 I'd now like to go ahead and welcome on stage our second keynote speaker of the day ladies and gentlemen Who has a who is an accomplished business leader and a seasoned marketing professional? He will be talking to us this morning about how content matters ignore it at your own peril Please put your hands together for managing director of per FETI van Mel India. Mr. Rajesh Ramakrishnan Morning everybody It's a pleasure to be here with all of you today. Thank you very much to e4m for having me here You know, I was thinking When I was preparing for this session What would be a good peg to anchor my session on and one of the words that came to my mind was currency Yeah, and especially if you look around and see the way the rupee has been behaving with respect to the dollar I thought it's a relevant thing to keep in mind as I was Putting together my presentation and as a separate aside, I don't know if you any of you have seen There's this thing doing the rounds on WhatsApp Question being asked is when do you see the rupee likely to go up? And the answer is during the toss of the next cricket match. Yeah, so that's the state of this thing But coming back to the topic and the relevance that I see of currency is if you really look at it Content is actually like a brand's currency Because a brand can offer something valuable to the consumer and actually get something Valuable in return from the consumers as well. So in that sense, it's about currency And we'll talk a little bit about it as we go on forward into the presentation But before we do that, I thought we could play a small number game to start with and then move on to that section Anyone any guesses what this number means and Be good if you can have some Interaction any guesses None whatsoever. Thank you very much. Absolutely. So that's actually the Men's hundred meter world record in seconds, right 9.58 seconds by bold Any guesses what this number means? Sorry Can say again The women's world record nice one and I'm sure it will be one day, but not quite It's the average attention span of a goldfish in seconds done by a study by Microsoft a few years ago and this Absolutely average attention span of consumers in seconds, right? So what are we speaking about is that the attention span of people is actually reducing, right? And actually if you look at it, it's not their problem That they have a lower attention span. It's actually our problem that we don't have a Higher interesting span and I thought that was a really nice way of putting it Which is you know, we always tend to externalize the problem to others But if you actually introspect the problem quite lies with us to say how do I make stuff? Interesting enough for them to hold their attention for longer, right? And actually if you look at it, that's where content marketing comes in, right? So before we delve into what I was talking about just a quick, you know definition the classical definition of content marketing I don't need to explain this. It's all we know. We all know it. It's about creating material Sharing it online Something where the brand is not explicitly spoken about Yet it stimulates interest in the consumer regarding their brands and products and services, right? So that's that's a broad definition of what it is about and if you really look at it How does it differentiate from traditional marketing traditional marketing typically has been about talking at people One-way communication Whereas content marketing is a lot more about having conversations pretty much like what Anurag and Sunil were mentioning earlier, right? So it's it's all about that and at this point It's also good to take a little bit of a pause and actually say what content marketing is not about, right? And before that in a way, it's also about saying Content marketing is hitting the sweet spot between what the brand wants to say the brand purpose What it wants to stand for and what consumers are looking for. So in a way How do we deliver the brand promise in a meaningful relevant manner to the consumer such that it meets their needs? And that's really what content marketing is all about Like I said what it is not is It's definitely not about making your logo bigger and putting it out there It's definitely not about creating a video and making it go online. So it's not any of these, right? So it's about making sure that we play a more meaningful role in the lives of the consumer so which brings me back to the currency point that I was talking about earlier and Really, this is the crux of what I wanted to share with you Which is that if you look at it actually content is a brand's currency It can give something valuable to the consumer in either making them think about certain things Re-evaluate notions it can make them engaged it can entertain them It can actually educate them and last but not the least it can also inspire consumers, right? So it's about adding value to the consumer and for sure the brand certainly gets something back in return Which could be in the form of loyalty respect trust word of mouth Love or in an ideal situation all of the above, right? So that's that's really what If you really look at it content can do which is being the pivotal place between Adding value from brands to consumers and the brands getting something back from the consumers So what I thought I'd do in the next 20 odd minutes is you know if I look at these five Spaces, I thought I'd share one example in each space over a couple of examples in some of them to really just bring the point of how Brands could get consumers to think and reevaluate introspect rethink about some of the set notions that they might have Engage how brands can engage with consumers by almost anticipating needs and meeting those needs or sometimes exceeding Entertaining storytelling we spoke about it in the previous presentation also Humor I think that can play a huge role in in sort of entertaining educating building their knowledge levels in certain areas and Inspiring people to sort of get outside their comfort zone and actually try and start creating experiences for themselves Yeah so the first one is on you know rethinking notions and really you know I think this is an oft talked about example of dove I think this did a lot of work in trying to sort of redefine beauty that has been Multiple pieces of work that have been done in this space but what I wanted to sort of showcase and it's good to sort of Look at it and remind ourselves is because I think what stands out with them is one how they have gone behind it And two how they have done it in a really consistent manner over the last many years The second bit of it which I was explaining was around engaging and I think a great example of it is Netflix right so we were checking how many people watch and pretty much almost Everyone in this room seem to be you know consuming Netflix in some way or the other and of course their business is all about providing content But what's interesting to see is that they have these copious amounts of data right because of you know tracking Browsing behavior viewing behavior, so they know who's watching with whom are they watching when are they watching and so on and so forth So what they've really managed to do well with that is take all that data to actually Anticipate some of the needs and make sure that they're able to sort of drive things around the way they would like to do it So again, just a couple of examples house of cards I mean a lot of us are familiar with it But if you look at it, they were actually 10 different trailer cuts that were done for that And then depending on your browsing behavior your viewing habits, etc The relevant trailers were fed to you So if you're a Kevin Spacey fan, then they made sure that the trailer which has got more footage of him Was something that was delivered to you so again using the relevant Means basis a strong understanding of the consumer is something that they have done really well Or if you take the other series around, you know orange is the new black Again, many of the work that they have done in putting out on social media is Actually linked to the language and the vibe that is there in the actual series, right? So they've done managed to do that really well And in