 All right. Welcome to this special webinar, a virtual roundtable we're so used to it now. Though the real world is also opening. This special virtual roundtable is in partnership with Tabula brought to you by Exchange for Media in association with Tabula and the focus today is the consumer durable category and the way it has changed over the last almost close to two years. Also the discussion is important because we are at the start of festive season and which means that a lot of consumer activity will be witnessed but it's with a change mindset. The behavior has changed. The way consumer interact with brands has changed. These are some of the key discussion points that we will have in the course over the next one hour and I might also add that today we have some of the most imminent marketing leaders with us. I want to introduce them. We have Mr. Amit Tiwari, VP Marketing Heavens, Mr. Amit Sethia, CM of Cisco, Mr. Adil Sanwari, Head of Digital Media and Transformation, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, HP India, Mr. Bharat Arora, Country Manager, India Tabula and Mr. Pashan Dhal, Marketing Director, AO Smith India. Welcome all of you to today's discussion and thank you so much for taking our time. I want to come to you first, Mr. Sethia, straight away diving into my first question. We are at the, as I mentioned, getting into a festive mood but in a very changed circumstances. The setting is very different. The sentiment is very different. In this kind of a setup in your view, how can brands make the most of the key promotional periods? Is there, are there set rules that brands need to follow to make it more effective in the context that we are in? Thanks Rohail for the question and I'm so glad that I'm a part of this discussion today because I can see a lot of synergy getting created and because of the fact that it's a consumer durable category. So, coming back to your question, Rohail, it's very imperative that the moment you think of the promotional period or the festive season, you're bound to think about discounts, sale, etc. I think that is what comes to our mind and more so as an Indian customer. But I think personally the way I have seen this entire quotient coming down over these last couple of years is tremendous. Let us look back say around 10 years or so, we used to have these discount based events maybe twice or twice in a year, right? Not beyond that. We used to go to a regular retail market or the mall also and we used to talk about that. That was the conversation that people used to plan in advance that we are going to buy these items, etc. During this specific time and festival when you used to get discount and discount was not very across the year which actually became a phenomena later on. Not today if you go to any mall, you'll find that discount banner always hanging next to the main gate. The only thing that changes is the percentage, right? So, I think over a period of time that discount as a word or as a proposition I think personally has lost its sheen right now. You can even talk about e-commerce right now. I know there are these big events that happen, the BBTs of the world wherein you get amazing discounts. But look at the way the customer approaches that space. He will look at as to what product he wants to buy and from which brand he should be looking at that product. Obviously, this is the review, the rating, the preference, etc. and then he will go and buy that product and maybe whatever discount he will get he is happy with that because ultimately he is buying that brand. So, I think over a period of time I don't believe now discount or anything which is close to this proposition is kind of a guarantee to make the most out of your promotional period. If you look at the example of this brand, Cisco, my narrative is always brand led when I go out and talk because we have been talking about the warranty, the power saving or the usage life of the product, etc. But we have never spoken about a specific product or egg-paked, free-lay-low types, etc. So, I think that's where I'm coming from that if you really want to make the most out of your promotional period. It is very important for a brand to really figure out and check as to what you are doing, otherwise in the not so promotional period. Right. Mr. Tiwari, to you being the representing a very broad being the marketing leader in the space tell me, we know that digital age consumers make the decisions in a certain different way than it used to be. How can brand overall maximize the promotional period in this changed circumstance? Thanks, thanks, Roil and good evening everyone. I think the larger piece Roil, which you mentioned which Amit also somehow tried to cover about. See, in the last two years, and I think last two festivals last year and this year, the entire consumer purchase pattern has changed big time. The decisions have changed big time. It is nothing to do with what is available and where it is available. It most important is what I want and what is the period which I really want. And it can be whatever the platform previously you won't believe it. You haven't seen that big ticket items which are costing 50,000, 60,000, 70,000 can be bought online today. Irrespective today whether I have a discount or discount but I need something on that particular requirement I can buy it where it is available for me and it can give me a delivery which is much better. There are products in which many categories require installation. People are coming out with different ideas where you can actually do it yourself without even using any particular external interference to build it. So more importantly, it's not about where you are actually selling what is the promotional period. It's about what is the change of the entire pattern of consumption from a consumer standpoint. Are you able to match or are brands able to match that entire thing? A digital is no more a medium. It's a part of life. So it is not about whether you advertise or don't advertise. Today, your life evolves around digital. So anything that you do, whether you buy a product, whether you require a service for the product or whether you decide about the product, it is the digital that you actually do it. How do you do it is most important and how do you reach that narrative of the consumer that that's very critical in the entire journey. Thank you. Right. Very well said. Mr. Anwari, I want to dump you at this point. In your view, are there any set of rules to make brands that brands can make it more connected with, feel more connected with consumers and have the maximum of the promotional period. How is your brand looking at this? What are you personally doing to enable this? Sorry. Sorry. Is that a question for me? Yes, Mr. Anwari. Sorry. Thanks, Rohit. Hello, everybody. When I think about the festival time, especially in India, it's mostly about togetherness. It's mostly about celebration. It's mostly about being with your family. I think where we've hit the chord is