 Welcome all of you, and I know this is a topic which is very exciting. I think the previous session was interesting, sports and play it together. So I'm sure all of you will be joining me when we look forward to the World Cup coming to India after a big gap of 12 years. So a lot of excitement, I think a lot of hearts involved and looking forward to what the World Cup in India is going to be like. This session that we are going to be talking about today is World Cup in the festive period on television. What's the view that market leaders and brand communicators have on that? So let's start off with the basics of World Cup and festival happening together. It's a period when brands are really looking at connecting with audiences, with consumers and wanting to achieve their grand KPIs. Do we have the team online? Because this is a question I wanted to start off asking Krishna. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. Right. Good morning. Hi Krishna. Sorry, you are behind us so we can't release you, but the audience can. So Krishna, I want to take your point of view. Your brands have been very, very active on cricket and festival is a key time for you. How do you look at the festive World Cup doing its magic for you on TV? Very good morning to you all. Firstly, my apologies for not being able to be present there in person. But nevertheless, technology has actually enabled this and facilitated. Well, Aditi, so as soon as cricket on TV and a combination of festive period, the timing as such happening, a key event like World Cup taking place during the festive time, I think it's a bonanza for loads of advertisers. I think it's a great opportunity. What better than a festive time to advertise and to be a part of a sporting event which is by leaps and bounds a religion. So we've seen and there is that extra, I would say, excitement considering that this is coming to India after a span of over 12 years. And importantly, it's taking place now in India. And we've gone through tough times where we were not able to witness events like these earlier. But I think now with the event being scheduled during the festive times, advertisers like Parlist also, we are extremely keen to be a part of such a sporting event and events like this coinciding with the festive times, definitely is going to help a lot of brands achieve huge data. So not just in terms of sales, but also on several other brand parameters like image and equity getting enhanced. I think overall I'm extremely excited and looking forward to this event. What do you feel because your audience is a very targeted, very operational in terms of wanting to get their rights going? How do you think something like Cricket helps you? You did a lot of activity with IPL, so obviously that gave you learnings. But how do you see that going to the next level with the workup? Yeah, I think I'll just take a step back and just leave it, take it from the way he left. Cricket World Cup in India after 11 odd years, that itself is a big, big plus plus. It happening coinciding with Diwali season, another thing. So Cricket World Cup itself is a festival. One festival embracing another festival, I think it's a big, big plus. That's point number one. Point number two, I personally feel that there is a so-called emotional affinity towards Cricket and especially World Cup which we Indians have. We bleed blue. Practically everybody sitting here will vouch for that. I personally feel this World Cup is ours. Let's go by and see what trends are. 11, it was in India, we won it. 15, it was in Australia, Australia won it. 19, it was in England, England won it. This is ours. That's the premise which I am operating with. And with a lot of positivity, we at Rapidoe are walking that particular path. Now coming on to your question. I personally feel that our TG is right up there. The market which we are catering to is absolutely affine to cricket in true sense of the word. For every market here, there are few parameters which are sacrosanct. Your awareness course. Your consideration. Your search. This is one event which has proven to give you fantastic results in past. Every time when we have done, we have seen these three parameters going up by 1.8 to X times. Which is phenomenal. The other thing which we have seen is that our app downloads considerably increase to the tune of 35 to 50% during that particular period. So for us, I think it's a very fertile period. The potency is very high. And the best part is that the people who latch onto you at this time are with you for a lifetime. Our lifetime consumer track studies have shown that the people who have joined us during World Cup or during IVL, which is a real cricket thing, have stayed with us. So yeah, I think it's absolutely the best time to be on air and on TV. So celebrating the part of feeling into the passion of a cricket fan and making them yours for life. Wonderful thought. Matt, I want to ask you a little aligned kind of a question. You know, we know that cricket fans will watch cricket and they will go to the World Cup and watch it on TV and watch it with friends. The question that I want to ask you is that, you know, does something like a World Cup actually bring in more than the cricket fans? Because like Pavan said, it's a celebration. It's, you know, something bigger than just the sport alone. The sport itself is obviously the driver. But when you watch cricket on television, it is not just about the fan. It's a much larger celebration. It's probably a family moment. How do you see that and how do you