 Good evening. Thank you for joining us on a nice sunny Tuesday evening here in Mumbai. I don't know how the weather in Delhi and Bangalore is. Let me welcome my panelists before I introduce the topic. We have with us today Uma Talreja. Uma, as many of you know, is the Customer Care Associate Chief Marketing and Customer Officer for Shopper Stop. Welcome Uma. Thanks for joining us. Prachi Mohapatra, whom many of you know, is the Industry face of FPB, Passion Big Bazaar, CMO of FPB. Thank you Prachi. Thank you for being part of the conversation today. Khatija Lokhandwala, Deputy General Manager, Marketing Zivame. Khatija, as I've just come to know, is based in Bangalore. So hello from Mumbai Khatija and thank you for joining us. Spanel, Dr. Ipshita Chatterjee, Head Innovation Development and Brand Strategy, Lotul Herworlds, a very interesting brand that has really done wonders over the last few years. Thank you Ipshita for joining us again. Thank you for inviting me. And last but not least, the gentleman on the panel, Ayushman Chiranewala, Head of Product and Marketing Fast Track Titan Company Limited. Thank you Ayushman for being part of the panel. As many of you know who have joined us already, what we are here to discuss today is the impact COVID has had and is going to have as we move along on the fashion and lifestyle industry. And just before we got into this conversation, we were discussing how the fashion and lifestyle industry is a very large umbrella of many segments within it. And what we'll try to do is, we'll try to slice these segments and look at the top three, four segments and the impact COVID is happening having on these segments and how, what is the outlook for these industries more so from a consumer standpoint, then from a point of view of the impact on the businesses themselves. And last but not the least, the impact this will have on the marketing business and hence spends on media. The few grounds, four or five bucket items that I'd like to cover during this conversation is the impact of economy and consumer sentiment. And as we all know, that has been decimated over the last few months, economy is kind of right now, still into a downward curve. There are a lot of projections on when things will pick up, but the jury is still out on that. Let's see how it pans out. Very importantly, the fashion and lifestyle industry is very deeply integrated into what happens in the retail space. And as we all know, retail in many, many cities is yet to open up. Retail in India was shot for a good part of three months. It is gradually opening, but large parts of the country still don't have physical retail open. And it has very severe impact on the fashion and lifestyle industry. So what is the impact of retail? How the future of retail will change post COVID? How does and what this has done lack of physical retail, it has given the acceleration of e-commerce more impetus in the last few months. And e-commerce, as we all know, is a multifaceted platform where it's not just how you manage your distribution, it is also about how you build your brands, how you're competing with smaller brands. So how does the strengthening of e-commerce play out over the next few years as businesses start picking up again? It makes e-commerce companies stronger. What is the impact it has on brand building? Then we'd also like to look at long-term impact of COVID, the trends that were already happening pre-COVID and how they get accelerated. Also very importantly in this entire conversation is the China factor. As we all know, many industries including the fashion, lifestyle industry depends hugely on imports from China. And now with India having border tensions with China, imports not going to be that easy. What is the impact this will have? Last but not the least, we'll also touch upon specifically the beauty industry. Why I say that is there have been very interesting case studies in the past, which have showcased that parts of the beauty industry have actually grown significantly post, slow downs and post natural disasters. So is that going to be the case here also? And how will this face of beauty industry change? So with that ground, let me start the conversation. Let me first jump to Uma Talreja from Shopper Stop. Uma, malls and retail outlets were shut for many months. How are things picking up now? Are things coming back to normalcy across the various stores? Thanks, Naul. So I think of course the beginning of lockdown, everything was shut, right? And here is where we saw that all of us had to jump on the digital bandwagon fairly quickly. And I'm sure most friends would have done that just like Shopper Stop did as well. So that was the beginning of lockdown, much more focus on online, much more focus on WhatsApp selling, etc, etc. But now stores are open. It's been a few weeks since all stores are open across the country. I think you see some different patterns which are now emerging. So we've also been in the parallel segment. All brands are also on end of season sale since August. And that is giving definitely a little bit of boost to the otherwise demand that would have been there. And you do see people coming back to stores. I think they differ during between regions. So where the COVID penetration is probably lower and the impact is lower like small towns, definitely the North and Delhi, tier two, tier three markets. I think these are where we are seeing customers are actually coming back. And we are back to maybe the growth of about 45 to 40% in these markets of what it was last year. It's in the other markets like West for sure, Bombay, Pune, some part of South, which is still slow. Maybe we are at about 50% of what we used to be, 40 to 50% depending on the store. On August or this is cumulative from April and August? I'm talking about August, September now. I think before that it was zero and maybe went up to 25 to 30% at some point in time. So I think that's really where it is. We also see some differences in the type of people who are coming to the store, our average age of visitors in the store has definitely fallen. That's one pattern that we see that suddenly more of our younger customers are coming in. We also see new customers coming in. So while in the past, we have seen a very heavy penetration of our loyalty base, which still does exist. We do still have a very high penetration of our loyalty base. But now we are seeing newer customers walk in and then mostly from the two kilometer catchment where we see new customers are coming into the stores as well. I think everybody is creating a preference within the neighborhood instead of going far and that's something that everybody can leverage to their advantage depending on where they are based and where the stores are based. I think therefore it does seem to be picking up, but it's a situation which is very delicate. One doesn't really know how the cases will explode and therefore what you will need to do next. I think one will have to as marketing stay agile. You have to keep your ears to the ground and then react. Digital has become extremely important because that is not as affected. Though the demand is definitely overall consumption is affected, but digital I think seems to have certain grounds and there is a possibility to attract youth. There is a huge potential to actually do essentials etc also. But then unlock has taken place. We have seen people move out of essentials into discretionary categories as well. I think there are some changes which are definitely there. One can't say how these will progress, but it does look like we are moving to a slightly better festive than we imagine. If the COVID is under control and if we see that trend of cases being kind of controlled and we are on a reasonably better track than one had thought. That's good to hear. Prachi, what's your sense? You also are part of a large brand that is very dependent upon retail sales. Does your experience say something similar? I mean, Uma actually summarized it very aptly for most of us out there. See, the difference that we come across as a brand since