 Simran Chani Kaglani and first up I just want to say how excited I am to be here today. Amazing conversation about AI and AI is one of these new topics that all of us are interested about. Unfortunately or fortunately I am going to be talking about a topic which is now 16 years old. I am going to be talking about the IPL but the new piece about the IPL that I would like to talk to you about today is IPL on Geo Cinema. So without further ado I am just going to get into it. At any point in time if anyone has any questions please feel free to ask me. I think when it comes to the IPL or rather when you look at this statement a lot of us will relate to this statement hard right especially when it comes to the context of technology. I am sure all of you remember when BlackBerry was the thing that all of us used and then the iPhone came in and BlackBerry became absolutely old news right or for example when all of us were on Orkut and then within I think about a year or two Orkut was old news and all of us shifted to Facebook and then our social media journey started developing from there. I think when it comes to technology this statement holds very very true with technology what is happening is that after a certain inflection point the rate of change is very very fast and look at us right I mean before FIFA 2022 you know Geo Cinema was not really known as a sports platform and within the span of the last 18 months Geo Cinema now has become the largest sports platform right so I think what happens is that a lot of times change takes some time to build up and then it starts happening very very rapidly and while this is something that's happened in our lives I think another thing that all of us in this room probably will relate very much is you know how the emergence of digital India has happened in the country in such a strong way right and a few things have contributed to this of course the first one being Geo Telecom really taking mobile connectivity to the last mile starting 2017 you know today the mobile penetration in the country is very very deep my favorite sort of anecdote to talk about UPI is that every year I actually go for a trek in Maharashtra in the rains because it's just so beautiful in the rains right and I have this one Vada Pao guy that I like to have Vada Pao at every year after my trek and this is super remote you have to drive three hours outside of Bombay to do it and for the last couple of years I've been able to pay this guy 7 rupees for my Vada Pao on UPI right so that sort of tells you the story of how deeply penetrated UPI has become and of course all of us have gone through the process of registering ourselves and having a unique ID with Aadhar all of these pieces have actually contributed to the emergence of India as a digital first nation and the Geo Cinema story is actually just another chapter in that story coming back to why we are all here today and what why not why we are all here today but why I am here today and what I want to talk to you about just first I want to share what our ambition for the upcoming season of IPL is because I know a lot of the conversation around IPL is about how big it is from a viewer lens as well this year for IPL Geo Cinema as a platform is confident of achieving a 650 million reach across devices so this is across mobile and connected television devices and a couple of other innovations that we have in store that I will touch upon so this is ambition for this year and when you look about when you look at this number in context of I don't know what's happening outside but I'm just going to continue okay so when you look at this number the context of what we did last year this number actually does not seem that improbable so last season which was our first season of you know having IPL on the platform we achieved the reach of about 449 million users across devices and when you compare this to the previous season on IPL on the previous streaming platform this is a huge jump you know it's about almost like a 38% jump from the previous season the reason why we were able to achieve this kind of a number of course I think one of the big things that was very very talked about I think all of you will have memories of this is that you know we decided to make IPL viewing free for all consumers in the country no matter what device you are on you could consume IPL for free which is why we say that was a barrier free experience and that of course led to a large sort of population tuning into our platform to consume their favorite tournament and not just from a pricing standpoint there were a couple of other sort of you know big innovations or other large steps that we took to make IPL more attractive to folks one big one for us was of course introducing IPL in 12 languages to users some of you probably would have you know experimented with the Bhujapuri feed for example which went very viral a lot of people on Twitter were talking about just how fun the Bhujapuri feed was or the Punjabi feed right so for the first time ever in the 15 years that IPL had been happening a consumer from these markets which are otherwise underserved could actually consume IPL commentary in a language of their choice and of course all of this was across all 74 matches and all screens right so no sort of I think no kind of you know preferential treatment for one screen versus the other all content was available across all screens and not just that I think for the early adopters in all of us right what we tried to do last year was try and you know sort of blur the lines between what you