see that being leveraged for all your friends? See, as you rightly stated, World Cup is going to be, it's a unique event for India, right? A unique event also because it's one of those platforms or one of these voting places where we are the champions, right? And we have been champions a couple of times and we continue to be champion team and we continue to be the biggest watcher of the game globally and we continue to be the largest investors of the game globally, right? So that is not two ways about whether cricket works or not, whether it will be watched or not. The interesting part is that question where you made, is there more fans coming into the World Cup? World Cup brings in a jingoism that an IPA does. That jingoism is something that is special, is unique. And I'll give you an example of a sport which is not so popular in this country. But when that event happens, there is this huge jingoism that you see happening. It's the FIFA World Cup. So if you look at the football as such, be it the club football, the number of people watching it is limited. But as soon as it's a FIFA World Cup, the numbers just shoot up because there is so much of euphoria around. Everybody wants to be a part of it. Everybody wants to know something that's happening, that excitement that's happening here. With the World Cup happening in India, the whole interest, the jingoism, the interest that will be there, the excitement that will be there will be, I think, from a three-year-old onwards. I mean, I'm not going to talk about World Team Plus here. It's going to be three-year-old onwards. I mean, I know that crores and crores of people would want to go and watch it in the stadium. They can't. I hope they do some great fan-fans so that there would be a larger celebration of this event that is happening. So that's not two ways about it. The event is that big. So everybody would be invested in it. And it is also so patriotic, right? I mean, somewhere down the line as Pawan rightly stated, it's happening in India. Everybody of us want to see India being a champion. And I hope what he said comes true because the last two examples or the last three examples is the right example of what he stated. So looking forward for it. Yeah, yeah. So I totally agree with you because I was just having a conversation today right here when somebody told me that, you know, when you watch something like a World Cup on the screen, everybody's excited. And I think she was saying that her one-year-old nephew over the last four years, you know, he's now learned what is a four, what is a six. He knows the movements because that's the part of, you know, everybody coming together and watching it together on the large screen. Because that's where the experience is. That's where the passion, you know, sort of really comes alive. With that, follow me. I want to move to you. You have associated with Cricket and, you know, brought different kind of people together. Typically, you know, one thing is a woman's band. Why would you want to be on Cricket? Though we know that the woman viewership of the World Cup is reasonably high. There's many women fans in the fold. But, you know, building this thing of people watching together and families watching together, how have you seen that play out? Like you were sharing, you know, you've addressed not just the consumer, but also your trade through the partnerships that you've done with Cricket. How are you seeing that pan out for you in the World Cup? Hi. Firstly, sorry for logging in and I couldn't be physically present. Nevertheless, the good thing is once you get to speak after everybody, I think everybody is highlighted the important aspects that we could have discussed about World Cup on TV. Rightly so, emotion. We're all high on emotion when it comes to this event at this point of time. And it's a celebration. What happens is if I can just turn it a bit, not from the property perspective, but less understand it from a brand perspective. And as mentioned earlier, that there are various parameters that a brand ticks off while associating with a property like this. And it could be different for different brands. For example, if I were to typically talk of the brand that I represent our work for, we still feel that awareness plays a very important part in our life. There is still a lot of people who need to be aware that joy is an Indian homegrown skincare brand as such. There is a substantial amount of people I still need to make them aware of. And then obviously for this consideration, there are the funders bottom line. In this case, imagine us associating with a property like World Cup, which immediately makes the awareness portion go very high within a span of couple of days. Recently, it's agnostic to the core TG that I'm talking to. I firstly need to be known to everybody that what I sell, what I do, and then probably the funnel goes down. So in our case, if I were to keep awareness as one of the carries in KPIs in the next couple of years, which we feel we have to drive, associating with something like this gives us an immediate boost. And whether it is a 14-year-old girl, 14-year-old boy, a man or a woman or anybody for that matter within the age group, I want to reach out to them and the first thing that I want them to know is that, oh, it's joy and this is skincare and they're a brand. And then followed by the fact that I have X number of products and some products are good for this, for the woman or whether it is the poor TG, which will be a young girl or a mature woman, that's the