 Hi everyone, my name is Tanzeela Sheikh. I am a correspondent in exchange for media. Today we have Abhishek Daanguli, the managing director of Puma India Southeast Asia with us to talk about the recent developments in Puma India and a lot of things when it comes to advertising in marketing. So Abhishek, first of all, you know, thank you very much and welcome you exchange for media and thank you for talking to us. I just wanted to know that Puma has been there in this country since a very long time and it's a very known and a global brand. How do you keep up with, you know, being relevant to the different kind of audiences? Well, thanks, pleasure joining you on this chat. Well, I think it's a very pertinent question because as a brand and staying relevant to the audience is extremely important because that's the only way in which the audience engages with you and consumers that ways keep coming back to the brand because, you know, if one has to run a profitable company, you need consumers who are engaged and keep coming back to you, right? That's the, you know, as simple. So various ways. I think there is no not one answer to this, but I'll just try to pick various parts of this puzzle. First and foremost, first and foremost, if I I'll start with the marketing funnel. So then consumer is discovering the brand and you want to be, you want to be considered by the by the consumer. So you need to appeal to the audience in a in a in a platform or a language that the consumer feels is relevant. Today, you know, the times of just putting forth your product in front of the consumer and expecting the consumer to buy is gone because the consumers have evolved, right? So you need to have a story or a narrative about the brand, which is very, very, you know, relatable to the consumer. So it starts with having the right kind of a brand approach and campaigns flow from there and contents actually then turn get churned out with this type of a thought process. And that's what we have done in India. So we have not come up with, you know, campaigns which are just cut copy pasted because we are a global brand. And I'm connecting with the Indian audience is always required to speak the language that the audience understands in India. And if you look at right from the beginning, when we started our journey, the kind of influencers, key opinion leaders, brand ambassadors we have engaged with have had a wide appeal and also either a wide appeal or a very or have a followership which is which is very compelling. So that's what we have done across sports, culture, music, art, because we are as much, we're just not a sports performance brand, we come from sports and sports is critical to our brand, but we've also got into culture and streets and today that's what sportswear brand, you know, it is also encompassing that part of lifestyle. So we have first and foremost to stay relevant, we've had the right brand partners and key opinion leaders where it has been without without Koli and, you know, on the on the sport side to having Royal Challengers Bangalore to Sunil Chetri, Mary Kom and I can go on and this is the current list in the past also we've done the same thing. Also on the entertainment side we have Karina Kapoor Khan to Anushka Sharma. And also mind you, let's not forget YouTubers, Instagrammers, content creators who are today talking to the audience in their language which is relatable across various, you know, segments. So that's one side on the marketing front then to be relatable also the channels play a very, very important role. So whether even you walk into our store, the experience that you get and how the right from the team to the overall look and feel to the experience of touching, feeling and experiencing the brand and the product plays a huge role in engaging with the audience. Also whether it is online, you know, online also it's not just a convenience medium today, it's also quite immersive. So whether it is social digital channels or is it e-commerce channels you need to create the right experience for the consumers. So all in all keeping the relatability to what you said of the brand is of paramount importance for us and that has been a part of our journey and will continue to be, you know, we will continue to evolve but the point of staying relevant is very, very important. Absolutely, you know, the thing where I asked about staying relevant is there are a lot of brands who are trying to understand this new power purchaser, power purchaser, people who are the gentsies, you know, and that is where they're having a problem in order to, you know, tap onto those consumers and these consumers are very like, how do I say, they go for relatability. So I wanted to understand how Puma is trying to tap into these consumers and what are you guys doing and you know, what other brands are doing wrong is you could speak about that. Well, I'll restrict it to what we are doing and I think with reasonable success as you can see on the business front. Well, whether it is the Gen Y or the Gen Z, we're seeing that every age group comes with it, a very, very different, you know, expectation, behavior, their approach is very different, their expectations, even the brands that they buy into or engage with is very, very different and we are keeping a constant eye on that. So one of the things if I have to generalize it for the interest of this conversation would be that creating platforms which are expression platforms. So the young audience wants to express and be a part of the community. It is not, you know, nobody today wants to be pushed into something and you know, you cannot come from a, you know, high ground and say, hey, this is what it is and this is how we are. But I think brands which are able to provide the platform where consumers can come and exchange and express