 Moving ahead with this evening's agenda, I would like to introduce our next panel who will be telling us why digital isn't a five billion dollar opportunity. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for our esteemed fan list beginning with our moderator, Mr. Prashant Pires, Director, Chocolates, Mondales, India, our panelist, Mr. Sam Singh, Director of Agency, Business, Google, India, Mr. Sandeep Bhushan, Director, India and South Asia, Facebook, India, Mr. Taranjit Singh, Country Director, India, Twitter, and Mr. Udayas Sodhi, EVP and Head Digital Business, Sony Pictures Network, India. Let's have a huge round of applause for our panelists and Mr. Pires, over to you, sir. Good evening, everyone. We've got a fantastic panel here today and a very interesting topic. This topic reminds me of one of those strict questions that you asked before your target is set for the year. So why can't it be a five billion opportunity? The report says that it's about a billion and a half. Insider information tells me it's probably more than that. But let's put the question in this way. How can it be a five billion opportunity? And let's put a year to it rather than leave it, you know, like, you never know when. So let's say 2019. Why can't it be five billion in 2019? So I want to leave it to you guys to lead it off by maybe telling me in two minutes why what's the biggest challenge you think that's holding it back from being five billion in 2019. And maybe we can start with Sandeep and go around. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having us, Ashish and Prashant. I think the question is, of course, when I'm glad we didn't ask if, right? It's simple mathematics. If you compound it 32% and start at give or take $2 billion, we're talking 2020. We're talking, let's say exit 20 to Q4 at a quarter, a billion and a quarter, right, to get to Can we make 2019 a billion and a quarter is the task for the group? Let's say if you will talk about constraints. So we are really talking of shifting what is definite almost by a year. That's a simple task for the panel. The simple task is complicated by the fact that we are not asking the right question of the medium, because the question we will get asked as you will go further and further is how does it equate to a single reach curve on TV, reach or GRPs? But that's not the question we should be asking. The question to be asked is, what has television done for every dollar spent this year, last year and the next year? And what will digital do for every dollar spent for my brand or myself? The moment we ask that question and ask friends such as Bark and many other folks how we can measure that outcome, we will reach to 2019. I think further on we will talk about what those constraints are, but it's about asking the question of digital. So is there a shortcut to do something of this sort? I don't think there is a shortcut to get to that figure. The good question we are asking is when? We're not asking will it happen or not? And I think that's the important piece. Looking back the last 10, 15 years of being in digital, a lot of questions have got answered. We've all been through the age where will digital really be big enough? Is this a flash in the pan? Does it really exist? Is it a hoover? I think we are past that stage. We are now at a stage where we are saying this is core, this is going to be the largest pie. Will it be a 5 billion, 4 billion? I don't think that really matters. This is a large ecosystem. This is a main line advertising means for brands if they want performance or brand. I think brand is something that's still taking a backseat. A lot of performance has moved to digital. My guess is the real difference over the next 2 years is going to be the combination of brand advertising, FMCG and video. Those 3 falling into place will really take this number to the next level. And we are seeing that more and more in brand or platforms like ourselves where the viewability of the product and the brand safety is taken care of because the premium content is there, video is there and you got premium sports coming in. All that allows the advertiser to really put his brand or put his advertising and get the consumer out there or get his attention. We are at an inflection point on digital and digital video. We will see that happen. Digital video, brand advertising, all that falling into place I think will trigger that big move whether 2019, 2020, 2021 we have to see but that's how it's going to happen. Hi everyone. Before I answer that question I'll give my view. A question to the audience. How many of you, first thing in the morning when you get up see your mobile phone, last thing when you sleep at night see your mobile phone, quick show of hands. I can very safely assume that the average age of this room is about 35. Give or take. Now, so I'm not talking about the first row, I'm talking about the room. My question to you as a marketer, have you briefed your agency ever that mobile only campaign whether it's your creative or media agency? Given that our agency is Dan, of course I have. All right. So Mike, the thing is why there needs to be a total shift in our market deals? I mean there are questions which we can talk about debate but I think the fundamental thing is that money will follow audience. Audiences have already moved on to mobile. I don't think we need to move this case too much but for us I think the biggest question will always be that TV reaches about 500 million people every day. Mobile by the end of 2018 in India, internet on mobile will be over 500 million. 