about creating that kind of a communication which makes the consumer believe that what we're trying to do as a brand is bring them all closer. We're trying to make that bond stronger. I'm sure that all of you must have seen our Diwali ads in the past couple of years that we've been doing. They've created that kind of an impact that everybody today is expecting HB to bring out the better version of the last Diwali campaign that we did. Our objective is very clear. Today, especially in our category, we're living in a world where we don't need to tell too much to the audience or the customer about what the product is all about. They do their own research. They have multiple platforms today on the web where they can research about the product, know more about the product. There are tons and tons of video and reviews that goes on where customers can figure out what to buy. The responsibility from a brand's point of view is to how do I make sure that two ways to look at it. People who are the switchers. I know for a fact that every year over 50% of your category customers are switchers. Today they have HB, tomorrow they might be with some other competition. Similarly, there's a set that I need to take care of. In my view, the tactics that we apply is we look at the data overall and the baby bifurcators between brand switchers and brand loyalists. Of course, because it's festive time, everybody is coming to get a good deal. Make them feel special. Make them feel that this brand is worth that. Maybe I don't know whether discounting is the right word or whether giving them something additional is the right word. Number one is that. From a brand loyalist perspective, this is the time to make them feel special in terms of giving them something exclusive. Customizing things for them. I think from HB's point of view, these are the two things that, and again, sorry to say, but there is no rule to it. There is no silver bullet that will assure success for you as a brand, but it is always going to be a hit and trial method. We all learn as we do and move forward with one activity or the other. I think the best way to do is create that bonding between you and the customer because I don't have a dearth of awareness today for the brand. What I need to do is to engage my audience in a way that they know this brand still cares for me as something exclusive for me and will do something special for me year after year. I would say that's our Rambar sort of thing. Lovely. Mr. Dara, your thoughts on this. So I would tend to agree with Mr. Sanwari. But I would just like to keep a table across a couple of perspectives. One is that how the emergence of e-commerce platform has affected the appliances industry. I think it is now, if you look at the last couple of years, the contribution to the business of e-commerce as a platform has just doubled. So I think the kind of focus in the marketing mix that you have on e-commerce has gone up by leaps and bounds. So things like Great Indian Festival and the Big Billion Days are definitely revenue earners for you. So here the challenge for the brands is basically how to connect with the customers along with the value proposition that you are giving. That value proposition can be in terms of price. It can be in terms of the service that you're offering. It can also be in terms of how much affordability you are promoting in terms of some of your key product lines. So as a brand, you need to be very focused in terms of what are you planning for these big festivals which are now contributing to a major part of your total revenue. You need to obviously match your content with the intention of the consumer. So basically matching content with intent has to be the key. There are things like exchange offers, no-cost EMI's one-day service, etc. Which are big drivers on these platforms these days. So that's very important. Also you need to understand how much efficiently you are planning the media. It will be very important to monitor the performance of your conversions on these platforms on a daily basis because the bits keep on changing by the hour on these platforms. So it's very important to monitor and get the correct ROI for your brand. So that is I think very important. Of course, I mean the overall as I was telling you that you need to understand how to match the creatives or the content to the intention of the consumer at what stage of purchase journey he is. So address each of his journey with a creative which basically translates into a storytelling and aids him to finally from an awareness interest to a conversion stage to a conversion stage. Also with all the advertising monies shifting into digital these days it's very important to have a very seamless kind of an integration between your offline strategy and your online media mixing with the online strategy on digital. So basically they have to be complimentary in nature. So the word is be agile be watchful and deliver the optimum ROI. And the way consumer sentiment has got affected I think they want definitely more value out of the purchase. I think brands cannot I want to come to you Mr. Arora at this point you bring in a different perspective than the other panelists here. What is your observation given how brands can get the maximum out of this promotion period? I think what I have actually completely agree with what some wallets have said Adil was perfectly alright saying that people are already aware so it is very important for yourself to make sure that you build such a kind of a connect or a bond with your customers so that they it's more of a pull strategy that we should put across. And of course during the challenging period everything was getting involved consumer behavior was changing. It was very important for all the brands coming from outside for example Tabula is one of a very strong brand where you know brands come to us just to make sure that they build their from middle panel to the bottom of the funnel. And we see huge changes coming up where everything was changing from what Prashant Mr. Dhar was saying about the creative side people were talking trying to talk to the customers impacted with them in terms of the hard times but talking in their language so every creative that was playing at Tabula was very very much bounded much connected talking about not only selling but it was telling a story which connect with them what Mr. Sanwari was talking about building the connect so that was actually coming through the entire funnel where people were trying to build some awareness asking about people's health but eventually trying to talk to them build bond asking about their wellness and then suddenly possibly you know tell them that this is the place that possibly that can help you do this is the place you can buy what Mr. Sivari was also trying to touch about that it is not about where and what you want to you know buy it we saw specifically at Tabula perspective we saw you know consumer were making purchases we never saw before okay so in terms of