we also exist within a hyper market is primarily there is a lot of push which happens from our existing base which comes for shopping for essentials as well. And also look at the price point we operate in. They're a mass brand. So for us it becomes far more easier to get footfalls inside the stores. From a price point of competitiveness, that's a plus plus for us. We enjoy a few things that we have seen as apart from the macroeconomics changing the entire footfall structure inside the brand. A few things that we have seen inside the store is also a lot of change in product mix. And I'll come to the beauty industry later. Come, let me address the fashion part of the business first. A lot of it came back to essentials or a lot of it came back to what you are wearing to represent a space like this. So most of us are on our phones or on our laptops throughout the day. So what we have seen is there is a lot of propensity to buy a cookie, a lot of propensity to buy a t-shirt, high surge on sleepwear as well as shorts. These are products which you'll see and I'm sure all of us are experiencing this primarily because of what is being utilized at home. The idea was never to have a focus on a certain category. So for example, a kid's category. Kids have grown during this past three months. The first time when we actually saw fashion opening up kids actually grew up in sizes. So that became an essential, that became a pent up requirement for any parent to actually meet at that point of time. And that was what was first addressed. I'm sure Khadija has a whole story to tell about lingerie and innerwear. That's something that we also experienced. These are these are categories which suddenly saw a boom. So yeah, a few is a few surprises. And of course as lockdown is actually opening up in certain parts of the country. That's how you see the pattern increase or decrease. For example, Kolkata went into a lockdown yesterday. So suddenly you see a blip in the sales of certain part of the country because of certain lockdown going into it. So that yeah, these are surprises. These are experiences that most of us as fashion brands are experiencing. Yes, I mean that's absolutely relevant. And a lot of business leaders have expressed apprehension about regional lockdowns having a negative impact on opening up. But I guess the way situation is we'll have to keep living with it for some more time. Khadija, what's your experience of unlock and the category that you guys operate in? How is the unlock kind of happening from a consumer purchase standpoint? So one thing that's been very interesting for us now is that Zivami is an only channel player which is significant in the e-commerce space and we also have retail stores. And just before the lockdown happened, the thought would have been maybe lingerie sales would go down now. Why would one need to actually purchase a lingerie? But we've all been surprised at the kind of demand that we've seen on lingerie. People are not only shopping for basic styles which really score high on comfort, but we've seen demand for strapless bras, for push-up bras, for shape pair that actually you would think that you would only buy it because you're stepping out. But consumers have actually indulged and shopped in these categories and feel good to look good and to dress up for themselves. Two other categories that we've seen a big jump in, one was sleep pair. I think earlier there was a trend where consumers would end up wearing their old outerwear clothes asleep. And sleep pair has seen a complete transformation on account of this lockdown. It's been seen as a very serious category as a category which requires a lot of thought. It offers comfort and style both and consumers are actively shopping for sleep pair and looking for prints and colors that kind of add excitement to their lives. Active wear is the other big category that really saw a surge. Health wellness has become a priority for most of us on account of the situation. Taking a conscious call of actually working out and making exercise a part of our daily routines. I think a lot of consumers have taken up quite seriously and are looking for gear, the right kind of gear to be worn while they're working out. So all the categories that we were actually present in saw a really good surge and we've not seen a kind of a drop in demand. After the lockdown actually got over, demand came back quite robustly and we see it sustained month after month. Even in the retail front, while of course foot fails where falls were low. In the last 15 to 20 days, we've seen about 70% of the consumer foot falls coming back to the stores. Fantastic. That's good to hear because I think that's a very positive thing and this is what is happening in early September. Once we are well into the festive season around October, November, I'm sure things will be even better. Ipshita, let me come to you. You belong to a very interesting category within the larger umbrella of fashion and lifestyle. And as I was mentioning at the start, beauty products have seen a kind of very different trajectory of growth as compared to the rest of the parts of fashion. What has been the experience of Lotus herbal similar to what's happened in the past downturns that people buy, splurge more on beauty products. Right. So let me explain in detail. First of all, initially like any other industry, our industry was also under hiccups. In fact, according to statistics, beauty is in actually the top 10 industries, which have been negatively impacted because in beauty, there are daily needs and then there are luxury needs as well. So of course, certain product categories did see a step set back. However, beauty has become more holistic, more approachable. And like I would like to carry it forward from Katija where she said that wellness is a very important part of our lifestyle these days, whether working out and similarly in beauty, holistic wellness, holistic beauty has come forward. It's a very, very strong point. Also, as I said earlier, that was the lipstick effect where people during economic turn downs or calamities used to indulge in little luxuries, which used to make them happy, which was lipsticks. And in the past, if you go back to the early 1900s, which is 1929 to 1933, the Great Depression 2008 recession, natural calamities, people do indulge in lipstick effect, the shopping of lipsticks. However, now the contrary purview is that during the lockdown and even post the lockdown and the unlock period, you are muscled in mass all the time. So how would a lipstick stay relevant till now? So another interesting phenomena which has come forward is actually the eyeliner effect. And as human beings, nonverbal communication, whether between two individuals or between communities, whether we are doing a zoom call, or we are meeting people face to face with nonverbal communication forms a very important part of a human life. So, you know, with the mask here, only the eye part is exposed. And that's why you see a surge of products related to the eyes and beauty. So as I said, beauty industry has a lot of options and opportunities in products. Also, another product opportunity that is opened up for the beauty industry is safe beauty and safe essentials. Soap is the new hero, shower washes are the new hero, disinfection is the new hero. So safe beauty essentials all have become a very important part. So that's why, you know, Albert Einstein had once said, the measure of intelligence is actually the ability to change. I would say that, you know, beauty industries are very intelligent industry because the product opportunities are innumerable. And also beauty is so well knit in our communities that it's impossible to, you know, turn down on products. And at Lotus, we have one product for every economic group. We are a group of beauty brands. We have so many beauty brands with us. And of course, our latest acquisition in the holistic wellness segment, which has changed the face of beauty forever. Ayurveda, Ayurvedic beauty has become very, very important. And that's why our latest