2019 should be a tipping gear because if you follow the growth rate we should be over 750 million mobile internet users in India. And I think that's a great starting point. Marketers need to start thinking. I mean platforms like us out here are doing our job every day trying to help partners, agencies, clients to use different ways of the medium, how to engage with clients, use video. Video is definitely the way forward to build that engagement but that's the starting point. Before I answer the question for you I'll just take you on a small kind of anecdote journey going back into 2012. So I was living in China at that point in time in Guangzhou and we were seeing at that point in time that cutting edge marketers like yourselves in China were spending about 15% on digital. That's where we are today. Fast forward to China today and by all estimates digital advertising is about 50-55% of total media. So for us to hit like 5 billion it will be about 40%ish at that point in time so I don't think it's a matter of when, it's a matter of how fast. I think it happens on two or three things obviously content, obviously data but I think the most important one is realization on how big the medium is becoming and how quickly can companies and organizations in a very smart manner make the use of it. I'm absolutely amazed I mean I've been back in India now for about 8-9 months simply on like YouTube. The size of YouTube today is about hitting about 225 million monthly adcribs. It's larger than most GEC channels today. Two years ago that was about 90 million. So that's the kind of rapid change that we are seeing thanks to Geo, thanks to all of the others and thanks to what we are seeing on data but now we are seeing that this train is a train that's left the station it's not going to get stopped. If we follow the eyeballs reaching that 5 billion is a matter of time, of quick time. Great so I think there's a unanimous, it's unanimous in the panel that you know getting it there is a matter of time but if we have to take the challenge to the next level and if it's so obvious, it's clearly mainstream, it's no longer sitting on the side as a hobby. Why isn't it that it's bigger and let me say that let's say I represent in some ways FMCG which are the least convinced of all. So if I throw it back maybe to you Sandeep, why do you think some of the big, big advertisers, maybe the FMCG sector which you work and know very closely, why aren't they convinced with all these numbers being in place? I think philosophically and I'm reflecting on my long stint in FMCG and consumer goods. We are a system built for television because it had a 50 year reign. Digital is 3 years and therefore we are feeling a little bit of pain or why it's not changed. Every system here, ad agencies, media agencies have built their reputation, careers and results on TV and nothing wrong with that because that was the medium. Question is what and how quickly can we build all of these pieces on digital? Let's again understand the facts. 400 to 500 million people on mobile internet. There is just no parallel to the scale. If you add time spent on each of these medium, it is humongous check your own time but that's not even representative. Check the time of the guy who runs your lift and goes up and down watching something on his phone. Notice, right? It's out there. The issue is where is the creative? Where is the measurement? Where is the ecosystem that tells a brand manager that even if he puts his money out, somebody is going to use it well because the brand manager woke up to his phone and slept with his phone, said goodnight to someone on the phone hopefully and then wakes up again and the cycle continues and yet of FMCG industry, 7% is digital. It's got to give. So let's step back into all the pieces that are in the ecosystem and ask the question, what will incentivize the system to change because currently when a bit of a lock jam and which brings me back to the first point I made, the only thing that would change is actually from the top as the CEO and the CMO says, Hey, we are more and more constrained for top line growth and bottom line growth because that's the way the world goes, right? Monopolies are behind us. And to do that, the proof point that for the dollars spent on medium X versus Y moved sale, that's what's going to really matter. That question, unfortunately is not reaching the boardroom because the boardroom is getting to see CPRP savings because somebody bought an even better deal with X TV channel. And we missed the wood for the trees. Remember the procurement department doesn't know mobile scope, right? Procurement department says better than last year inflation downwards. There are great reasons for the inertia. So again, coming back to how do we measure sales impact or brand impact, whatever we care for, right? The reason why e-commerce move to digital because they could see products of the shelf, but there is no reason why today with the power of the folks in this room, we will and should commit to moving stock of shelf for an impulse product or a consumer good. And that is the conversation. The moment it gathers team, a lot of the systems will work towards making that happen because the agency that are signing contracts, whether it's Dan or Oogilvy, in the end, at the core are saying we move your business, right? It's just that the metrics are not shared. So I think that is the debate. And the only good debate we also move away from the debate on formats. We talk of video is in Instagram stories, a video format. Anybody seen Instagram stories recently? Back of the room. Yes. Front of the room. No, don't worry. Actually, I'm not going to put you on a spot on this one. We're talking of average rate, but distribution makes the point better than averages, right? Absolutely. So is Instagram stories video? Question mark. But if we measure therefore Instagram story length, I think we'll miss the wood again for the trees because somebody