the bottom line for example talking about the consumer electronics or consumer durable as a vertical which we saw people were buying first time online which we never imagined so of course because our KPIs given to us was changed from visits campaign everything was talking about CPA because it was business survival and we saw that you know how various brands come over and talking about various acquisition strategies and we saw what Mr. Sivari beautiful design said that this is even if somebody is like 2 lakh rupees INR and they were okay to buy at this point of time so that was very different consumer behavior we saw very impressive procedure right you know I mean there was a point to mention that today the brands alone don't do their work to reach out to consumers the consumers do a lot of research you know especially in these times before they make any purchase and we have often asked this question that what are the learnings what are the learnings from the last two years and I mean this almost is relevant because every month there is a new development there is a new approach there is a new strategy in place Mr. Sethi is talking with you again talking about the learnings again you know because we had certain learnings and the second wave came there was a different learning there was a different pivot towards a different strategy what are the overall learnings as we enter a festival season this is the second time in the last since the pandemic started that we are close to this what is the kind of enrichment in terms of learnings that you are going with with your brand and your promotion so I will point out quickly some of the key learnings that we as a brand I would say and not as a marketer right because at a brand level there is so much that you discover and learn I think so first and foremost was the fact that you know see consumer durable still largely is a distribution driven sort of a business right and I think that's where we realize that we need to optimize you know this particular distribution you know aspect of the of the brand so I remember during the first lockdown the government of India actually announced as an example you know the grooming appliances you know the semi essentials for the consumers and that is when we actually optimize the distribution channel for this very category and ensure that the products are placed across all the medical shops in the country because it was the only medical shop along with the Kirana shop that was actually open for the Indian consumers apart from that we also you know went back to technology you know to ensure that you know how we can optimize even that aspect you know so example if I talk about the so the usage of this very product which was always looked at from the illumination perspective went beyond that and actually was used in the space of disinfection actually because suddenly people were very you know worried about as to how they can take care of certain smaller items to disinfect on day to day basis so we were using these kind of specific LED UV products I remember marketing was in such a tight spot because of the fact that you know these you know special treatments to the content that we give was always you know felt to be very important right but suddenly we realize that you know we don't have access to these kind of studio treatments so suddenly we realize that you know we were turning out the content without those you know final glossy treatments and still it was you know clicking with the right audiences right because the content was very authentic so I think this was also one of the learning that we realized apart from that yes I think the demand for the smart home products soared to new heights because of the work from home culture people very very much open about this new you know portfolio you know and they were also interested to look at as to how they can convert their existing whiteboards or consumer durables into at least if not full smart at least to semi-smart right so all these solutions were tackled beautifully during these last couple of 18 months or so I would say and yes we also entered a very new category because of the smart watch I would say with a very disruptive price because suddenly everybody was talking about their health and fitness levels right so I think these are you know some of the key learnings that we you know witnessed over these last you know couple of months put together which is amazing actually as a brand. Mr. Tiwari not just as a brand but as a marketer what are the big learnings for you and what are the new insights that you gather? So Barul I think first thing whatever is every marketer and since we are talking the marketing as opportunity and when I talked to a lot of my marketers in last 20 months what has happened is whatever we have learned for the 20 years that needs to be rebooted all the systems of marketing need to be rebooted that theories and principles was fine but everything has changed and what has happened to this rebooting that you need to start relearning new rules and new rules of the game and what has become the main rules of the game is 3 T's trust, transparency and technology any brand that you actually operate you need to have a trust which is a very very high startup otherwise you will not be able to build any particular substantial gain in any of the planes that you have it has to be absolute transparency that you need to trust the entire spectrum because consumer is far far more important and is more sensitive towards any brand engagement that it's to technology has become a part and parcel of everyone's life you see today technology transformation people are talking about for last many years but the way it is technology transfers happen for a four year old till the 80 year old the transformation has been absolutely absolutely high in every part and that is how it actually defined and redefined the rules of the game if you are talking about which is trust transparency technology you are much ahead of the game and your brand is much more visible in terms of what we need to do if you are lacking in any of the things you will definitely find a huge impact in the outcome whether it in terms of your brand response or in terms of your brand sales that will be reflected so that is how the rules have actually changed and the traditional principles just remain as a principle because you need to start building and rebooting yourself in a bigger way so Mr. Tewari thanks for sharing Mr. Sanwari how about you how would you define your learning we were not prepared for this none of us were prepared for this right so saying that we already have certain weapons in our arsenal is I don't know it's the wrong way to put across right so I think the best learning that we've had is you know how important is to be agile how important is to be extremely flexible especially in our category right when we're talking about a cycle where we know that the person who's bought a laptop would think about buying another laptop in the next