acquisition, which is Soul Tree, which is a very premium Ayurvedic brand and talks about mindful beauty, conscious consumption of beauty. That's that's how beauty with the purpose. You're bang on. This is an industry that assaults skin tone products to men. Maybe now it's time to encourage men to start using eyeliners. They do. They do. They do. They do in many countries. Let me come to you Aishman. Aishman, you're in a category which in many ways is not really an essential product, right? And the three months of lockdown would have hit the category really hard. How are you seeing the unlock impacting your business or sales also picking up as much as, you know, some of the other brands are done or you're still waiting for green shoots to be visible. So you're absolutely right. I think they're clearly in a non essential space. Watch has been a core for fast track, followed by the other accessories that they're into the entire summer season. I mean, sun sunglasses is another very big category for us and fast tracks, one of the largest brands. But the entire summer people were at home, right? And there were really no avenues to go out and buy. So of course, there was clear impacts in in terms of the lockdown. Having said that, I think what the lockdown also allowed us to do is we could actually spend the time to understand what impact is it having on our customers and what are the kind of categories or what are the kind of sub segments that are likely to emerge for us to capitalize on. And so a few of the nuances I'd like to bring to people's attention and I think Khatija just spoke about it is that so we clearly found that sports and healthy living is becoming a very important thing, right? Fitness. So a lot of people were really into fitness and fitness brands saw one of the first upsurges, right? When the unlockdown happened. The other good part that actually fast track has and that works for us is we have a multi, we have a multi channel approach. So we actually sell across multiple channels. We have our own stores. We have online where the largest on most of the market places. And we already had our only play. But of course, like you mentioned in the beginning, we clearly made it much more heightened. And now we are almost 80% of our stores are only enabled. And we have an MDO channel. We have the large format store channels to the shoppers and the lifestyles of the world, of course. So each of those channels were impacted differently, right? And some of them are still recovering for us. And some of them have recovered to pre COVID levels and actually growing for us, right? So without getting the specifics of which channels, I'm sure all of us are aware that online would have kicked up and really worth wonders. So the great part is that we saw most of these consumer behaviors, which we were seeing any which ways just really heightened and speed up for us, right? So the unlocked actually when the unlockdown happened, we really saw many of these speed up. And during the lockdown, we could prepare well for it is what is what I would say. Right. That's good to hear. Let me now come to an important aspect of the discussion. What we've seen during the lockdown, as all of you have mentioned in some way or the other, digital commerce, e-commerce has become an even more important part of pick up of growth. What has happened also is that that's one channel of distribution through which sales have gone up significantly. What I'd like to know from you since most of you come from a marketing background is that how does that impact your brand over a longer run? And the reason I ask is for, is because price discovery e-commerce is very convenient. Like Prachi said, it is searches have gone up significantly. Brand affinity pulls the consumer into an e-commerce platform or to your own website onto the digital media. But when it comes to buying online, you have to compete far more fiercely with another brand which is offering a lower price point which has very slight innovation either in product or in messaging. So in many ways, unlike a retail store where if a consumer has come in to buy a certain brand, very high chances are that he'll go back with the same brand. Whereas on e-commerce, once the consumer is into the store, the chances of him buying a brand go down because there's so much more on offer. So as marketers, how does this impact your business? Looking out 24 months, what are the things you will be doing differently from what you've done over the last two years? Maybe since we are with you, Ayushman, we can start with you. Sure. Yeah. So now actually, for us, e-commerce has always been a very important channel. So we are really targeted at the youth. So 18 to 21 being our core audience, e-commerce was seeing significant double digit growth even pre-lockdown. So like I said, now it's become a lot more heightened, a lot more people buy online. So some of the mantras that we've used to actually be successful pre as well as currently have really been stuff like getting your content, knowing who's the audience that you're trying to appeal to. And the facts which you mentioned about the fact, I mean, what Ecom does for you is it really flattens the world. So if somebody is entering the category, he's actually seeing everything that possibly is for to offer. And you really need to fight for a differentiation, all the premium that you're going to charge for. With those facts, I think, of course, having strong brands work for you, having sharply positioned brands work for you. But there are still mixed of customers. Some customers are possibly more price sensitive. Some customers are possibly looking for newer offerings, improvement in technology and so on and so forth. So it's really for you to decide that which of those customer buckets you're going to go after and how are you going to convert there. I see that, I mean, so what Ecom did for us actually say, if I talk about what watches category, it really bought a lot of unbranded players onto the branded field of market places where similar looking watches are available for one 10th, maybe one fifth of the price. But we actually noticed something very unique. We were actually wondering that maybe there is no reason for people to come and buy you or buy the brand and pay so much of premium. But we really realized that that customer who's buying those brands are really the value conscious customer who was never really your base to begin with. So it is really the unbranded guys who are still going there and buying. Possibly, they are buying it for the convenience that the Ecommerce platform provides them and they're going for those unbranded players. But our play remains within the branded segment. So you are still competing with your branded competition, which you would possibly find in other channels like the shoppers and so on and so forth. And they're really the differentiations that you talk about, which was already the part of the core offering is how you stand out and you convert is what I would say. I think the original core principles of brand building stay true. Naturally, you have to compete more fiercely. You have to, you know, adopt new channels of communication, especially more content also positioning. Prachi, what's your experience of doing a lot of e-commerce selling as opposed to retail sales? Here's the thing. For us, whatever stage of digital maturity we were in, we just had to notch up ourselves and go definitely deeper into this space as Uma was right mentioning. There was no other choice for any of us retail or brick and mortar brands. Here's two things that we observe. See, when you have a customer inside the store, you have a captain, know that he or she is definitely going to invest in something inside the square footage area that he has stepped into. While e-commerce is a very different ball game altogether. You have deals going on. You have brands which are there. You have look-alikes, which we as brands also follow and we get followed as brands also. So definitely that's a space where you have two, two and a half seconds of attention