and energy on getting a perfect 20 second 30 second 45 second To tell their brand stories and their messages and if they're not kind of seen in full, it's a shame, right? so I think the engaged audiences delivers very high viewability, which is there I think the third thing is premium content and and and that to me again For advertisers and and to win over it's it's more about brand safety because It's a little bit of a wild world out there. You don't know where your ads are showing up Against which content whether it's brand relevant or not And and we've seen the the flip side of having a very careless attitude to that We saw we saw the blowback that happened a couple of months back Where advertisers videos were showing up against Terrorist videos so in a sense these companies were you know kind of helping monetization of those videos Which is a pretty scary thought for any organization Which is upright and ethical And I do believe that we provide that brand safe environment for advertisers to not be worried about where the content is showing because it is High production value studio content that people are watching And the last bit is in terms of frequency and again, I think most people You know Kind of talk about their story from their strengths And I think the biggest weakness for most of the other platforms is is engagement which leads to all these five second views six second views, you know Or a zero second view on a video Which for us is now kind of a challenge which leads to high completion rates And delivers frequency for people as well because it's not about a one plus delivery You require a certain message to be delivered in an x Frequency to to because most of the campaigns it is helping absolutely So in terms of the frequency, we know that it's a a long-standing thing that region frequencies what build brands And and that's our proposition. It's again, you know, very contrarian to what is the overall global narrative around online video But that's what we believe is the is the right thing and and we do kind of see our advertisers our agency partners group Pavan here who's been a big supporter of hot stuff They've seen the benefits of of all these, you know, things that have listed out for us Yeah, yeah Sorry, I think there's one point which I want to make While I think there is a lot of discussion around Content and and you know the size of the content and the length of the content and so on and so forth What we believe this is a belief of us I think it's really not about creating a video content or a post or any such thing I think how relevant is the content is the most important thing So while you said that sms may not be as important. I want to give a simple example. I think Yeah, yeah, so fair enough So I just want to give you a simple example like doing friendship day I think the whole world was creating videos and stuff like that I think one hashtag of ours just created ruckus So a simple hashtag which fbb created said friends, you know friends with benefits So you tag your friends. I give you a coupon before even we could post the, you know, uh, you know The content on our facebook page. Just I think Our conditions just putting the conditions and seeing the hashtag. I think People went buzzer and obviously our business grew by 15% I think what's most important is, you know, how relevant you are and what are you doing? So for me, it's not important whether it's five second 25 minutes 30 minutes. It's really not important I feel a few few hours thing like absolutely. I think it just doesn't matter I mean if it's relevant people will connect people will react people will emote with it I think as long as that's kept in mind. I think This space or any space, you know, you can as a marketer as an advertiser you can really use it well Vinod, would you like to add to Are you actually seeing an increase in interest from advertisers wanting to spend on long format? Yes The answer is yes And that's what actually I I I presented because I think It's not about long format. It's about How relevant or how sticky the content is and Is it where my target audience is going to be? I'm sure if I do a raise of hands over here, whether you've seen The kind of content which is there on netflix. I'm sure everybody would be or game of thrones or anybody It's it's actually in a conversation when you say that Do you see, you know, got they said no, oh, you know, you don't is it? It's it's become that way, right? But the idea is If it's good sticky content and if there is quite a bit of Exploration for a brand to either You know sponsor it or do a integration with it or just plain You know by by inventory with it as long as you're associated in any manner And if it's helping your objectives, whether it's Brand building or whether it's reach frequency or whether it's business at the end of the day I think it works for the brand at all The duration doesn't really matter. It's it's just that how engaging the content is. Yeah, I would say It has to be a good sticky content like for example, let's take Sorry IPL comes to my mind Now If you see few years back and if you see today Obviously the cost of taking spots or a sponsorship on television on IPL It was not every single brand's Ability to do that, right? That's a huge cost. It could be actually an annual brands You know add your budgets, but when it came as a Another channel to watch on an OTT You know and the kind of price points and and and other things it became affordable But then the question from From us as agencies, I'm sure and the brands Was do you have that scale which tv has that's why tv demands that kind of add dollars? And that was the challenge but today I think there is enough amount of scale for them to prove and that's what I've shown in my slides that It's no longer a niche play Right Not every brand tg would be a 90 million or 100 million, right? It would it would be in subsets of that Whatever tg you see. So are you saying it's not relevant? Yes, it is Uh, are you saying it's giving you the the exact yield? It depends on brands to brands Are you saying it meeting your kpis and objectives? I'm sure it otherwise they it won't be a repeat Are you saying if you can funnel it down and do data and like like Currently we don't chase impressions anymore. We're talking about programmatic. We're talking about audience Are you doing that with OTTs? They are they giving you that kind of things? Yes Are they also giving you the third-party? Measurability like brand safety in target reach which again I spoke about yes. So I think if you go Point by point I use yourself start realizing that what I'm asking is already there and it's just a pigment of an imagination How this can even grow further from today We are running out of time. I've been told to wrap it up with this last question What return on investment do these platforms provide over traditional media? for up Give a detailed answer. No, I I think at the end of the day, you know the way I look at it You can get the first check from an advertiser an agency You know when you're new and it's vanity But for sustainable companies to stay and grow you need to make a business difference to people people just don't invest at a growing level On on things that are just vanity or look good So i'm assuming we do some things right for our advertisers whether it's driving traffic for clients like policy bazaar Who advertise with us or build brand metrics for clients like png Who come on our platform and and kind of participate with us or future? Which has been a client with us for a long period of time To me, that's a testament of whether you're making a difference or not because if you're not No one's going to invest on you Do we have time for audience questions? Two questions we can take two questions from audiences Hello Hi, i'm labin Well in today's era of where consumer comes first for everything I mean, I believe that's the reason why even hotstar came about right consumer first They want to consume at whatever time they want whenever they want the platform is there My question is really about why do your ads not have a skip button? Like why does user not have a choice of skipping the for hotstar? Yeah So again, you know, it's it's a question of how do you balance? User fatigue and ad fatigue and add load on our platform. So I think The way we've looked at the world is that if you have engaging content People can watch ads, which is you know, at the end of the day We are a platform that needs to deliver value for an advertisers But skip is not the only way to manage Advertising what do you call irritation with with consumers? We do a lot of work in terms of Heavy medium light users and what's the tolerance level for the ads that people can see And I think so that's one just to answer your question And I think the biggest thing that we've done on our platform Is we don't have pre-rolls if you like the content stay with it and watch the ad We don't want to show an ad before you watch a content So we've done our own Kind of again as I keep saying that hotstar is a little bit of a contrarian point of view Of how do we manage user irritation? What's right for the user at the end of the day? We do recognize that our worth is as good as the number of users who come on our platform And if they have a huge amount of Dislike Or they see a huge amount of Advertising on our platform, then I'm going to come again So we do realize that it's a it's a lifeline for us But we have different ways of looking at it and we've made different choices So not running a pre-roll is a choice First ad comes in a long time into the content I was reading today in the morning that you know, Facebook ads come in 10 seconds in a mid-roll and they're not skip You know, they're not non-skippable. Well, we show you ads in minutes and minutes of consumption of content So I think these are different strategies of how people look at managing Great consumer experience without obviously kind of balancing how we run our business. So that's the way we look at it One more question we can take And we don't have any So we'll wrap it up here. Thank you very much each one of you Thank you very much. I'm going to request nausea to please present mementos to our panel members as well As a token of gratitude thanking them for their valuable presence with us here this afternoon