five years right and so is the case with printers largely right so all of a sudden people stop going to office all of a sudden people children stop going to school right and earlier what used to happen is with a parent you know a kid at the age of typically you would have whenever that your father or mother is coming back from office you would have a spare laptop and then the kid would do anything on the laptop that he or she wants to do with school projects or whatever for that matter now all of a sudden everybody needs a laptop because everybody's working from home and so are the schools are running from home right so the way we sort of identified the problem that hey you know there is a problem of people not having an extra laptop or a printer and there's also an opportunity here where we can sort of make sure that we're not trying to oversell the product by saying hey you know what why don't just because you're sitting home why don't you buy another laptop whether you need or if you don't need it right what we did is we sort of we initiated another way of looking at this entire category by saying this particular product is to do with learning right so we if I would say we sort of started this category all together from a learning perspective I said if this one laptop which is typically going to help your kid to do all the you know school projects or homework projects that have been given by the school right and you don't need your parents laptop we know that you can't use that laptop similarly we bundle that kind of a thing where we said one laptop and one printer is going to fulfill your needs from a kids perspective where you don't need any spare product to be to be buying from right and we also knew the fact that at the end of the day we can't fight with the smartphones right everybody has a smartphone it's very stupid and about to say hey you know what today we can work on a smartphone and you don't need a laptop for that matter right or you can take a laptop plus a smartphone as well right so I think we were not talking about smartphones you said you have your smartphone you can do multiple things on your smartphone that's great but this as a package you know you need you need to print stuff you need to have a physical form of your project and your you know your your school project and homework in hand to to figure out and do things on your own right so these are the learnings I would probably say that helped us create this kind of an opportunity within the market number one number two is from an offline store perspective and I think somebody mentioned initially about how challenging these times were where you would try and create a lot of footballs to the stores but unfortunately that can't happen because all the stores are shut right so as a category we were still falling behind in terms of the customer wanting to take the demo of the product I just definitely times are changing and people are moving towards buying this category on e-commerce models but today also when you know people come on the store the first thing they do is they do the research from across the globe and then they want to come and do the touch and feel of the product right so we initiated things like video demos right with our ISPs or in-store promoters right so these were the facilities that were not earlier available right we created we supported more and more offline stores to create home delivery kind of systems right so home deliveries and home demos were something which really helped us as a brand to connect back to our consumer and say hey you know what we know you can't come to us but allow us to come to you and of course these are times I'm talking about when the government had sort of opened up these restrictions of you know doing deliveries or reaching out to any individuals out right so I think these were the two biggest learnings as a brand that we had and you know we acted upon it and I think fortunately we were sort of able to you know create some success out there coming to you and understanding the changes in your capacity and the way your consumers have changed and your brand approach has changed give us a sense of the learnings that you have gathered yeah sure so there are I will segment my answers in two parts one is that about the geography right and then the second is on the consumption pattern so if you look at the geography so there has been a reverse migration trend in the tier 2 and the tier 3 towns so the kind of growths that we were witnessing in tier 2 and tier 3 has kind of doubled over the last you know couple of years and that's primarily driven more by the reverse migration of the working force right so that is one interesting trend that we have seen and it will also it is also interesting to know that the ASP difference between the tier 1 and the tier 2 and tier 3 towns is not much so you the high value products are still are definitely being preferred also in tier 2 and tier 3 towns so that's an interesting trend that we could observe the second one is in terms of the consumption pattern and here I would like to mention three key points a couple of them was also mentioned by Mr. Setia so one is a very high focus on health and hygiene and since we are operating in this space and with water heaters and water purifiers category we have seen a higher traction over there and there has been a growth in recruitment in the category so the lower price products have been really being lapped up and are showing a higher growth say for example an instant 3 liters is showing a much higher growth than the storage water purifier similarly we have seen tremendous growth in the UV water purifiers so that is one trend that I could see so it is helping in terms of the expansion and penetration of the category that is one. Secondly it's about people generally becoming more environment friendly or environment conscious and they are also seeking this value in the products that you are offering right so some of the products that we have launched in the last one year have been directed towards this proposition and have been really appreciated by the consumers the third part is about with the increasing work from home comfort and connectivity at home is of paramount importance so the adoption of connected products are surely getting a boost due to this due to these last 18 months I think these are some key broad trends that we could decipher in the last 18 months or so. Mr. Arora you heard all of them and you have dealt with brands what are the takeaways and observations that you would like to share Mr. Arora sure thank you actually it was very interesting journey for us the last two years of course was very challenging for every company we faced something which was never anticipated we never forecasted that this would happen the first thing that happened with Tabula is the key that we for us is adaptability we make sure that we adopt towards the business that we are in so at Tabula primarily we have two sides of the businesses which are