span of a customer. So two things that we have done very, very specifically as a brand is we definitely have sliced down the cohorts that we speak to. That's going to be, as Ayushvan mentioned, that's going to be one of the space, even if you're a value brand or a luxury brand or a prestige brand, you should know what is it that you're running for? What is the interest set that you are running for? That's very clearly defined for us and it's not only about me as a brand. We have all as a brand. We have brand factory as a brand. All these formats have their specific target segments that we speak to. Hence for us, we have seen our conversion rates being very, very strong. Our tax have been strong for this. Definitely the searches that depth has gone up. You're looking forward to acquiring newer customers, customers who have not or have flirted with your brand or have flirted with look-alikes at some point in time and you're going to be sharper about acquiring these customers. So that definitely has helped us to build our e-com business. Here's the thing for us, all of us knew that Omnichannel was the way. For us, we just got pushed into this entire space faster than anybody anticipated. Actually, the ball started rolling faster than ever before in the situation that we actually found ourselves in. So yeah, it has been a fairly balanced mix of what we have been observing and our online sales definitely have moved upwards on a stronger growth than the pre-COVID time. Offline sale is definitely yet to catch up at a faster pace. Huma, do you think discounting will play an even bigger role in lives of brands like yours and what is the impact you see that having on brand values, things that we've spoken about that really first pulls the consumer in? I think firstly, we don't have a variable discounting policy between offline and online. So what you experience in the store is what you will see online. The second thing is, I think during lockdown, what we have done is we've been quick on the ball to launch a lot of online friendly brands. We've launched close to 150 new brands on our online channel in the last two to three months and that has helped us to actually widen the catalog online beyond obviously a very wide catalog which a department store like ours would actually have to offer. From a discounting perspective, we don't see that as a key strategy because we're still sitting at the premium end of the market and like Ayushman mentioned that we do have a branded play and we have seen watches grow, premium watches grow, we have seen fragrances as a category group, we have seen premium beauty as a category group, we have seen skincare grow, men's grooming has grown and there is a definite move not just towards let's say yes, there are people buying essentials and people buying what they need but there's a definite move towards premiumization which is also visible because it's not just about the lipstick effect moving to the eyeliner effect, it's really about what makes you feel good and what are you going to invest in at this point in time with the money that you have available. So I think that is one definite area. The second is if we go back and look at the audiences, we already have a very large audience because we're talking of stores between our stores, department stores because the entire Google SEO order network which belongs to us on the ground as well as other stores like home stores that we have and we have crossword stores. We already have a core audience base which is very very large already knows the brands we've been in business for 25 to 30 years right. So there is already a need for those to actually serve what they want from a favorite and a trusted brand like ours where the merchandise is authentic and it is guaranteed to be authentic in these categories where we know that branded has a lot of furious penetration in the market as well and that plays to our advantage where we have the audience as well as the trust as credentials, I think that's the important thing. As far as discounting goes, I don't think I would call it discounting but yes one needs to be exciting, one needs to be compelling and one needs to have the correct kind of promotions and therefore having that calendar of events, themes, what are those main campaigns that you really want to run which actually excite people is very important. Our Instagram has been active like never before. We are doing live events continuously. We know we see that actually driving traffic to our site and actually helping us to grow the category as well. We can't really say that you want to compete with the markdowns on more horizontal player let's say but I don't think the horizontal player is also discounting the same product. There is a difference between what you're liquidating and old season. I think over a period of time that gap will also narrow because you will find that the brands also will not be able to necessarily afford the kind of margins to have that kind of variable deep discounting in the market. That's the first thing. I don't think brands will be able to afford to do that and neither will the horizontals do it anymore because there is a natural wave and an organic growth towards digital firstly so there's no need to be value accruative anymore for acquisition. It's only about actually fair market play and where do you really want to actually strategize and where do you want to position yourself, which audience in which categories and what type of brands and I think every brand has its own place for that in India. What's your experience Katija? Does discounting play any role? Especially I'm talking COVID times of course in normal times you do seasonal discounting in some cases other cases you don't know but COVID times is that a good strategy to follow and what is the impact it has you know what is the impact it leaves on the brand? Honestly I'll tell you consumers have actually become very very brand loyal in the last few months right. They want to stick to brands that they trust because there are concerns you know on safety hygiene and they want to you know buy into brand they're familiar with. Yeah exactly exactly. So this is actually a time for brands to build loyalty rather than go the discounting route. I think brands that you know very clearly communicate the kind of value that they add to consumers life both functionally and emotionally are the ones that resonate the most. Honestly I believe consumers are willing to pay up you know price for the products if they know that there's real value which is being added and I do not think that discounting you know maybe you know is something that would convince consumers to come into your brand even in the COVID times. That's right. I think that's a very relevant point and consumers are looking for you know the comfort of you know having interacted with the brand of knowledge and trusting the brand you know to travel. If I can use that word. Ipsita Lotus Herbal has been around for a while. You operate in many categories. Discounting I'm guessing is not really a strategy you follow but the category is intense competitive. It is intensely fierce and brands across the entire category are doing severe discounting. So how does that impact you know beauty as a business? Beauty as a business in totality of course with new brands coming up every now and then has impacted the business of other brands which have recently come up but for a brand like Lotus we have a legacy of 30 years. We have a portfolio of brands which covers from every aspect you can imagine. So our brand umbrella our distribution is so much that people recognize us with experience with safety with assurance like Khatija was telling I would like to take a cue from that. You know brand emotion experience is something which which can never be accounted for. That's why discounting by any other brand in the same space like you said it's become a very competitive space. Lots of brands are coming every now and then. They are doing fabulous work but I've always maintained that you need to stay through your commitment