saw it and somebody moved business because of that. And we were measuring video length rather than saying, Hey, did I sell more gems or CVM or one bill? You know, and that's the question. Therefore I'm at. So I think that's a good point to show. So I think we're at a, we're going through a huge disruption here. There's billions of dollars moving from one form of advertising and the way business is being done to another form of advertising and the way business is done. So the ecosystem that worked behind it, I have to adapt to this whole new way of doing business. Are we geared? And I don't think any other form of business has got created out of the blue at such speed. You know, we've had panelists earlier coming in saying the consumption's gone through the roof. And I'm telling you, being in solid, I've seen the consumption over the last two, three years, the consumption just gone through the roof. The way people watch cricket and the way people watch entertainment content. And once the consumer has come in, we will see the advertiser coming because the ecosystem has to fall into place. It's only a matter of time that that will happen. And the video is probably the big equivalent that one is able to see in terms of advertising. So just stepping back a little, if you look at any other digital advertising today, it doesn't stop the content and come in your face. If you look at television today, the ad stops the content and the ad plays out. Video on digital is the only comparable equivalent, which says content stop and the ad then plays out. Therefore, you are able to get significantly higher value and significantly higher viewability. And therefore you're leading disruption through it, which is what the report also says. I think there is a huge change that has happened in the last one year and it's only 18 months to put it into perspective. And therefore we have to make sure that the whole ecosystem falls into place, the advertising, the measurement and platforms like us have to be ready to accept that load and the deliverability. So there is a huge change happening and we have to be ready for that change with all of that falling into place. You know, building on what you've said, there is a question that comes up. Maybe I'll put it to you, Sam. It's a question that comes about how willing are consumers of digital willing to accept the intrusion of advertising. And I asked this question because of the increase in the amount of ad blocking that's happening, paywalls. And it's not just, you know, quantitative figures. We're beginning to hear direct consumer contacts. People feed this back to us. So do you want to take this question on how intrusive is advertising on digital? Because we've not grown up with it like, let's say we've grown up with ads on television and maybe accept it a little more. Look, the short answer on that is, finally, the medium has to evolve to a point where the consumer experience, you know, where ads are like integral to the consumer experience. And, you know, and it is as simple as that, no more complicated. And I think the medium is kind of evolving in that space. So going back, you know, and it links back to the question that we talked about, you know, like you and like some people, you know, like I also come from a CPG background, you know, and having spent enough time there, both in brand management, also into curement and consumer research, I think there are three or four areas that companies really need to focus on to see how they get value out of it. I mean, the first one is which part of this medium are they comfortable telling their brand stories and from the story point of view, it could be video, it could be voice, you know, it could be static, like whatever it is. The second part is which part of this medium is going to give you the scale that actually helps you move volume. Because if you don't move volume, then it's nice stuff for cons. It doesn't really help you. Where do you get the ROI is the third part. But the fourth part, which is sometimes the most like underlooked is which part of it is a place where you can create content on a sustained basis day in, day out, week in, week out. So I think it is these things and, and obviously they collide with the question that you asked me is, you know, in terms of ad blockers, I believe the medium has to be non-inclusive. Otherwise, you will find consumerism, all kinds of things to block out. Okay. And I think that leads on to another question. You know, you spoke about the different kind of content. Now, television was much simpler. It was a 30 seconder, and then you cut it down to a 15 or a 20, or if you had the luxury of time you did 45. On the other hand, here you've got everything from static to forced video views to six seconders to bumpers. You know, I mean, I could go on. There isn't a single way to actually measure efficacy across them. And also then start comparing the efficacy of how they're doing on digital with other media. So what's your thought on that and, and where we as we go towards, is there a possibility of going towards unified measurement? So the short answer is yes, I think that is definitely a possibility. I think there was a news I read sometime back ago that television is looking at moving to evaluating itself on a CPT basis rather than a CPRP basis. But I just want to take a step back and take a fundamental view from an audience perspective. At the end of the day, we need to look at it. What do consumers do on each platform? For example, if I'm coming to a platform and I'm consuming a certain type of content, and, you know, whether it could be looking at what's happening around the world in terms of news or looking at premium videos from publishers or things, how do people behave in consume? Now, within