second stage. So every brand can do kind of property like this and figure out what is it that this association can bring to them. And of course, there is no denying the fact that there is so much of love around it. It's an emotional journey, there's festivity, the spirits are high. Any event of this sort makes the whole. The people who are playing, the sport, people who are watching this sport, people who are ancillary to this sport, the overall environment of the country is in a happy space, the spirits are high. So yeah, overall, that is where we all stand when it comes to this year's World Cup on TV. And for us, again, as I told you, television being another medium which gives me the reach factor. So the World Cup put together TV, the brand TPI that I can look forward to, links this a superb association when I look at it from the point of view that what I want to drive out of this association. And this is typically from the brand perspective that I, similarly I'm sure there will be other categories and other brands who will have different ways of associating with the property thing. Krisha, moving on to you, a lot of what Paulami said probably is true for you, but how do you see that as spanning out? How do you see it as a brand platform? What are the things you seek from an association or a presence when you look at the World Cup on TV, especially in the festive season, because you have special bags, you have special promotions which happen during that time. How do you see that coming together? Yeah, so it's clearly a very, very high impact property. So like Paulami rightly mentioned, so it gives you an instant reach. So there is a large viewership and we've seen that in the times where overall television viewership or ratings are gradually going down. So say for example a decade ago, typically a soap would deliver as high as maybe five, six kind of a rating or even other impact reality shows would deliver that kind of rating. Today even such impact properties are not able to deliver ratings. So overall we've seen that the ratings have sort of tapered, but an event like cricket World Cup still delivers a great impact and gives us an instant reach. So that helps us generate immediate returns in terms of sales first and foremost and helps us generate data for various festive offerings that we bring in. So right from Raksha Bandhan as we sort of get into the festive period, we come out with festive packs, gifting packs, an assortment of our various products and at a very, very affordable price point anywhere around 150 rupees onwards up to 500 rupees. So these are all stacked up. So it begins like with Raksha Bandhan goes on to the Nabratri or Durga Puja for that matter and then culminates into Diwali and then eventually with the Christmas and New Year festivities. So an event like association with an event like World Cup actually helps us deliver on all of these parameters straight away direct correlation on the sales along with various, like I said earlier, imagery parameters as well. Thanks. Thank Krishna. So Matt, coming to you, you are handling a plethora of different kinds of brands with different kinds of objectives. What is your view of how brands should be looking at the World Cup on TV? What is it that they should be seeking and what is it that they should be cognizant of when they want to explore their presence? Let me just set some artifacts. What is the kind of reach that the TV can give us at a 2 plus, close to around 8 and 30 million? At 14 plus, around 650 million, right? These are the number of people TV is able to reach, right? With the World Cup being there, I believe that at least 80 to 90 percent of the people will be met. That is because World Cup will not just be on the pay, it will also be on the FD, right, on the DD. So you have the opportunity to see the game is going to be significant. So with this kind of a scale, which is almost double of what a digital screen could give you, the opportunity to reach the maximum number of people are very high. If I have to look at why do people use TV, most of the marketeers use TV from a branding standpoint. If I have to look at the branding spends as such, even if you take the branding spends that happen on digital, if I look at the total branding spends that are there on the market, close to around 48 to 50 percent of the branding spends goes on TV. Digital takes around 25 to 28 percent and around 20 to 22 percent of the spends are on other medium, right, from a branding standpoint. So from a branding standpoint, when this is the biggest medium, which can give you the biggest reach, so the opportunity for all the advertisers would be is to kind of ride on this medium. That would be many digital first brands, which are maybe in a very early stage and are not in a position to kind of get to so many. I mean, not currently in their game plan to meet so many number of people primarily because they are not able to service them. But there are many digital first brands, which have a huge penetration. So every time you see them wanting to reach more people, they use TV as the medium. Absolutely. If you look at any of the other, what I call the evergreen brand, that's the FMCG, right. I think they are the ones who actually save a lot of the, you know, what you call the broadcasters, etc., in tough times. So when I look at the evergreen brands and when they look at this period, which is contributing almost around 35 percent of the total spends that happens of the total index in that period, that is a significant amount of money that's