do while you're consuming IPL and what you do around IPL right so one big habit I think that all of us who are cricket fans and I'm assuming most of us in this room are cricket fans is that you know while you're watching the game you also want to say for example go to another platform and check out stats right so we introduce live stats on the platform multi cameras on our feed was the first time so you know if you are say for example my favorite example for this is that if you are a Dhoni fan and you're watching a CSK match especially if you put the stump mic the stump cam on there are chances that you may actually be able to hear Dhoni give instructions to the bowler at the other end right which all of us of course is cricket lovers love and a 360 degree VR experience was also introduced on our platform and one would think I think instinctively that not a lot of people will use these features because it seems so high-tech but pleasantly for us what we realized was about 100 million users on the platform were actually engaging with these features on a daily basis I mean 100 million is a massive number and that should tell you that the early adopter user base is not a niche user base anymore I think usage of technology is becoming so much more native to the Indian audience that I don't think as advertisers and planners we're even being able to imagine how quickly people sort of adapt to the new features that you have to introduce and while all of this is you know the story on mobile another big story for us was a sort of engagement that we were able to drive whether it was with our game Jito Dhandanadan where you notice a play a long game people could answer questions while watching the match every day one person one or car you know I mean huge thing that we did from a consumer engagement standpoint all of these things sort of led to people actually spending more time consuming IPL on our platform I think in the past what would happen is that you know IPL on your phone would remain more of a on-the-go phenomenon but an average watch time of 70 minutes I mean I don't think any of us are traveling 70 minutes to you know I mean unless of course I live in Hawaii and I work in lower paris so I do travel a long long time but other than that on average users are not really traveling for that long across the country right so 70 minutes is a very high sort of average time spent on a tournament for it to really for the platform to really just remain an on-the-go medium and not just on the mobile I think one big commitment that we made was how do we take IPL you know to all of your screens in a very meaningful way our distribution team you know did the hard work of working with a Google TV working with a you know with the Samsung's of the world to ensure that GeoCinema was available you know on all of these platforms and one big innovation that we brought into the market on the connected TV devices was the Asli 4k stream right and this was the first time ever anywhere in the world that a tournament was actually streamed in 4k it actually meant having to do investments in getting those type of cameras into the field to have that kind of an output and we were very very pleasantly surprised with the results and I'll touch upon the 4k results in a bit but before that want to leave you with some highlight numbers on what we were able to achieve on connected television we were able to achieve a device level reach of 29 million devices through the tournament and an individual level reach of about a 126 million users and just connected TV and of course this in our minds is one big growth story and indicator of a complete consumer shift that is happening you know in the country this number was a 126 million during IPL last year and as we have gone on month on month of course we've got a lot of other tournaments happening on the platform we are actually seeing this number change dramatically month on month in fact if you read you know any of the data that's coming out of OEM manufacturers you will get to know that about 98% of the devices that are sold in India today are actually connected TV devices you know the old form of television is almost nearly obsolete whoever is looking in the market to buy a new TV is actually buying a connected TV so obviously one big sort of consumer shift you know the example that I gave of Blackberry to iPhone I think that's our of a consumer shift that's happening in the television space as well so what does this mean for IPL 2024 right at least our you know ambition and our objective for IPL 2024 is three fold you know how do we make IPL 2024 in Geo cinema the largest reach aggregator you know how do we essentially make the viewing experience better for consumers and while all of us are planners managers you know agencies we are also at the end of the day also consumers of the tournament right so how do we make the consumption of the tournament better for all of our users and finally what does this mean for our advertisers right so when you speak about reach the way we are looking at it is how do you make IPL every Indians Premier League right so few things in this in this objective for us of course you know I mean mobile internet penetration is growing rapidly one big story for us on this one is making IPL available on the 4g feature phones that we have called the Geo Bharat phones this phone is actually a 999 rupee device we currently have in the England live on the platform and I'll touch upon a little bit more on it when I'm on the Geo Bharat piece of the deck but one big piece is how do we