that, if an advertising flows natively and is part of how it runs, consumers get used to a certain way of looking at content on a particular platform. So I don't really see, I mean, I wouldn't call this a big red flag about ad blockage or people getting a worst on being intrusive, advertising being intrusive. I think it's about an evolution of the medium. If content is going to be consumed first on mobile, on, this is going to be the first screen. So what the consumer habits are all about? I want to make a point on formats. Before we had the report of 2017, if you looked at the report, when I was a rookie brand manager of 1999, the market was 4545 print and TV, and the rest was rounding off. This was pre FM days. Some of us were not even in school then, but you know, there were two formats. There was a video format and there was non video format and they existed and coexisted 5050 and the world carried on. Of course, the industry made no effort to get them on a single platform of any kind. Nobody added reach. No tool gave you combined reach slash impact. Nobody measured page 17 advertising scene, not seen blah, blah. I will not talk of brand safety under nation and other issues. You stay out of that 4545 meaning what? If you've got the consumer and you serve the ad in a palatable format, he will see it else. Hotstar would have all its consumers on a subscription model today and show them IPL. Take a guess on what percentage of subscription, what percentage I'm willing to wait for an ad because I'm not willing to pay 400 bucks, 200 bucks, 300 bucks. Remember this India. Advertising is the cheapest way for me to subsidize my consumption of media, right? I'm reasonably okay with that. Blockers, of course. And therefore it comes down to the publisher to create the most palatable format. It is my responsibility. However, it is also our shared responsibility and I can't imagine anyone of us saying we will not participate in the sort of responsibility of saying, let's come together to say the platform scope that's offered and therefore the kind of creative that's offered. Let's see if it works for your brand. Not whether it works on the metric of television. The only issue with going back to TV metrics is forgetting that 45% of our spends over the last 50 years, which was print was not on that metric. It was on some metric of ROI, some metric of ROI, ROAS. We call it what you want. The question for us is, as brand managers and brand owners, and by the way, that's where the cookie will crumble because everybody in the ecosystem in the end will do what you want, right? It's your dollar at stake. All of us work together to make sure your dollar works hard, right? For you to ask the question, saying, dear Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, search marketing, Sony, Hotstar, here's the dollar. Make it work for me. You tell me what the creative has to be. Then the second question is, how can we create that ecosystem? Remember again, we had that format and they were excellence in that format. Once we figured that format is required for my ROI, right? Once we believe we are moving things that matter, we will work to create the ecosystem. And why will we not? Because 50% of the time, conservatively, is today spent only on digital as a percentage of total media time. That's incentive enough. So the world has changed. And I'm putting it very dramatically. So the world has changed. We had a beautiful time when you could create one print ad and one TV commercial and get away with it. We are now in a media explosion fragmentation. So you can't get away with just saying, I'm going to do one print ad and I'm going to do one television commercial. Those days are gone. So in the new paradigm, you have to get used to the fact that there will be a digital ad, which will be an eight seconder. There will be a print ad, which will be different. There will be a television ad, which will be different. There will be a banner running somewhere. There'll be a search ad running somewhere. There'll be an Instagram story starting running somewhere. There'll be a social campaign running somewhere. And the challenge for an advertiser or a brand manager is how do I put it together into one template and show internally saying, no, I've done a good job. And I've done an ROI and my brand works. That, I think, is the bigger challenge we all face and not whether the fragmentation has happened. Fragmentation is a reality. We can't run away from it. And it's only going to increase as more and more screens come into it. And I want to ask a question here. How many of you have seen content on a big television, connected television in the last six months? Okay. Probably 10%. And I can lay a bet. If we do this conference next year, it'll be half. So you have another screen coming your way, which is a large television, which is a connected Android television or a connected television with apps in it. Now you're talking another screen and you might have to make another creative for it because there the person is not able to switch off the ad and he's far more tolerant, but still a digital consumer. He's kept the remote far away like the television guy. So we're not in a situation which was simpler. We're making it complicated. Yes, we at one point in time had one model of Maruti 800 in the market and very easy to choose. But life has changed. We have 40 models being launched in the market today and it's difficult to select a car. So the same thing is going to happen in the media market. It's up to us as owners of media and partners in the advertising fraternity to create models which will have the brand owners to be able to put the money sensibly and show that yes it has worked for them. One point to add here. I mean it's a great point. If you