going to go on TV to reach those number of people through a World Cup as a medium. When I look at where I am today, if I look at the automobile industry, there are around 11 new car launches that are happening. I have happened, continue to happen. There are around five or six new bike brands that are happening. Automobiles love cricket. And I don't think so. There's a better platform to actually use and make the best use of it. So I see them coming big time on that. The gaming, the e-com players have always been looking out for cricket to kind of reach to their larger set of audience. So when I look at the numbers and when I look at the objectives of the brand marketeers, I believe this is the medium which is going to give you the max reach. I'm not just talking from a branding standpoint here. And from a branding standpoint, I don't think so. There's any other medium which gives you a larger reach than nothing. No, no, absolutely. I mean, there is nothing which today beats, I would say, the power of the big screen even today and the kind of associations or the equity that brands can build. And I'm sure whether it's Pavan, Kodami or Krishna, they will like stand with us in saying that if you have a brand which needs to build equity and reach, then television remains the best medium. And what better platform than something like World Cup cricket? Even with oddity being free. Yes, yes, even with oddity being free. Still the largeness of the screen is something which draws people for combined viewership, for the passion that you can have. And the time spent. Yes. I don't think so. The small screen gives you that kind of a time spent than the large screen gives. And it's very important to spend time on cricket because there are so many breaks and it is important for the ads to be noticed if you don't spend time. You don't get to watch it. That's like a plug. So Pavan, coming back to you, there's an interesting point that he raised that you want to be on cricket for KPIs. But as a brand you have a balance to build. So when something like the World Cup comes, once like we said in India in 12 years, how do you look at your brand budgets? Do you really want to put aside money for an event like this beyond what you would typically do in a festive period? Because for you it's an everyday thing, unlike let's say what Pallumya Krishna said where festive becomes a larger pie for them to invest in. But for you it's an everyday story. Do you look at your investments and segmented differently given that there is a World Cup versus what would be normally the case? I'll answer that question. But I'll just take a step back. This is something which is very close to my heart. See there's no denying the fact that you heard Mac doling out all the numbers, right? You know, the numbers are the same, the rest are the same. Those are very, very important things. As Mark Tiers we look at that, we look at reach, we look at frequency, we look at affinity scores, we look at salience, all that and more. I personally feel that there is something which is little more than that because all those things are very important but they are all very clinical. They are very transactional. The consumer has really evolved. He or she wants to see that data which is in you and not in others. I think we have been playing the game of USC. This is our unique setting proposition. We use that and all that stuff. We go to masters like Mac, they develop stuff for us and we go to Kaga about it and put money behind it and all that stuff. We at Rapido feel there is something which is little more than that which is the unique emotional feature, proposition. You call it emotion, feeling, that is what it is. And World Cup is a time where the emotions are running all time high. How can you write that wave? I think that is the question. If you can put forward that your brand's unique emotional proposition or unique feeling proposition, you are home and dry. It is easier said than done. But that is what we strive for. We try to do that. We took this as a big case in point last IPL which finished on 24th of May. With that singular objective, we crafted the entire tone in voice, the proposition and we went to the market. And the results are there for everybody to see that. So I think that is what it is. Nothing bigger than World Cup and nothing bigger than World Cup happening in your own country. And there is no better kick and fun than beating Pakistan and your own country. So I think that is the crux to it. Now coming back to your question. Yes, World Cup is a property for which you plan. And even if I have to make the bank for that really day, I will break that back. Because it is one property which if you have a good proposition, you can drive the wave like no tomorrow. I hope I have answered. Totally totally. And I really like your thought of having an emotional. There is an emotion in the country at that time. We know people will be feeling really involved and wanting to consume the content, wanting to watch it. And therefore if there is a way for brands to connect. If there is a way for brands to ride and make their space in the lives of consumers. That is absolutely something that all of us try to create and seek for brands. So Krishna and Pallavi, would you be looking at special creatives? I know Kavan had special creatives for idea. Would you be looking at creating special creatives? Because for the few, there is a World Cup campaign and then there is a larger presence. Because there is a whole series of festive campaigns which is there. So