to your brand. You need to tell your own story and that's why discounted doesn't really impact us at all. What impacts us is our innovation and that's what Lotus is always known for. We are resilient. We are very very adaptable. So no matter what the situation is today it's COVID maybe something tomorrow or maybe better tomorrow as well. We are always prepared because of our innovation. So that's that's how we stand an edge. We stand above the rest and that's why discounted doesn't really matter for us. I would say that. Let me now come to a slightly expanded and larger timeline. We've discussed the impact of COVID and how things are opening up and perhaps how things will be over the festive season and a little beyond. The economy is still you know kind of growing in stutters so to say. The impact of government sort of push impact of consumers starting to spending will take time to play out. Two years out or let me rephrase the question. How long do you think for the industry to get back to normalcy and when I say normalcy it's a very you know very very wide term when I mean to say normalcy. There's an extra revenue that was done in the last financial year to 2019 2020 and things have fallen off the cliff this year of course will be the on a annualized basis a year of degrowth. Are we looking at things getting back to the same base of index 12 months from now 24 months from now 36 months from now. How far is that? Yeah so basically if you say that you know I would say definitely time period of about 12 to 24 months it's what we anticipate to get back to what we were in the last year but of course in our category. Yeah in our category however the things have become uphill for us ever since the lockdown has happened and also at the same time post lockdown also things are becoming better. The major challenges I told you during the lockdown period and that's why the growth stopped at that point of time was because of logistics nothing else. So logistics and containment zones and the kind of delivery partners you're working with with the travel restrictions all that came into play otherwise we as a brand also our supply chain by the way is completely in India so from concept to commercialization everything is homegrown so nothing was problematic for us apart from logistics and delivery partners. Apart from that that's where the major setback was and now things opening up unlock is happening so I don't see it in a very dismal situation from now it's growing day by day. Uma what's your sense if you are looking out for years how long will it take for you to you know on an annualized basis get back to the same levels? I think retail if you have to separate out it's one doesn't know because it all depends on the vaccine and one doesn't know what's going to really happen but things are picking up slowly but surely yes I think a lot of us will have to adopt strategies where we compensate for that loss in growth through digital and I think digital will play out in multiple ways so it is going to be about digital retailing it's not just about the website it's not just about the app but it's of other things as well. So we've seen adoption of WhatsApp in a very big way we allow people now and you know we have facilitated payments through WhatsApp our personal shoppers are on WhatsApp driving sales and that's a channel which is delivering well for us and is only going to grow. We now have other areas of our business which are actually adopting digital channels like that. We for example have a lounge service which you can book an appointment with a personal shopper and shop we also have appointment shopping within the store we have queue list shopping within the store we have contact list shopping I think it's going to be about digital retail and that adoption will take some time and if I have to give a analogy it's like let's say in travel I think there will be some people and segments which will be first of the block so business travelers will be first of the block people who have the money who can actually spend on their extra half seat will be first of the block similarly there will be people who know who who's like they stood in the apple queue because they wanted to get there first there will be people who will be first of the block for retail as well and it is about capturing that share in the market being relevant to them at that point in time and making it safe making it comfortable and making it exciting in a new way I think that's going to be very important one can't say if this is one year or two years it has been very fluid already and right now looks like yes things are slowly emerging to be coming out of the docks I would say it's not that it's coming back to normal but yes it's at least coming out of where it was but one can't really predict in my view whether it's going to take a year or two years it really depends on how the virus shapes let me ask you an add-on question under the umbrella of categories that you operate which are the few categories it's good to know that you know sales are coming back 50 60 percent now in store sales are back and obviously you're absolutely right digital will have to increasingly now compensate for loss in retail sales but which are the categories in the larger umbrella of you know businesses you operate in which are fundamentally changed you know whose future is fundamentally changed you're not sure even after three years whether those categories will have you know similar sales that that happened say last year yeah sure I think one of the categories which was already on a decline was formal where and I think that's going just even further on a decline right for sure so that's one category where I think the overall behavior adoption of that category itself is changing any which ways it was seeing a much lower adoption it had gone more to financial services and things like that so that's definitely one category which is impacted occasion where is another category which is very much impacted so your whether it is your fine finer rather not I would not say investment let fine jewelry but really occasion where jewelry occasion where Indian where all of those kind of aspects I think that's the second category which is definitely impacted I think there is also some amount of you know what you call women's dresses party where etc which is which are seen as an impact and the same impact is seen on kids occasion where which was more for birthday parties and things like that so anything which was related to large gathering outings etc that's another category which is impacted and there might be conditioning that comes in right because even as things come back to normal right I think the adoption of newer ways to dress I think how minimalist you can be is going to also change especially because more and more you're spending time at home and with home becoming a sanctuary how you actually treat your wardrobe will also change right because there's only that much space that you will have and there's only how you will manage that is going to become very important so I think these categories will definitely see an impact but I also see that other categories might see an advantage it's the beauty has a very significant advantage home as a very very significant advantage athletics footwear comfort shoes all of those categories which are going towards healthier life and a healthier lifestyle active lifestyle which is managed from whom etc as well as you know limited areas of outdoor for example that's going to definitely see an advantage kids is a very big category because there's too much restraint on their life and you know Prachi mentioned that as well I see a significant advantage over this and how does it change the marketing mix let me ask you a direct question what happens to your marketing spends next year I think yeah we had already started moving much more as a percentage towards digital that continues to be on track I think print is under severe pressure and will continue to be under severe pressure because it will finish down the category yeah so that is definitely