and connect and also build communities in the process or how do you really, if there is an existing community, how do you enter that community and deliver a message which again is both ways. So having a two-way approach which digital gets in is very different from how it was in traditional medium of advertising. And that's something that is very relevant with the young audience. Also, you know, second thing with which we see with young audiences that, you know, they're also looking for purpose and brands with purpose resonate very, very strongly. Now, whether the purpose is around social or causes or purpose around environment, you know, around the planet and you know, brands with sustainability mission, they're not just greenwashing but really having very clear sustainable objectives and missions and strategies resonate a lot with the young audience. And that is very, very important today, so which we also believe in our strategy. And yeah, and then third thing is convenience. Today, because of various opportunities, you know, disruptions like quick commerce and e-commerce as a whole to the payment mechanism and the digital payment structures which have come out which has made life so much more easy. And the young audience today has, is starting with this convenience. They didn't have to go through the journey which a lot of us had to go through that we got convenience later in our lives. They're starting with convenience. So when you start with having an ecosystem of convenience that you don't need to step out for a lot of things from home and things just get, you know, courier to you and ship to you. So that's a very, very different mindset. And then brands have to ensure that they provide convenience, convenience of the core you know, element that consumers want. So, you know, I can go on and on on this. But I will take that bit of yours when you were saying that, you know, the Gen Z or consumer lot is going for relativity as well as community building and purpose driven advertising or marketing or, you know, the brand they want to be connected with. Apart from that, let's, I want to. And seeking convenience. Yes, absolutely. And, you know, in the first point or, you know, while you were answering my first question, you also spoke about the different brand ambassadors that you have had. So recently in the month of December, you have had a Nushka Sharma and I think in February, you also had a Harman Preet call. Both are women. So I wanted to understand, you know, what sort of messaging that Puma wants to, you know, convey to the consumers. Is there any, you know, hidden messaging or any, you know, thing that you as a brand wants to convey to the consumers out there? Well, our approach as a brand is that, you know, extremely on one side, we are very, very gender agnostic. So, and women are 50% of the population. And hence, sometimes when people ask, oh, do you have a strategy, I said, hey, I mean, that's 50% of the population. So of course, yes. And we're not doing this because we want to make a statement, you know. And then we've always been very focused on having the right kind of key opinion leaders associate with us on the women's front. You know, look at our partnership with Maricom, one of the legends of Indian sport, she has been with us for a long, long time. Yes, of course, off late, we've signed up more, because we are as our brand is becoming larger, we're also trying to be more relevant to various different segments to start to how you started the conversation. And hence, now we are having the ability as well, to partner up with more and more, you know, athletes and entertainment and entertainers. And a lot of them happen to be women. And we firmly believe that as a brand, we want to provide women the platform to engage with us is the same logic. Look at our proper lady campaign, when you look up in the past, where we did that campaign, where we wanted to provide a platform for women to come and express making stereotype, because women in, especially in India and some of the traditional markets are always expected to follow a norm on a rule. And proper lady just breaks that rule. And that has stayed with us. That approach has stayed with us. If you look at our campaign, or how we engaged Harman and Harman start driving that, you know, cricket, look at thankfully, women's cricket is now getting a lot of attention. And now we are watching Harman Creed, and the likes of Spreethi Mandana and Harman Creed, and they are also becoming getting their view, which is great. And hence, also on the women's cricket side, we have like more than five, six athletes playing for the team. So what I'm trying to say is that it has always been a part of us. Yes, now being a larger brand, we always have the more resources to have more brand partners. And yeah, I mean, and we have a strong belief that the world is an equal opportunity, you know, cricket, you know, in everyone's game, it has for years been called as a gentleman's game. And we believe that that is changing, and that should change. We are trying to enable this change to become faster. So yeah. And otherwise, talking on the business run, women's category business is growing very fast, it's growing more than women. So because what's happening is women are also playing a lot of sport, women are now focusing a lot on their own fitness, and that's showing in our business as well. Absolutely. You know, I wanted to talk about David, navigate the conversation to business. So I wanted to understand, you know, after COVID, the post-COVID era, which is like last year and this year, a lot of brands or businesses are trying to get part of the 2019 numbers or pre-COVID numbers, whereas you have already crossed that. So what do you think, what are the three main strategies that you must have used in order to