how would you look at your communication going on World Cup? Versus communication going on other platforms at the same time? Good point. Okay. Thank you. So you know, strangely so we all mentioned something. There are lot of different categories. And I think this is a very vast discussion which will, time will not permit us to have the same. And as we were discussing earlier that Mac handles different categories. We will have a wider perspective. For example, I come from an SMCG skincare. Okay. There is Rapido which is most service-led. So each industry's communication also is very different. We have tangible products to showcase. Okay. Again, depends upon what I want at that time. Do I just want a proposition of my brand philosophy coming forward? Or is it a particular launch of a product that I want to write on with this property? Or if there is a festive offering that I want to communicate to a large mass. For example, if there is a package deal that I am doing which can directly translate to a sale. So there is a whole lot of other discussions that go into you depending on the category. And what the product and the brand is wanting to extract out of this association. The good one observation that I had had in the last couple of meetings with the channels and all is. And nowadays they are also going beyond the regular FCT. And there are programs and packages which are happening around the main content. Which gives you the ability to also associate in different ways rather than just running a 22nd FCT during the breaks. So, coming back to your question that each, some people would like to go again on their services, riding on the FCT. Okay. You want to layer it up a little more and talk about the new launch. So maybe you can use this around during beyond the FCT elements and see how you can integrate a particular product. Or within the talks or the shows that is happening around it. Or it will be something as simple as taking your brand philosophy forward. Which we did experiment earlier with another property where we spoke about women's cricket in general. But at this point of time if I were to say for World Cup, I don't think that is the step we are going to talk. We are not talking about brand philosophy. Personally, we will be taking the root of a product proposition. And let's see how if there is a possibility of integrating and talking about it within the surround using the plain vanilla FCT during the add breaks. Great. Krishna, over to you. Yeah. So like Paulami mentioned, we had a fantastic run recently with IPL. Where we had actually created some new set of commercials for a few brands. Actually we had chosen select few brands. We had two brands on the SD feed and we had the Latina range of brands on the HD feed. So as we move into the festive season, we have a lot more new creatives. But then yeah, these are not exclusively made for the World Cup as such. But these are pretty, I would say thematic in that sense. But these are freshly made creatives. And yeah, so besides having plain FCT, plain vanilla FCT proposition, we definitely do explore various other elements where we could actually integrate our brand. And we could actually have a very, very engaging kind of a communication with our audiences. Not just that, but then we also sort of take this opportunity to create a lot more surround. So with an opportunity like this where the tournament is happening in our country. So it helps us generate that much extra buzz amongst the entire brand partners. So we do a lot of initiatives pertaining to the event with our trade partners, with our field course. And of course our presence on the event also brings in that much more excitement. And we do conduct contests. Like I said, it's a long-term contest where we say, okay, if you sort of quantity purchase, link offers or schemes, if you achieve a certain number, you will be entitled to visit the tournament, etc. So there are several India games. There are several non-India games which are also going to be extremely and equally exciting. And of course there is a big game between India, Pakistan. So I was just going through a few numbers. We were present on 2019 World Cup, which occurred in UK. So we'd seen that. So India matches performed pretty well, delivering as much as a TBR of 6 in a 2 plus, that's typically the partly TG, 2 plus ABC and CCS. If you look at an India-Pakistan match, it delivered as high as 9 TBR. It's like phenomenal, just imagine a TBR like 9. So I'm really looking forward to the game here. And not just one game, I'm looking forward to the entire tournament. And I really feel that we'll be able to generate really good numbers and we'll be able to do justice to our investments as well. Thanks, Krishna. So Mac, hearing what Pallami and Pawan and Krishna said, what do you think is going to be the right way to look at how much a World Cup and how to measure the effectiveness for brands? Because we are talking about FCT where we have Wearship, we are talking about other elements. How do we think is the best way? What should a brand think about when they start packaging things together for themselves? See, it's very difficult to actually put a number or a percentage, right? But I would go back to the key brand objectives that they have. I mean, Pawan was mentioning, Krishna was mentioning about some of the key objectives, right? Now, depending on that objective is how I would say that your investments should start getting skewed. There are brands which have a significant amount of money at their end, and