going to be a change and I think behaviors are going to change right because you know people will adopt I have already adopted to digital channels right in terms of consumption of content etc so that's one mix for sure in terms of percentage to spends overall I think I see it a little differently while our value of marketing in terms of the overall spend might go down a bit I think we are all going to be spending much more as a percentage to sales so in the overall PNL I think marketing is going to get a larger focus I think demand generation is going to be extremely important because there's only going to be that much in the market and how much you can pull towards yourself I think that's that's going to be critical and therefore I see less pressure from CFOs on CMOs to actually reduce marketing I think the cost pressure will come on other areas in the PNL that's right and as you rightly said percentage of marketing spend versus sales that will remain intact but the unfortunate reality is if sales are down marketing spends in absolute terms are likely to come down Prachi what's your sense on this this year of course marketing spends are going to be significantly down will they recover well enough next year well I'll just take the back and from Uma and Ibshita and just stress on the fact that you know print is as as Uma mentioned is absolutely seeing a different kind of propensity to getting spent on and same goes for something like an outdoor coatings we as as fashion brands were known to flirt with holdings like how that's not going to stay true for a really long time people have strong people have reduced stepping out your interaction with an outdoor medium has reduced so that's not a very smart way to spend for any market bear for any brand manager at this point in time so that's going to definitely see a step back what's going to be definitely spent on is see all of us are on our phones on our laptops most of the time and that's where we get hounded as as customers also and that's where a marketer is going to look for a bank for the fund and that's that's something that most of us are also chasing the mix is going to definitely skew towards digital towards getting sales towards getting the protocols the traffic back to your platforms to your product at any point of time when is it going to come back to any kind of pre normalcy I don't want to say that the situation is going to go back to what it was previous when this virus hit us there will be a different kind of normal which we'll see and there will be a different kind of marketing strategy which we will put across we will have a different marketing mix all together we as customers have changed our consumption style apart from what Uma mentioned on fashion I think one category which has seen a very different kind of consumption is grocery I'm sure most of this econ platform through a sound trying themselves for saying we have a grocery shopping with us live since the past two years how we have started consuming groceries or essentials during this time period actually screams louder than how we actually before COVID all of us went to a Kirana stop or all of us went to a hypermarket all of us went to a department store and we would love to feel the product in in our hand before we actually converted the final sale that's not going to happen anymore that's how that's not the essentials are going to be on the click of a button essentials are going to be a plug side pickup essentials are going to be something which has just seen a sea change how we are consuming the second point that and she also mentioned is how beauty as a as a category has seen a lot of changes and consumption as well you know products like face washes were always dominant in the skin care segment it actually multiplied further products which were which were which were which were something like like like a base a primer has seen a step back at this point to time when you have a less use of makeup as as a whole then definitely primer has taken a step back when you are going out less a product like a foundation has taken a step back but skin care has come before personal care has come before body care has come before these are these are the these are the newer way of consumption and whether this will stay or not is also your guess is as good as mine we've seen changes by the minute here after after a certain point of time if there is a positive sentiment flowing in there is a there is a there is a magic bond which we see the virus is being controlled then definitely the consumption pattern will differ from what it is. Ayushman how much lesser money are you looking to spend this year and will you give more money to media next year? I mean if I just talk about it annually I didn't spend much in quarter one right so I'm of course going to spend a lot a lot lesser having said that I think I personally and I would say maybe all of us at Titan also are slightly more optimistic about the future and there's no real reason behind it because like everybody mentioned on the panel that it's really on the on the vaccine and so on and so forth but what we also believe truly is that I think more and more customers by the day are getting are getting I mean they're getting comfortable with the new normal okay so that's why we see more and more people stepping out and hence quarter four is when we say that we are likely to be possibly at last year's levels so I mean I'm talking about as early as this year you're talking Jan Maat yes yes Jan too much so so clearly next year is when we would like to possibly be as as we were last year right so so that is the outlook that we are preparing ourselves right and that goes across a value value chain like I said I mean maybe it's a more optimistic you're talking about fast track or you're saying yes no I'm talking about fast track in specific and it is primarily also because of the fact that our audiences are possibly just really steaming up to let out you know because they're they're they're locked at homes there are no colleges you know schools they're all on the laptops and the systems through the day for their e-learning classes so they're really waiting for an avenue and we really feel that this festive season is going to be a big trigger because I think parents are getting more lenient people who are working from home for the last four five months are also looking at stepping out okay and now if you go to the markets you see a few more children I mean even the younger ones coming out so the youth are really coming out there and hence quarter four is what we are hoping to actually exit as we did last year and from next year we will take it up that's a fairly optimistic view and I hope it pans out like that because there are many businesses who don't have visibility for the next two years in terms of sales coming back so if q4 is almost equal to q4 last year I think next year obviously is going to hopefully be year of growth for everyone because this year's base has been significantly driven down and revenues coming back means also more money being plowed into marketing and that should be you know fairly good news for marketers so our trigger for that just just a point never sorry if I just wanted to add one point so our trigger for that actually is not alone consumer demand that we are saying that we will come back to normal across categories it is also about gaining market share that's right so while the consumer demand we are expecting to be subdued it's not going to come back to normal but how is your strategy going to get you more market share and hence let you exit last year's number is what we're banking on how do you look at your you know business visibility is sales have been of course impacted this year are you looking at the impact lasting beyond another year when do you think sales will normalize but actually Zivami is really well positioned at this point in time because you know we are a digital first company 80% of the revenue comes from the online platform and we've already seen recoveries happen in this quarter so we are actually