get it right? Let me put this into context that for the before COVID, we were in India for 13 years. Yeah. As much sales that we generated in those 13 years, it took us 13 years to add that much sales. And in the last three years, which included the COVID period, we have achieved that much more sales, right? So our sales has actually been double of pre-COVID times. And I would say things that we have done right to achieve that one is like, you know, the category trend, right? More people playing sport, more people working out, more people wanting a better version of themselves, and using fitness as a part of their well-being, mental and physical, right? Yeah. Then sportswear becoming more mainstream. Leisurewear is sportswear today. A lot of, you know, mainstream lifestyle products is sportswear. A lot of sports fashion coming to the fore. Sneakers are becoming a fashion collectible from the airport look to what people are wearing in offices to everywhere. You see our category growing very strongly. Now, that has really helped our growth. And yeah, what we have done right is, you know, always had a digital strategy, digital first strategy. And this is not because of the COVID. We've been around with our digital first approach for the last five, seven years, which is coming towards, which is providing a lot of results. The people had to really change strategies during COVID and adopt digital transformation. We didn't have to do that. We just dialed up because we already had a digital as a part of our strategy. We have a very consumer-centric approach, our direct-to-consumer approach, both online and offline has also helped. Some of the conversations and marketing we've already done. So I'm not going to repeat that has also helped our growth. And yes, I think I can think of these three, four reasons other than what is at an overall level happening to the category. Abhishek, I wanted to understand now. See, I've been having and I've been writing about the diet to entire cities, you know, becoming a huge part of any brand's journey these days. These are the regions, the Bharat region is basically a deep pocket region these days, if you see. So what do you think, how it has helped you also in your business and, you know, how are you leveraging more or capitalizing more in this region? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Tier two, tier three today, because of digital penetration is creating an aspiration. And with economic development, disposable incomes coming in. Third thing for our category relevance is that India is a very young demographic. And hence, you know, a lot of the young people have now aspiration in tier two, tier three, even tier four cities. And that's why it is generating demand. And what what brands have able to do brands and retailers are now approaching tier two, tier three with their own stores, and also e-commerce is helping just penetrate and serve this demand. Right. So this is a real, real phenomena that's happening because of the aspiration that tier two, tier three, and the disposable income to especially the hands of the young population. So what are we doing? We are opening more stores, as you can see very clearly from the number of stores that we have grown in the last two, three years. And we will continue to do that, get into newer markets and open stores so accessibility. E-commerce is really also helping us penetrate that because you know, e-commerce penetration is today in so many pin codes. We also work very closely in partnership with marketplaces who themselves are really fueling this fueling demand by providing for great service and availability of products to these tier two, tier three consumers. So that's and also we are spending marketing monies to attract the consumers attention and then keep engaging with them even on tier two, tier three cities. So overall, we are very excited. We believe that we are just getting started because further penetration of our category will happen in these markets. So what do you think what part of your business comes from these cities? Well, it depends on what you put as tier one and what you put as tier two over a period of time. If you take the top five, it's the way you see it. Like if you take if you take about the top cities out in the last two years, we have grown about four percentage points of our share from the non tier one markets. So clearly these markets are growing faster obviously because of low penetration in the past. Absolutely. So somewhere around 30 to like 35 percent. It's higher actually. It's higher because you also have to understand we today have almost 490 stores in and a lot of that actually is in tier two, tier three cities. So and now e-commerce has come has been like a trend. So all of it is actually more than that. Yeah. So yeah, coming to the conversation back again is that I wanted to ask you that e-commerce or digital or D2C platforms versus the stores, what do you think what if you could segregate the business that certain what part of your business comes from the e-commerce or what part of part of your business comes from the physical stores out there? So physical stores is about 45 percent of the business comes from online channels. Online channel also includes our own web store and shopping app and the marketplaces and that's the broad split I would say. And do you like do you foresee a future where you will see that you know more online purchases will happen? Well, yes. But the good thing is I would say two, three things here. Yes, of course online will grow today and e-commerce today has a reach of let's say even the horizontals have a reach of about 120 million. If you look at the projections, this is going to double very, very soon. So more and more people will shop on e-commerce platforms going forward. So definitely that will