publishers and then we have demand side which are advertisers since you know we support for open web it was very imperative for us just to make sure that we support and stand with all our publisher partners so that was the first thing that we did and thanks to all our partners we decided to sell together we decided to be intact and we see how to face it together and build something which can be much more better for the entire media industry the second side which was at Tabula we went back to basics so we never spoke about eyeballs, visibility, clutter we said everybody every business is important and for every business to survive it is important that performance will be the key so we made sure that we molded ourselves, adopted towards more of a performance side of the business where we went back to certain important tools that we have for example we have something called Tabula newsroom that is beautiful tool that is actually a tool which help all editorial or writers to look at insight which is actionable insights which possibly tells us what consumer is actually looking at open web, what people are reading across, where they are interacting so for example what Mr. Sanwari was talking about that people were talking about health fitness learning, so all these insights we got to know where people are consuming it, so now we have know a lot of data and data insights this is the same we made sure that we build certain strategies and then we also had a global initiative called Creative Shops what Mr. Dharbha was talking about the creative that we spoke about before, so what we did is we married the both together we had a creative shop where we went back to all advertisers told them that this is something that should work for you this is data insights that we have this is a strategy and this is how you can build your creative so that you get more performance so end of the day because everything was for us was cost per acquisition, cost per lead because everybody was in the survival mode so that was one thing you know that was very very important for us to make sure the other things of course and then things were getting better so then it was also our task just to make sure that we help make this come back to the brands to make sure then we launched a product called high impact placement where we made sure that we give visibility along with performance so I think the only the key thing I would say during this point through the learning we evolved as much more stronger full fundamental marketing platform and for us the key for success was just to make sure to adopt and adopt fast and be together and work like a team so that not from supply side not from supply side for example all the key you know industry experts sitting here of course just to make sure that we work together as industry as a whole and then we make sure that we pull ourselves together so that is what and as we speak we are sitting on cotton, cotton we are sitting on the best of the quarters ever globally tabula as well as tabula in India so that was like blessing in disguise but thanks to our publisher partners and industry experts like yourself who are sitting here who actually was there together to support thanks to Arora for sharing these insights you know what has what this time has also done is it's not only changed the consumers the brand strategy but also how brands spend and you know divide their budget it has also impacted that that's my next question to Mr. Satya that you know if we look at the recent times as the brand how do you optimize and plan the budget allocation across the multiple digital channels also with the same follow up question that are there any big gaps that you have seen in their offerings and what brands want so I think the first and the foremost thing here is that as a marketer we used to always have this golden allocation I would say 70, 20, 10 what is this the person will say and more so in the consumer durable space insane 70 was always 80, 20 was VTL and 10 was digital I think that was the conversation till maybe 10 years back but gradually because of the advent in terms of technology and digital avenues things started changing now it's no more 70, 20 and 10 for sure and at the same time even the allocation within the digital space is extremely dynamic you know you will not be saying that okay fine this much portion is actually you know contributing say to SEO or content or video or SEM etc because everything is extremely agile and I think that's where we focus that you know more than allocating monies we need to be very agile so of listening to what is happening around you in terms of digital response and see I think everything need not be ROI based I think that is something I strongly believe in because there is so much of performance that in this entire journey you tend to become transactional because digital space is such I mean like by the very nature of the space you know and you don't even realize that you know you have been getting a lot of money and revenue and the brand standing is it able to you know go and put a narrative to the customer so I think that's where I draw a line personally and second is I always try to keep at least a buffer of 5-10% of my overall budgets just to do some trial and error and failure that is also okay because unless and until you try new channels, new mediums, new avenues I don't think there is going to be any learning otherwise everything will be on Facebook and Instagram and you will not be able to go beyond that now as far as your expectations and gaps are concerned I think I have very fundamental issues I would say when you look at the digital space that broadly I would say not everybody but broadly all the stakeholders they tend to talk and impress you and convince you with million impressions and million reach everything is million metric there is nothing below that you know I think in today's time it is so easy to reach that metric in no time I mean like I remember I was in real estate and I was doing these digital campaigns and used to actually wait when this golden number will be achieved but today it happens like like this in no time so I think for me that's it's like an eye wash for me which I am very you know sort of you know a little away from I don't get easily I think apart from that the only thing I have a small hiccup is the fact that you know the kind of solutions are given to me are very you know copy based I mean like you know because you know he told me or say or I think it just works out on everybody I think so I think there has to be a specific narrative because I have seen so many partners coming in and the only thing that they changes on that is the Cisco logo now I'm sure they will go to somebody else and the only thing that will change is from Cisco logo to some other logo right so I think that's a small problem I have I think when you are coming and approaching for a partnership it needs to be like really thought through and very very relevant not exactly you know driven