expecting that the numbers will go back to pre-COVID times in less than six months for the brand now you know about 20% of the business comes from other channels like retail and trade and that while it will take a little more time but we really don't see it lasting beyond six to nine months honestly by the end of this financial year as the company overall Zivami would actually register pre-COVID levels so we are very very confident because we've got this advantage of you know being digital first and a huge chunk of our business actually coming from the channel which is most relevant at this point in time one of the things I've noticed recently even Sanjeev Puri and his annual ITC annual AGM statement mentioned this that the FMCG as a category has had to innovate significantly to kind of you know beat the downturn and I'm sure that's also happened in categories that you all operate in before we take audience question would you like to tell us some interesting things that have been done which has got sort of more traction with consumers? Prachi you have anything to share with us? Yeah I mean as a brand what you can promise at this point of time is to be able to give a customer complete promise that you are completely safe with me as a format I think that's the first proposition that we put out over there that you come to us you find everything under one rule if you don't need to go and flirt with different point of sale or point of shopping areas for you to be able to find everything that you have required so that's the first the first point that the first assurance that I point that we put out as a brand is to be very honest and say that you know say you're completely safe with me completely safe shopping with me and that's precisely how I think as a brand we have been able to we have been able to care the Garner's traction with our existing customer as well as a quiet customer. Anything interesting you've done from a product point of view any any new launches any? So new launches is definitely not a space that we have actively worked around during this time. What we have definitely done is to figure out how do we change our voice to put out what actually is required. For example from a fashion perspective what we have done is this entire fashion scene has changed so there is a completely new fashion essential that has taken over. So your essentials what you thought pre-lockdown are not the essential that has been staying true during when we entered into the situation. So our voice has been very categorically saying that what is it that you have been using during this point of time and that's that's the space that we have been having our conversations. New fashion essential is one space that we actively worked around in. Same goes for the beauty category. Salon talks is something that we as we brought to fore. Most of us they're missing our salons. In fact studies shows that in fact ladies have still not gone back to the salon when they then entered the lockdown and men are the one we have who have been actually floating back to the salon far more on a higher propensity than ladies are. So that's one point that we started having a conversation are salon talks. What before actually as a non-essentials opened up whatever you have within your household is what we can give you a solution on and second once as a non-essentials opened up then whatever minimalistic requirement you have and if you're missing a salon how is it that you bring back the salon like experience back at home. These are two spaces when we where we had active voice. I used to when you spoke very rightly about getting more market share and one of the key aspects of market share is product innovation and I see for designation also talks about being head of product. What is fast track done. You said you prepared ground for expansion selling more watches. What is fast track done which is which is interesting from a consumer point of view to get them gravitated more towards the brand. So one of the lowest finding fruits that we did during the lockdown was we actually launched the masks now that of course became a necessity and it's also in line with the brand being a very essential accessory which is up for display. So of course there were some some masks that we did but apart from that in the watches category what we what we did is and that's actually yet to see the market but we did some innovation around what's the current essential on smart towards your activity tracking towards your health health tracking. So that entire piece is currently unfolding and very soon around quarter three years when you're going to see some products which are very relevant to the post COVID-19 sites is what I would put it as. I mean I don't want to get into specifics right now because we've not announced it in the market but but that's very specific to how we have responded because we see that being a need of the art and also also the fact that the insights are very relevant to the country. I mean it's not like a global reality you are trying to crack. So yeah I mean we are hoping that that's that's going to work well well for us the reflex range is any which way is the second highest selling smart brand in the in the country. So we have our fingers crossed on that one. So our product usually takes longer and it's a 12-month cycle so yeah but we're working doubly fast to get it sooner this time. If Sita, your title also talks about being head of innovation and you spoke about some of the things the beauty category has done what more can we see from the beauty category in the next six months. So in the next six months as a brand Lotus has done in the past six months a lot of things in terms of you know venturing into safe beauty and as I said you know holistic beauty which looks like me and especially I usually the space is a very growing emerging space and beauty so beauty which talks about mindful consumption and also connecting with the constantly connected consumers. So Ayurveda brings that halt that pace that's you know invitation to pause for people and that's where I think the best thing what Lotus does in terms of innovation instead of you know just launching a new product we did an acquisition of a soul tree which is you know brings us back to our cycle because Lotus as a brand started almost 30 years ago with the vision of bringing the traditions of healing beauty and wellness to people. So beauty is not beauty anymore for us and that's why soul tree as a brand which has been recently acquired by Lotus it's one of the major innovations I would say that in terms of brand acquisitions we have done and also there are many things product cycle of course is a long cycle six to 12 months is the minimum timeline we venture into safe beauty and many more products are in the pipeline also in future you would see an emerging category of green clean ethical beauty which has always been a part of Lotus conversations but at the same time organic beauty something which is emerging so in the organic space we recently launched organic mineral sunscreen which is absolutely free from chemicals so Lotus Organics as a brand has launched mineral sunscreens as well so interesting product innovations are in the pipeline and we would talk about it as and when time permits for now soul tree and Ayurveda and mindful beauty and holistic beauty is something which will see an emergence in the coming future as well because safe beauty assured beauty mindful beauty as well as beauty that looks like me are the current trends and of course in innovations to come also in makeup just wanted to add sorry just wanted to add in makeup you would see an emergence of the mats so mat makeup again is going to be trending very soon once the things go back to normal even with mass non transferable mat make mat makeup is something which is going to emerge as a winner in the future fantastic here almost our time so let me ask one last parting question all all panelists can maybe take 20 seconds each umma will start with you what is your final prediction on maybe two ways covid will