grow. But what is to be also kept in mind is that in India offline shopping is very, very important part of somebody's entertainment because of various today a family or a group of friends love going and shopping in a store because that's a part of their entertainment and then watch a movie, eat out, shop. So it will never go out of fashion and go out of sing. So hence as a brand is strongly also from a brand's perspective offline stores give a great opportunity to engage with the consumer at a much deeper level. E-commerce provides a lot of convenience and in stores you get a lot of opportunity to engage. So I think both of the channels are equally important and with penetration that we have been discussing into these markets I think even offline will grow very strongly. Abhishek I wanted to understand that a lot of brands out there are extensively using influencer marketing and I think Kuma also uses influencer marketing to a certain extent. So what do you think that does micro influencers really help in building your brand and really getting the revenue out or do you think that these micro influencers coming from tie to tie three cities are helping more and are connected more to their follower base? Well the truth lies in between to be honest like both are very very important. It also depends on what is your business scale. Now a business of our scale we as much benefit from our partnership with Virat Kohli as we benefit from a content creator who is on Instagram and you know so it really depends on the business scale. At our scale both are equally important but if I have to have draw one common thread on what's required as per me in having a very solid influencer strategy other than the choice selection execution and the kind of content which is you know very important but what is important is credibility and that credibility is super important. It should be real it should be really standing for what your brand stands for and then you know if your brand stands for this and that is credibility I think the consumers otherwise consumers especially young consumers see through this just on the face promotion work. So what part of your marketing budget goes into influencer marketing? How do you segregate like what you put in which bucket because like I said we have various types of influencers in terms of you know their followership we also have athletes entertainers so it's very difficult to club this and say this is entertainment this is influencer cost what is media cost what is content creation and production cost but all I can tell you is that for us it's a very important part of our brand marketing. Okay okay I want to understand since we are running out of time I wouldn't understand that what is the marketing budget for this year and what is the media mix that you are looking out for because I see that you are very strong on the digital front rather than TV or say print down there which is the larger traditional media you know mediums. So what do you think what is what is your media mix this year? Okay I'll definitely answer the second question the first question I'd like to know from you why do you want to know that what's our marketing budget why do you want to know because I want to know that you know such a big company how much do they invest in their market do they need to invest or what? Yeah I'll I'll not give you the right number and hence I will give you a number but I can say that look at the end of it like every resource in business it is not how much resource you have but what you do out of that resource. So on I say X number it really doesn't matter because honestly that X can really if deployed well and used well can be far more meaningful or if you have 10 X you might not be you know very effective with a much larger way so I really don't want to get into exact number and percentages but I can tell you that our choice of channel is digital and we believe that given the kind of demographic profile of our addressable market it is very very important that we stay that way. Yeah so Abhishek we were on that marketing budget as well as the media mix I wanted to understand where are you going in digital you know are you focusing on social media are you focusing on e-commerce platforms if you could you know segregate into that if you can go more into that because digital is vast. Yeah we're going every every channel which is relevant whether it is a search platform to social platforms to e-commerce platforms to broadcasting platforms OTTs yeah I think broadly even news platforms sports platforms. Yeah so we we we are approaching digital in a very very broad approach to digital yeah. I just have two more questions to go is that is there you know on your cards to invest in the in the upcoming sporting events like IPL or you know any other in the future in this year. A lot of them are ongoing. If you look at it why just cricket you know in football if you look at in the league two of the top teams Bangalore Football Club and Mumbai CTFC we are partnered up we are we are we have a partnership with Royal Challengers Bangalore then if you look at even running events on ground running events we've partnered up with the Delhi Half Marathon this year we've partnered up with a very interesting property called the Devil's Circuit which is an obstacle race which happens in multi cities about 10 cities very interesting platform for runners and overall those who various various sports we have we are we have a large list of on grassroots investments in in cricket football running grassroots investment in boxing so various sporting you know events we are already associated with it so it's not just athletes that that we engage with. So you will be in your association with RCB as well this year. Yeah yeah absolutely absolutely. Great is great is great is just