by only numbers and transactions and million metrics so that's where my response is absolutely true Mr. Pivari I want to know I think what I heard from Amit I think see the and that's what I always for possibly one thing which I agree with him this see this definition of ROI is very different from different image and I personally feel as a marketer it is not about return on investment it's about return on insights and return on innovation if you actually get a caveat only on investment then obviously it will be the lowest denominator and the highest denominator so that you can actually apply on any exit but I think when it comes to marketing and specifically when you talk about digital marketing and the space that you're talking about it needs to have the calibration every now and then what I used to do two weeks back may not be relevant today what I used to do for an X category may not be relevant for why otherwise there will be only one simple spreadsheet and you don't require so much of detailing and deliberation what you need to look for it so I think the entire market has to marry together whether we call it an ROI or whether you call it insights or innovation driven but the larger pieces in terms of how it is actually matching my objective of reaching the consumer getting the getting that acquisitions at the lowest minimum cost but the maximum impact that is what I would actually urge on this particular point. Mr. Anumari the points were raised that you know how agencies are pitching and with the same copy space model and how the 70-20-10 thing has changed. Tell me your side of the story especially when the budget allocation across multiple digital channels what has changed? I agree with Amit when he said the 70-20-10 was a typical ratio that we've all heard in this particular profession especially being a digital marketing right from day one of my profession I think I used to fight with my bosses especially with the CMOs I had to really convince them about why is it so important to put money on digital so the times have definitely changed I think we reward as marketeers about digital is not just an alien within the marketing ecosystem it is equally an equal brother or sister with an ATL or an ATL as you want to maybe tell us I think there is no specific logic for us to put X dollars here versus Y dollars there in HP I think what we try and do is and I think somebody also mentioned earlier is about what is the objective that you're running after I think that's for me is the most important part of the journey where I start if I'm looking at awareness as the core KPI or as the core objective I know that I need to make sure that I reach out to places where number one I find the right kind of audience is definitely somebody who will respond to what I'm trying to say I don't want to sort of beat around in the bush I don't want to hit the arrow in the dapper I know that it's just a black hole the money is going to go somewhere but I don't know what happens at the end of the day minus the fact that you will definitely get some impressions and so called clips and visits at the number I wish somebody within the industry could run a campaign on cost per quality visit for that I mean of course everybody runs a campaign called cost per visit somebody runs a campaign called cost per quality visit I would love to run campaigns with that publisher or with that organization so I think as we evolve in terms of understanding the customers the KPIs that we're running after should also change I mean it's not about how many views do you get or it's not about how many people do you reach out to I think those are all input metrics the more money that you put the more impressions that you get for your ads that you're showing so I think interactions I think I don't know I mean I'm still a sucker for how many people have actually viewed more than 75% of the video ads what your objective is so I think those are the few things that as an organization perspective we run after and we call them as fruitful KPIs on the other hand I also understand that it's important somehow in the country that we live in where we all talk about say and I'll give an example a classic example of say IPL minus the brand name and everything that I'm keeping in mind so you know for a fact that today if you try and leverage yourself on a platform like IPL you have no idea who you're reaching out to because today in India in the middle of 10 years versus a guy at the age of an old man at the age of 60 years everybody's watching cricket right I'm not sure whether and if I'm trying to reach out to an audience segment within 18 to 25 I'm not sure who's watching my ad I'm convinced with the fact that this audience is going to be a part of this overall audience who's watching the game because cricket today is a religion in the country and if I as a brand I'm jumping into it I'm sure so if we're today the ways to look at it is if I'm running out if I'm running after a certain specific KPI then you know objectives I don't think jumping out in the well with everybody is the right way to go about it you pick your battle see what you want to do convince your stakeholders I think it's one of the most important things to do today as a digital marketer is to convince your stakeholders and tell them what's right and what's wrong because you know from those times where that is the epitome of success today is not the case I just gave you an example of IPL you guys will watch IPL I'm sure count the number of ads that you see if you don't have a premium subscription and you will realize that every brand right from A to Z is part of cricket today because everybody wants to take an advantage yes true but are you getting your objectives and your KPI is fulfilled I'm not 100% sure about that so you will get a lot of accolades within your organization about the MDs of the world telling you that oh yes we were present on the biggest you know media moment today in the country but at the end of the day you know how many relevant people were you able to reach out and won those what those people are going to get you for your campaign right right what's the third team give me your so obviously with the limited budgets during a tough period and with the digital adoption increasing obviously the shifts in the the budget makes are quite heavily skewed towards the digital communication so the challenge for brands right now is to how to marry a great storytelling and finally getting into a conversion I think that is the challenge that we all are facing as marketers so storytelling which means building the brand at the various stages of the consumer digital journey as we as we call it these days and how are you aiding that storytelling in terms of getting a conversion and actually acquiring a lead so that's the that's the biggest challenge that we are facing and we have to work towards it in terms of the various touch points that we have digitally as well as offline I would not exclude offline from here at all