look at today most of the content producers, I mean we guys are mostly platforms, right? I mean apart from Sony. If you look at most of the content producers and I'm talking about mainline television companies, today they are producing digital first content, right? Consumers are evolving, products are evolving, media is evolving, it's market is. Now if you look at it, take a step back. Market is actually scrutinized all of us in the digital world much more minutely than they do with the television players we have. Why? And that's my question to you. Why? I think you'll just provide us with a lot more data. But having said that, I think another interesting question that comes is and it was mentioned by Abik is one of the challenges and that was around the space of fraud and I'll talk about two points simultaneously. One is fraud and the other is brand safety. You know where is your ad really getting served and even with programmatic it's not possible to completely control that. So maybe Sam, you'd want to pick this up and say what can be done about it? What can be done to assuage the fears of market years? I don't want to pick it up but if you insist. I mean really important question. Let's start with the brand suitability brand safety one. Google on YouTube like you know loads up about 400 hours of content every minute. You know that's the kind of of pace at which it is going. In the last one year we have made like significant investments in two specific areas to like work around this. We've made investment on the people side. By the end of this year we will have about 10,000 people you know focused on the area of brand suitability. We've got internal you know flaggers working along with external partners including NGOs to to make sure the flagging is going in the right direction but more importantly we are getting an automation to help us take the flagging that the you know that the manual flaggers are doing and learn from that and then start reapplying it into other videos. So for example about 98% of the videos that are getting knocked off are now being knocked off on the learning on the basis of the two percent machine learning systems. In the last six months we have taken down about 150,000 videos which are in the space of violence. So that's the level and scale at which at which work is happening in the space and we will continue to like lean forward and make sure that we do more work as well. You talked about you know the other side on fraud. We have about 150 algorithms that are working today which have kept out fraud. We started with our own owned and operated properties. We have taken it now through DBM and you know you know and through like and through GDN to our partners on the publisher side as well and these are challenges that we are working on in a you know in a major way. So yeah you absolutely like these are areas that are of real interest. I want to make a point on yeah thanks on how do we get visibility to what happens on the platform. I think that's the underlying question and I represent Facebook on this. I'm sure Twitter, Google, Sony all would be working at various places. One of the large investments we are making constantly is to be measurable. So when we talk of whether a bot went and so on ad you would go to a partnership with global players example moat right. You want to know hey listen did a male see my ad or a female see my ad when the intended target audience is given as one of the two or both get someone like Nielson to do a DAR read. I think given the opportunity that's in front of us and given the fact that we clearly recognize that the consumer time is well ahead of the advertising share. The gap while we've talked about the issue conceptually will need all of us to put all of this out. Yeah and I touched upon the ecosystem play which is creating capability and in fact we work closely with Dan on every one of these dimensions measurement critical support but also in opening us ourselves to measurement as far or almost in entirety today I got suggesting every piece of communication where it was delivered sorry to whom it was delivered what was the view whether it was human non-human all of that is now visible and then to that extent therefore that is that much more transparency for people to take the right decision so these I would call barriers but the triggers have to be in the capability space and again I know I imagine many in the room will know we have a team for example when my team goes to a customer like yours Prashanti met all of them there'll be a measurement team they will be a creative team and they'll be a solutioning team because this is how we mirror your organization every morning because it's not done till we finish every part of these jobs over a bit of time the ecosystem will come in so very very significant investments in transparency and measurement and very very significant investments in processes and capabilities to mirror the gaps currently that need to be filled. Fantastic I think this is also a good time for me to segue and ask the audience if you all have any questions for these gentlemen out here so maybe we can get a mic the gentleman out there we've got time for about two or three questions maybe. Hello so as discussions were happening transparency is a big big issue and globally I think we heard that a lot of large companies are buying basically transferring the programmatic stack in house and trust is becoming a big issue in the next I think three four months GDPR is going to become a reality in Europe to the global data protection and manifestation of that will also happen in India when the new telecom new internet policies unveiled in the next three four months so are there any concrete plans that the media agencies and the large companies