fact, what they have also done interestingly well is taking it from online to offline So for example before the launch of the series, there were these food trucks going around in New York City giving out free pies and you know vanilla and Chocolate swirls which actually have relevance to some of the key characters in the series, right? So they were these were the ways in which they could actually manage to integrate the two and make sure that they're adding value to the consumer and The interesting lesson to also learn from this is actually they also managed to close the loop really well by giving consumers Gifts and other shareable things which they could share with their amongst their friends, etc. And of course act as marketeers for Netflix, but also importantly create a huge amount of virulability and word of mouth through that again some very interesting work done done by Netflix on this one Another very interesting example from a very different Product category is the one done by Samsung. So yeah, so Samsung was launching their, you know video call center for the hearing impaired and You know, they did it through a really powerful and emotional storytelling by you know getting a glimpse into the life of Muharram Guy in Turkish guy. So again very very nicely done very powerful and something that we can relate to right So we spoke about how brands could get consumers to think and then also engage Let's move to the next one is in terms of how we could do content marketing by entertaining, right? And you know one of my favorite examples has been Amul, right? So many of you here are relatively young, but if I were to look at people from our generation I think a lot of us have grown up looking at Amul hodings and Amul ads in newspapers and one thing that stands out for them is that the way they have managed to pick up topical issues add a really nice humorous twist with and Consistently do that over many many years and they also manage to sort of do it in a way that the brand isn't really Intrusive it sort of seamlessly woven into the creatives that they do and that's something that they've really managed to do well And it's to me a great example of entertaining us through some really cut through creatives which are topical Humorous and yet add to the brand so again some examples from different points in time and that's that's something that do That did do really well Another example I just wanted to share in the entertain space, but in a completely different category and in a context is When Tatas was launching their tiered your car, right? So what they did was there was this web series that was created through the viral fever And it was all about these siblings who are going to go and meet their parents, right? So there was a thing and they were not really any spectacular life But the series was around the journey that they went through as they took the car and went and Initially the car started as you know just means to get from place a to place b But soon started having a character of its own and playing a much more pivotal role in their lives But what also seemed to be interesting and I was looking up some statistics in terms of the impact Clearly there was a big impact in very tangible things in terms of sales and market share and so on and so forth Obviously this is not the only reason but it certainly does play a big role in the overall scheme of things Moving to the fourth one which is about educating them and here again I picked up a couple of examples so here one of the things of course the fundamental premise is that consumers are always hungry to Learn about new things which again can either make their life easier or add value to their lives in terms of how they do Things and so on and so forth. So a couple of examples. I thought I'll talk about here. One is Tablespoon from General Mills and what they did was you know for their without really talking about their various brands They interestingly got a couple of company employees to actually create this website, right? which talks about favorite home cooked recipes and this was done by Employees and what they also encouraged was to have more employees to actually contribute to this. So in a way What they had in the website a lot of it was actually employee generated content as well So it was a great way one of course to educate consumers and add value to them but actually they managed to do it by also Achieving a very high level of engagement with an employees because they felt good that they were able to contribute to this and add Value to the consumer. So in a way, they sort of managed to you know, kill two birds with one stone so a great great way to sort of take that thing forward and Their employees therefore became true brand ambassadors for their various brands Another example, but from a completely different category Schneider, of course, they are big specialists in energy management So what they did was through this energy University They put out a lot of vendor agnostic material out there Lot to do with energy efficiency and how you could you know do things better at the various Plans and factories and locations and by doing this they sort of started establishing themselves as thought leaders in this space And the go-to person when they needed any company needed anything in this particular area So that was again something that they did really nicely By not so much talking their brand But by truly adding value to consumers and putting things out there Which would be useful for them from an education point of view, right? So we spoke about getting them to think getting to them to engage more entertaining consumers Educating consumers which really brings me to the last piece which is about inspiring consumers And this is really about moving out of comfort zone Getting them to think of possibilities that they would have never thought of I think a great example All of us are very very familiar and aware with this is what Red Bull does in terms of you know Content marketing and I think they are probably you know right up there when it comes to the kind of stuff They do so I thought it was appropriate to sort of look at one example from them to sort of end my Session so Red Bull decided to really push the envelope on you know The various kind of stunts that they've been doing in the past and said why not get a guy to jump from space So they got this Austrian skydiver Felix to go up 39 kilometers and then jump from there Right so and of course in the process he broke a huge number of records In terms of the fastest speed achieved by a human without an engine and so on and so forth But really it is about saying how can you actually start getting consumers to? Think beyond what they think is possible and really push the boundaries and by showing some of these stunts The whole intent is also to get the get consumers to start thinking that way in terms of how I can actually truly leverage my potential So I think great some great storytelling and great work there by Red Bull Which really brings me to the end of my presentation So again just to summarize we spoke about the ways in which brands could add value to the consumers By getting them to think and reevaluate notions by engaging with them more meaningfully entertaining them in the process Educating them on things that they might not know about and last but not the least really inspired them to push boundaries and create new experiences and Eventually it's all about not going and telling them you're a rock star But really use content marketing to show them that you're a rock star And that's that's what really needs to be the endeavor and in the true spirit of content marketing I made sure that I didn't plug any of my brands into the presentation But please do continue to eat center fresh center fruit and mentors. Thank you very much Thank you so much for that very fantastic Presentation I'd like to request Miss Neha Gupta head of branded content times now news comm To please join me on stage to present a token of our appreciation to mr. Krishnan is she in the room right now? Okay, that's it ladies and gentlemen. Let's have another round of applause for mr. Krishnan. Thank you so much once again Thank you, miss Gupta doing the honest. Thank you