increase reach for the mobile audience on the app itself we will be introducing a multi-lingual UI so currently if you log on to Geo cinema Geo cinema the UI is in English and of course just the way we've done commentary in multiple languages we just want to take that sort of learning a little bit deeper and make our app also in different languages and finally how can we really sort of achieve the large sort of target that we have in our minds for CDP penetration one big piece you know for this is actually being done for us by one of our group companies which is Geo air fiber really taking last mile connectivity for you know Wi-Fi connection absolutely deep in the country and we have you know reason to believe that we will reach about a 200 million user base for the upcoming season of IPL on connected TV devices and like I was mentioning earlier the big sort of I think story for us for connected TV during IPL was not just the emergence of connected TV but was actually the user base that was watching on 4k right now one has to assume that people who are watching on 4k a have a high-end connected TV device we have a very very stable broadband connection and of course you know a few other sort of you know signals we took was that this audience is over indexed on discretionary spending and for the upcoming season of IPL we will actually be opening up 4k targeting separately for our clients so if you have a brand for example which is obviously looking for an elite audience 4k is actually a great way for you to you know partner with us we are looking at about a unique reach of 40 million users on 4k alone so in terms of driving very very meaningful reach in this elite bracket I don't think anything can get bigger in that very very short period of time you know if you want to scale your reach within a few weeks this is a right product for you and coming to Jio Bharat you know so in fact India England which is the tournament which is ongoing right now is available for streaming live those of you if you can get access and you know my team and I will be happy to actually show you what the live streaming experience on a Jio Bharat phone is like it's actually pretty decent you know and the idea really is to be able to take cricket to as many users as possible and especially more importantly as planners you know we have always all spoken about media dark markets we think the Jio Bharat story could actually help us resolve some of the whole media dark market reach piece and here what we are enabling is of course advertising on Jio Bharat phone so the beauty of cricket is between every over there is a 45 second break which will happen on the Jio Bharat feed as well so advertisers can actually choose to advertise certain products on this feed separately the reach that we are estimating on these devices for IPL is about 35 million devices so this has been you know in terms of what are we doing in terms of reach how do we make you know all of this more meaningful for you so there are a few ideas very high level again I don't want to take more time the one big piece that you know we're looking to launch this year is called Jio Cinema Brand Spotlight I don't know how many of you actually saw the Jennifer Aniston David Schwimmer teaser for Uber Eats which came out yesterday so Uber Eats of course has already started their Super Bowl campaign and all of us I think in this room at least are aware of you know how Super Bowl sort of has become this opportunity for brands to launch new creatives and by virtue of that really drive a lot of buzz in conversation about your new creative we kind of want to replicate that same experience because really no other platform can be bigger than IPL to do that so Jio Cinema Brand Spotlight essentially is that opportunity what we are going to do is in the first five overs of the opening game we will be opening up the breaks to five select brands who have you know a new creative preferably and these ads will run as spots on the platform so no matter which screen you are on at the same time you will see that one ad leading to a lot of buzz for your brand and think of think of this opportunity as you know the way we are thinking about this is you know how can we really present a platform for you to have a massive start to your campaign so the way we are imagining this 45 second opportunity is that you know first there can be a five second bumper which will say that the Jio Cinema Spotlight is now on this brand followed by maybe a 10 second you know spokesperson speak saying that look this is a new campaign that we are unveiling today so really putting it up on a pedestal or to get audiences also talking about it followed with the brand ad and not just you know I mean placing this on a live environment we will also have a lot of nudges built into our life feed itself so before the ad appears we will have some nudges on the platform and also pre buzz campaign to support this and not just on the day of the opening game what we are enabling on the platform is if you have some behind the scenes content you know interviews say for example with the talent which is featuring in your ad campaign we can create shorter snippets of it for video-on-demand consumption and that will have a separate real estate you know dedicated to it on our platform throughout the season so that's you know one one big piece that we are launching the other one that we are launching in the one that we are really really excited about is that really what have we told you that as a brand you could own an IPL stream of your own I think