leave a lasting impact on the fashion lifestyle industry i think the first lasting impact is definitely what we've all spoken about in terms of digital right and how digital will become a primary channel instead of being a support channel you know for all of us and we'll have to therefore emerge as a shopping channel experience channel service channel innovation channel etc so digital will become all encompassing you know for us for sure i think the second impact is going to be a push towards i think more secure safe healthy kind of options which will have to emerge in the future in terms of what we offer right from our assortment to you know how we actually talk to consumers and what we create as possibilities for customers in terms of what they can indulge in fantastic what's your prediction two things one is i think the faster adaptive adoption of two technology or rather a comfort level of consumers when it comes to technology i think brands which can leverage technology to connect and make their brands more relevant in the consumer's life that's going to really speed up in the coming few years and secondly there are going to be emergence of these trends that we already seeing which is loungewear which is athleisure all of these trends are going to start picking up and become far more relevant and i do believe that you know under safety and hygiene masks are not going to go away there is going to be the element of fashion that's going to come we are definitely going to be seeing designer masks coming in in the in the next few months so yeah these are the trends that i believe will happen well if we were to see you know i would say that people should leverage technology like katija rightfully pointed out technology is very important because beauty industry specifically beauty industry is based on try on so try on virtual try on is something which will see a emergence in the coming future and brand should leverage that though you know the virtual try ons and the a i a r interfaces have been there in the beauty industry for a very long time but it's time now that we pick it up really you know in a non priority basis that is one thing the second thing is a very importantly conscious consumption of beauty is very important so any brand which leverages on a story on a promise of safe beauty at the same time also talks about beauty which is clean green ethical and also sustainable the consumer has become very conscious the pandemic has changed the face of you know the entire earth forever so people have become very very conscious about the environment so any beauty brand which is going to be true to the ethics of beauty in terms of conscious consumption that is something which will be a very very promising future for us as an element and a point prachi what's your sense what what are the impact impacts that go it will leave behind for the industry two things from a fashion perspective i think multiple usage of a same apparel and the way to actually go minimalistic will definitely be one way to look at it and the usage of AR VR is going to be a behavioral change for consumers for sure it's fun it's easy and people will find that it has a long-term impact on how beauty and fashion will get consumed rather than just a good to have it become a must have in times to again very relevant points i think both of them are you shaman your last word yeah so i think a lot of the points were covered the two that i had in my mind were sustainability is going to be a big piece for us as well i think the youth our core audience is possibly the most conscious when it comes to that i think that truly believe that brands are clearly not adding anything back so they shouldn't be taking away for sure so sustainability is a is a big one and i think fitness and the focus on it is also going to be the second sea change and every related industry around it i mean gyms have been close for a very long time but i think there are newer opportunities lying there which might really come up yeah so i'm going to just pick up a couple of audience questions since we are already our time first one is what would be the strategy in pulling crowd to stores across all brands so maybe you know omai you can take this up how do you pull in more crowds one is of course as unlock happens you expect people to walk in but what is what is the way to get more people in i think we're not going to be pulling crowds that's the first thing because we should not be pulling crowds right i think we have to keep in mind that this is not the time to create a crowded shopping experience and make people gather in the crowd so that's the first thing i think what we have to do is we have to have a measured approach to how we generate footfall in the store find other ways to actually generate demand which is beyond that and that's going to be important and we have all invested in processes or methods where we can measure the capacity in a store in terms of how much staff and how much customers we can accommodate keeping it safe and that's going to stay important till such time that we don't come out of this uh covid situation but okay let me if i will rephrase it what's the way to pull in more consumers and more customers i think i don't think that the demand generation and marketing principles are changing we've all spoken about what people are interested in what are people buying right now i think putting that out to them in terms of what is available uh you know with us which is more relevant to the consumers that we cater to is going to be important but what's going to be important also is to communicate them very clearly how we're going to serve in this new retail experience right what is it that they can expect what is going to happen when they want to go to a trial room are they going to be standing in a queue to pay their bills i think all of this has to be given as assurance and confidence to customers that when they come in yes they will still have an enjoyable experience but it's going to be done in a responsible manner which looks after them and looks after our staff as well fantastic yeah this next question how are brands going to in the lifestyle space used to going to use more influencer marketing prachi maybe you can take this off influencer marketing i think it is so misused uh largely saying that you know having a brand ambassador is an influencer having an influencer so um influencer marketing is uh going to see from an experience point of view i think we're going to be much more focused on having nano influencer and micro influencer because um as um i had rightly pointed out at the beginning of the conversation that catchment area specific uh shopping or sales has picked up very faster at a faster rate so um having a localized voice having an influencer who knows the uh to the tune what is being consumed in a specific catchment area is going to be true for a brand a big brand like us or even a smaller uh local brand so that's going to stay true um uh having said that bigger brands or bigger influencers are definitely going to be relevant uh but uh specifically my influencer and an influencer will see the light of the day fantastic thank you so much to all the panelists thank you uma katija ibshita prachi thank you for joining us in insightful conversation thank you uh to everyone who was listening in uh some useful insights i hope this uh entire situation is behind us soon and you know vaccine is out so that customers are able to crowd back into the malls very soon we are we are we are able to get back to our you know normal routine lives till next time thank you so much say stave and uh just a reminder on Friday we have another webinar at oro clock uh that is a one-on-one conversation under the exchange media conclave series uh with the uh uh with the uh with uh mariam mathew who leads the digital initiatives for the malayalam and urma group and she's turned around 130 or old legacy brand into a digital first company so be there whoever can find time to listen to that till then goodbye stay safe thank you thank you thank you everyone bye