because it's still a very very important part of the mix so we have to see that how the overall all-seamlessness of communication takes place which results in a consumer acquisition I think that's the biggest challenge and we have to understand very clearly define the objectives that our campaigns are designed for and measure those objectives in a very agile manner as I also mentioned earlier on a day-to-day basis and see what are the changes that we need to do so basically it's the creative challenge and the effectiveness challenge I think that is what we are facing right now and that is what we have to address right Mr. Arora to you when it comes to go-to marketing channels what are brands doing right what are they doing wrong what is your take on this I think I would talk about what they're doing right basically because I have a serious shift in the change people are especially marketing are much more insightful data is something that everybody is looking at whatever Mr. Samwari was talking about how MDs come back and they're saying this is what they require but we see there's a great shift that is prevailing in terms of the digital marketers they understand each and every data piece they understand what they would like to target what is their clear objective and what expectations that we have from a specific publisher so that's the reason you see a shift coming from the wall gardens to open web where it is very very clear and evident that the metrics is beyond reach it is talking about the right targeted audience it is also talking about right ROI the ROI could be views it could be any specific leads slash acquisition but in terms of awareness in terms of each funnel if I remember when you used to talk about a lot of marketers and brands talking about specific reach you used to get what Mr. Amit Sethi was talking about if you want to have reach one phase you can give you XYZ for example I don't know who name and publisher but generally so one publisher can give you immense reach but things are much beyond right now where people are talking about the full funnel approach they're looking at what right eyeballs visibility that they are getting as per the objective they require and that's a lot of it that idea of funnel is being dragged properly and the metrics is so clear that it is much easier for publisher like us to measure that to go back show that reports and make sure that it's like a space where like a win-win for both publisher as well as advertisers so that's the great shift that we have seen right so at this point I have some audience questions we have around 10 minutes left more than that I want to take the first question and start with you Mr. Sethi that what factors do you look at before choosing the right marketing rules what factors do I look at see there are couple of factors that are very crucial for us to consider before we decide as to which channel we are supposed to swing towards but more than anything else while we talk about those factors it is very important for us and these just typically are from the digital side actually because it gives you so many opportunities to go and create your narratives so I think that only thing that I look at is is it able to grab the attention of the consumer the end consumer that I am chasing within 3 seconds or not if it is able to do that I bet my money there and say let's go and try otherwise there are various other objectives that are looked at long format, short format etc these are the regular ways my point is I know for a fact that the attention span is actually coming down drastically there were days when we were talking about 10-15 seconds and today we are talking about 3 seconds imagine the decrease that has come to us now in terms of timelines so I think these are couple of things that we look at before we decide on to any marketing channel Mr. Wadi, there is another question I will combine the two so one is how do brands what are the best ways that brands can choose the right marketing tool and also with the festive season kicking in everybody is aggressive on promotion and a lot of good communication gets lost to this noise how can brands ensure that they reach their consumers heart despite all the noise around these two questions first come first is I think Rohil the bigger thing is before you choose a tool choose your objective tool will follow but you need to actually decide what the objective is there are empty number of tools that you can even list your entire particular listing of an excel will finish but what is the my affinated tool that I require for my objective even for one particular organization you may require 5 or 6 different tools depending upon what your objective is what happens is most often because tools technology sounds very fancy that adds a lot of which you call as a glamorous world called mark tech which adds a lot of glamour to the entire but your objective is not in terms of selection of the tool your objective is in terms of selection of objective that you need to fulfill you are responsible for a function your objective first tool can obviously decide what you need to do coming to the second question is yes there will be noise and obviously if you see the number of I don't remember the exact number but in actual calculation it is around close to 47% of the brands that have increased in the festival presence last year on digital as a platform this time it will be much more at least if not more 10% more than what we have last year how you can actually be is in terms of again getting into the right format that you need to be and I think I like one of the things that I was talking about and I think Adil was talking about is in terms of you can reach to end number of people but that particular reaches your particular reach or you want an affinity to reach for your particular audiences to build second thing it's the most important you have to be extremely creative not only from a creative standpoint of delivering a good creative but you need to be very creative in terms of delivering that good creative so that people can actually have if you are able to get one particular eyeballs to your creative second eyeball because the window is very less you hardly get a window from 35 40 days to actually exhibit what you need to be so these are my two bits of these two questions so thank you so much thank you Mr. Tiwari, Mr. Tiwari quickly to you both the questions marketing tool and then making your campaign still relevant and on top of the recall for the marketing tool front I think make data your best friend as a marketer I think there's nothing better than having the tons and tons of data that today you're sitting in that as an organization you can have the capability or make that infrastructure available for yourself I think there is a beautiful story that you can create from even one bit of small data point that you have for your customer right I mean that is something that at HB we try and strengthen ourselves for making sure that we have