like Google and Facebook are doing anything to make sure that they're ready for the GDPR regime globally and the manifestation of that in India. Thanks Sam I think every country is evolving its own regime in fact sometimes to a surprise of the lot of the world as we saw on zero rating in America recently I think it is incumbent on every one of us to be compliant to local regulation there is just no way right we will continue to work with telecom media and other regulators as will be required because that is your ticket to be in a country right so as things will flow we will be more than ready at every stage. Before Sam answers maybe the next person who wants to ask a question you could put your hand up and we'll get the right mic across to you Sam. So the only thing that I'll add to what Sandeep has already said is we at Google take it really seriously that's one of the reasons why also from a targeting and from a measurement point of view we are very very careful on the level of PII data that we want to use or not and you know absolutely right that we will you know we will more than comply with what the local regulations are and the regulatory environment is that you know goes without saying. Any other questions slightly tougher ones maybe. Okay so I think that's a good segue for me to then ask you maybe to wrap this up with probably a closing remark each on again you started with your biggest challenge but as you've gone through this entire conversation what is the biggest trigger. I think Uday has already spoken about change but anybody else wants to come in with what do you think is going to be the biggest trigger to make this happen maybe by 2019. I think I'm repeating myself we feel privileged with the time that we have on our platform two billion people a month across platforms a very large number in India 250 million across several of our platforms right our opportunity continues to be to connect people to people business to people and we take this responsibility seriously of making sure the best content and the most effective in ROI terms content goes on the platform and is measured for result we will therefore commit ourselves continue to commit ourselves to do everything to push the ecosystem to get the best of the platform. As a leading platform in the curated content in the premium content space I think for us the opportunity lies in getting the top end of the advertising pie getting the people who want to bring their brands to their consumers and look at how video advertising can help their brands and I think we are in that space where premium content video and advertising will play a big role and I think for us FMCG is a great partner and we look at that space as being the trigger for the next two to three years advertising agencies are probably going to see how they can bring FMCG clients or FMCG partners on to curated platforms because they give great real ability for their ads it protects their brands and you know the environment that it shows is amazing so I think it's the best ecosystem for top quality premium advertising and we are going to see that happening over the next two three years I think that will swing the needle for an overall swing towards digital. Alright so I just say that India for us I mean Twitter is probably one of the most important clarity markets not only from I mean revenue point of view but also an audience point of view we see massive growth across both I think for us what is really important is to work with businesses and help them solve their you know KPIs their communication objectives and for that we are you know ourselves investing a lot today news breaks first on Twitter and Twitter's the live medium of where things happen we are investing a lot into getting the right content premium content 100% brand safe content with premium publishers and partners which would give an environment for marketers like you to connect with audiences in a safe way. So I'll just kind of add to what they've already said for us for each one of our 7 billion kind of user 7 1 billion user properties like India is either number one or number two in terms of usage for us we are and we continue to partner with you know with companies such as yourselves on helping in creating content on delivering scale on measurement and ROI my request to marketers will be I think two things one is choose formats in digital that you are intuitively comfortable with as an organization so keep the numbers and the math and all that aside but places where you are comfortable telling your stories at scale time and time again and then on the measurement side yes there will be measurement but have some really really smart you know kind of research people who are able to do like back of the envelope calculations and combine you know knowledge from different places into developing a point of view which the organization can work with. Very fantastic so there you have it ladies and gentlemen I think this is not a just digital it's not just a trade that's left the station it's like a juggernaut that's left the station so you guys have definitely got me convinced I'm probably going to sit with Ashish tomorrow and rejig our plans but thank you very very much for your point of view and have a fantastic evening thank you. Thank you very much Mr. Perez I'd request all our panelists to stay back with me and I'd like to invite on stage Mr. Azim Lalani first post business head and Mr. Rajiv Singh business head net news 18.com and cricket next please join me on stage to present a token of our gratitude to our panelists and moderator I'm going to request all of you to please step forward for a photograph all right can we have a huge round of applause for our panelists thank you very much for that very very interesting discussion