the last question. We were also RCB WPL we we are a part of that as well so yeah. So that means that your marketing budget is segregated in a vast way where in you know sporting events is a part of it all these influence the outreach marketing outreach is part of it your you know your ambassadors where is they come from entertainment industry or the creating industry they are like that is also part of your marketing this thing and then you have digital also which is like you know a very vast channel where you have all these search based platforms e-commerce platforms your D2C platform so yeah it's going to be like a big budget for marketing if I'm not wrong because of the of the size of our business we have a very large marketing budget I'm not denying that okay great are you trying to open some new stores also this year apart from the 400 plus stores as well. Absolutely like we discussed year two year three cities are bringing up new opportunities in terms of new new streets new cities to open stores in and also even even more established cities have new malls coming up where we are opening stores so yes of course we will continue to invest in opening more stores and penetrating the market. Abhishek I have two questions one is that you know seeing the friend these days as a marketer I'm asking you not someone from Cuba so I would as a you know brand stakeholder I'm asking you is that you know there are a lot of brands who are instigating nostalgia there's so many brands we see out there the campaigns they are going back to what they were back in 90s or early 2000s so why do you think you know brands are following this trend whereas you know there is so much happening in the district. Well see today the thing is that heritage and going back in time is never it might seem very counterintuitive but even as trends and we are we're a lot into you know fashion trends as well so we see that fashion trends keep coming back they're often very cyclical and going back in time builds a lot of heritage value which even the youngest of the young consumers love and so that's very very I would say very important as a brand we do that we even from a product standpoint we bring out some of our heritage products and put modern progressive language to that and they're very popular so I would say that it's a very I would say it's a smart strategy because it follows what consumers want and consumers really want to look back into history and that's why brands do that. I wish there's a lot of conversation about inclusivity and you know the LGBTQAI plus about you know and brands like you are focusing more on them and you know trying to raise certain trying to you know blur certain boundaries so as you know I wanted to understand how Puma is contributing in that. Well I am a firm personally I'm a believer that we all have to be gender neutral or gender agnostic right the best form of diversity is not to treat people special or marginalize them and say that hey because you're XYZ I'm treating you like that. And I think that's the that's the best in the purest form of diversity that it doesn't matter right and I think organizations which end up doing that you know of course there is a reality that people have different preferences or genders have marginalized people in the past and that's the gross reality but I would say that as progressive companies I think it's our responsibility also not to do positive discrimination sometime because you know I'll give you example today let's say if somebody in the team knows that the reason the person is at a particular role is because of XYZ reason and not because of that person deserves it right. I think you're hitting on somebody's self-respect right so I think what we should all chase or we should all work towards is to create gender neutrality and becoming agnostic to the person's gender and preferences. Absolutely anything in particular that you the brand is doing or to you know take the stand? Well having inclusiveness in terms of again not by you know not because we are driven by a target but trying to create our organization and our culture in our stores and in our office to accept everyone and welcome everyone. Again do I have a percentage of how many of this in a number? No never because then again you're defeating it's a self-defeating process. My last question to you is that you know how big is the Indian market for a global brand like yours and you know what are the future plans? Well all that we discussed you can understand that we're very excited about India and we're super excited about the future because it's a truth that you know India will become a very very large consumer market. India will India's importance of the global in the world order will grow and that's shown in whether it is the investor community or global brands or you know the the the overall interest of even in a geopolitical basis India is getting more and more relevance and that will happen and as a brand we're very excited because of two reasons. A. India is getting very interesting. B. Our category in India has because we are coming from a very low base we were a sporting culture 10 years down the line was not something to write home about and hence the only way was to go upwards and that and that's happening like a tremendous space and our business will benefit out of that we want to stay relevant and leverage that trend. So overall we will continue to invest very heavily we're very very excited to be looking at the future in India. Absolutely thank you very much Abhishek for talking to us and you know sharing your insights and Puma's future plans in India and this me Tanzeela Sheikh will be signing off. Let's talk more about you know the campaign next time when you come up to by or anywhere. Have a great day Abhishek. Thank you pleasure being here.