especially there are many brands which keep almost close to 40% of their overall investment during the festive season, for the festive season, right? So those brands which have a significant amount of money during the festive season can write on the entire tournament. And why I say that it's a good investment to make on the entire tournament also is because there were some numbers that Krishna was mentioning earlier, right? Those are the facts and those numbers according to me will bump up by at least 30% because the game is happening in India. The other interesting part in this World Cup tournament is that the non-India matches also, if you have to look at it, kind of delivers almost around 1.5 to 2 TVR because if you look at the finals which was a non-India match last season, almost delivered 5, right? So if you look at some of these facts, right, there are numbers to be driven on. One, two is that there will be many regional clients also who would want to take this right on to this brand wagon, right? So you will have brands which will only invest in TN market or only South market or only in Karnataka. So there are these opportunities that's been created by the broadcasters. So you will see that the brands will be riding high on that. I mean, I see another category which will be doing pretty well on this platform would be paints because paints is the season for them. Festivity, weddings coming in. So I see them also coming in. And I also believe that this event is like this big fat Indian wedding with so much of madness being there. So you are going to see a lot of small brands also wanting to be in that big event, right? So because they know being there like as Pawan was mentioning earlier, where when you are part of this whole euphoria of passion and craziness, right? The brand also gets a certain love and recognition which is unparalleled. Absolutely, absolutely. I think like you rightly pointed out the last work of final even though it was non India was nail biting. I think to the last. New Zealand won it but England has a profit. Yeah, so you're right. I mean really a lot of passion and this year we will have a lot more happening and all the more reason because it's in the country. So definitely brands will be looking at how to leverage, how to get their best part there, whether it's at an overall level or regional levels and what is the right objective they are trying to fulfill. So absolutely agree. Just to sort of sum up for all that we spoke about before maybe we open it to some questions to the audience. It's really that the whole grandeur of the World Cup coming to India in the festive season is like a double lottery I would say because it's in festive and brands are looking to invest and they are looking to make the best out of what the season can bring to them and nothing like a platform like the World Cup on television where it's not just the hardcore fans but a much larger audience which actually comes together to watch cricket almost like a family celebration. That's the moment you are in, you are together, you are looking forward to it. Great weather like I did. That's like an India bonus. So you don't want to be in the summers. It's nice time, you will have a lot of action. So great looking forward to that and with that I will open it up to the audience in case you would like to ask any questions. Good evening. Good afternoon sir. So my question is with Pawan sir. So sir with Rapido bike prices hiking in Bangalore and with increasing road ridges cases with people. So what is your take on this auto people they are just you know bouncing on the people who are taking bike rides rather than auto and this case has also gone to the court. So what is your take on this and how it is impacting you on the business side? So chief you mentioned the cases in the court so anything which is subjudiced I should not be commenting. Anyways on the lighter side. See I think it's part of the business that is what it is. You know auto drivers having a particular say you know they have a point of view which needs to be listened and addressed. Bike taxi is an integral part of this society now. It's part of the fiber, the society fiber as I say because it's a big, big enabler. A progressive economy, a progressive nation as ours cannot turn a blind eye to a proposition which is the master in first mile and last mile solutioning. So I think I would just like to articulate that this is something which is very important because it solves for you in a very big and a different way. But yes there are certain facets which are playing in and around it. Let's leave it at that because it's subjudice and all that stuff. But very soon I can assure you very soon you will see a policy which is substantially in favor of shared mobility. So you know yeah I'll just leave it at that. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Any of you would like to ask the panel? So with that I think we have probably impressed everyone already. They've all agreed that... I think you were clear with what we said. Yeah so Cricket, World Cup, nothing like it. I'm sure everybody has fingers crossed. We will have some cycle. Agarvati is also going in prayers saying that we must all win as for Bhavan's analysis. I think Bhavan will be looking for that last ad before the India captain picks up the World Cup. So he'll say that that's the position that I want. So with that thank you. Thank you. It's been great. Wonderful talking to you Krishna, Pallami, Bhavan and Mac. And with that we'll hand over to you. Thank you. Thank you.