in the old TV context the only way you could do this is it's like saying you know can you start a separate channel for a certain brand you know really not possible right but the beauty of technology is that it allows you to do a lot of this so the way we are imagining this is with the clients or with the brands probably some level of data that you share with us we can create some lookalike audiences for you and then create a custom feed just for your brand obviously the lookalike audience will take in care you know your consumers key decision makers customers etc and obviously build like a lot of nudges on the platform for discoverability of this feed right so if you can see I've actually shown an example of for instance you know we were to do this for oil stack package water it could look something like you are now watching you know the royals tag live at large feed there would be a lot of discoverability levers on the platform for consumers coming to a platform to discover this feed not just that once a user has entered this feed there's again a lot of customization possible in terms of pre-rolls which are customized to the brand the pre-show again you know can be customized to what the brand communication is I think in the past a lot of times what happens is that you only have that 20 second window or that 15 second window to have your brand storytelling what we heard from a lot of brands was that look I don't just want to talk about one feature I want to talk about many other features I want to talk about the emotional benefit of my brand you know I want to sort of move some consideration metrics for this brand right and using our pre-show which is customized to a brand is a great opportunity to do that and we sort of will enable that on this custom feed and also an opportunity to run some contests specifically on this feed so you know the users coming into that funnel are actually just coming in from this feed and finally a big opportunity to work with us to do a you know mass media campaign for you to popularize this feed right so we will be sharing rights with advertisers to say that enjoy a new way you know find a new way to watch this T20 season on this particular feed so imagine you know while I mean I had visualized this for Royal Stack Package Water it could be like a coke happiness feed or Royal Royal Enfield Adventure feed and a lot of technical advancement in terms of creating a custom cohort for this feed is possible and not just this I think even from just regular ad asset point of view one big thing that we are unlocking this year is a hundred plus cohorts for targeting I think a lot of our clients were talking to us about better cohorting possible and we've heard you and we've enabled it on this season so we have certain geoclusters available obviously top six metros available demo available and also a few other interest buckets available so say for instance an e-com audience is what you're going after that that can be a cohort that we can create for you and of course crosstabs I am getting into a little bit of media jargon discussion but a crosstab targeting also on IPL is available and not just this a few upgrades to our ad assets so we for you know if you're looking for impact I think must heads is a great one to go for we are introducing carousels to our midrolls as well so the same 15 seconder actually works harder for you because you're able to show multiple products within that same 15 seconder and a host of display assets are also being unlocked this season I haven't actually added the whole ad suite here because we have over I think over 24 25 new ad assets that we are introducing this season making it the largest ever ad suite on IPL and just basically put them in three large buckets which is we have solutions for impact we do have solutions for driving reach on video and for maximizing reach on display so that's how you have to look at it and not just that of course our pre show is still up for grabs I think a lot of cold cricket audience log logs into our platform to consume our pre and post show last year I think Chris Gayle, A. B. de Villiers were some of the most talked about experts that we had on our feed we did one big innovation for the backstreet boys tour which also sort of went viral I think what people also don't realize about our pre show is that just a social chatter generated from the presence on this pre show is actually worth you know the partnership lot of branded content opportunities again are possible and this is just a snapshot of brands who work with us and finally I think with a roster of over 140 cricket legends who are working with us across all of our languages whether it is Kannada Telugu Hindi English what we're unlocking this year for brands is an opportunity to work directly with us to do social media campaigns with these faces right otherwise typically you would have to for instance for an extension of a campaign reach out to four different agencies to see how you can leverage cricket and of course in those two months everything is about cricket right what we're unlocking for brands this season is how can you work with us where we become sort of the inlet to you know kind of give you access for all of these names during your campaign period as well and I think I'm five minutes you know beyond schedule but yeah so this is what I had to speak to you about today my whole team is also here so in case we have any more questions please feel free and you know bug us and we'd be more than happy to take your questions thank you thank you thank you so much