enough data and whatever data that we get all the decisions that we take is basis that data right so be your you know your sentiments be the past campaigns that you've done be your search trends be your spends for that matter like you will have all that data available for you to utilize and I think once you have that the kind of decision making that you can do basis that and it's not about a specific tool or you know about a specific vehicle I think for that matter if the data tells you to just do email marketing trust me it will work for you right so don't be a fashionista don't be somebody who likes to it's just about buying a really fancy car but not investing enough in the driver right so buy the data I'm sorry I mean spend more in creating that infrastructure that can give you a better result for your campaigns number one number two on the storytelling part is what I initially said right I think at one point in time all of us had this question about long format video and all of us were after running after do a 10 second do a 12 second you know because nobody has time we are slightly different from that perspective if the story is good people will make time right they will definitely that's what we realize in the past couple of years both those videos were more than three minutes right we've gotten a great response on it so don't worry about what the world tells you in terms of you know shorter format and this and that I mean it also beautifully said right unless you try it you will never realize that it's working out for you right so try those long formats work on you know a great communication an engaging communication the storytelling and I guarantee you it will work for you Mr. sir quick question so I would definitely second what Mr. Sanwari was saying and what we need to do very clearly is that we need to have a very powerful creative that is definitely there and that creative should reflect the sentiments that the consumer is right now experiencing and that is extremely important and when we are talking about festivities it has to reflect the overall consumer sentiments so the brand should leverage and be a part of the consumers life rather than you know giving them some kind of a communication which may or may not be reflecting the sentiments of the consumer so that is definitely one and the second in terms of the tool selection of course I mean you need to set your objectives clear KPIs and keep on fine tuning the plan continuously for the next say there is a window of 45 days you need to be really agile in terms of understanding the mix of the digital channel which one is giving you the right objective delivery and which one is more expensive which is giving you more efficiency you need to know all these things very clearly and the data is there for you to see specifically in digital communication and do your tweaks so that you optimize your ROI so that's the approach that we need to take Perfect Mr. Arora quickly to you on this part of standing out and getting noticed amidst the noise that festive promotions have what are your two bits about it? I think going forward this festive season I think more about telling than selling so storytelling to the right audience I like this wonderful storytelling to the right audience at the right time at the right place is the key I believe content will play a very important role in this decision life cycle everyone is so tired of watching screens these days so the right content recommendation is I think will be the new king of this festive season where you need to hit hard and hit at right time to right audience because as I said everybody so tired because your entire decision cycle is you're searching on mobile you're searching on desktop and then you're buying it online itself so journey has to be so you touch this with them get the right ball at right context and then close it Right Perfect my final question to all of you is that what is the digital market as we are part of this discussion who are listening to us right now to everyone one closing thought that you would like to share with them are starting with you to stay here One closing thought ok so it would be very simple before you are a marketer you are a customer so please ensure you wear your customer hat before you decide anything that's it Wonderful I think before a digital marketer you are a marketer and for that your consumer decision journey should match to your consumer digital journey if these two are actually talking to each other your job is done Wonderful Mr. Hanwari I think it's my personal experience and I think I would urge all the digital marketers today to sort of adhere to it is don't run after this entire sham of digital is a very fast word and you should keep changing creatives keep amending your plans every now and then it doesn't work out like that give it at some time it will happen you will get to know in a few days whether it's working or not don't let anybody convince you about the fact that you keep changing creatives every day and it's going to work wonders for you it does not work wonders for anybody for that matter My two bits will be matching content to intent so basically segment the consumer journey devise your creatives as per the the stages of awareness interest, desire and action and follow a systematic path understanding the consumer sentiments at each stage and providing him the right inputs so that he can take the right decision I think that's the key Lovely content and intent and telling worth the telling I mean wonderful and finally to you Mr. Rohra final thoughts I think the full final approach as with Mr. Dhar was talking about so looking at from a visibility perspective coming down to the entire purchase perspective it is very important for every marketer and everybody even from publisher side is to look at that perspective very closely and master it out so that everybody is learning right now we have to learn, relearn, evolve and then keep doing it so I think the second option is I would say it's going to be innovation experimental innovation for during test season where people behavioural are changing, people are trying to so for example there's a concept called reverse tourism where people are suddenly going out so we see behavioural is going in different directions altogether so it is very very important from my perspective to keep innovating, keep experimenting with the stuff especially digital because it's very dynamic what Adu will say so that I think holds to and this should be the key for this festive season Thank you so much Thank you Mr. Dithya Mr. Tiwari, Mr. Sanwari, Mr. Dhar Mr. Rohra I'm sure that a lot of the audience has I mean taken away a lot of critical insight as we enter the festive mood and we will continue our efforts to bring in more such virtual for now round table where we have experts with us Thank you everyone for joining us today and we hope to see you soon Thank you so much everyone It was a fabulous introduction Thank you everyone Have a nice evening