 With the same ladies and gentlemen with a huge round of applause, allow me to welcome our panelists. Please welcome Ms. Hema Malik, Chief Investment Officer, Media Brands India. Let's welcome Mr. Puneet Bekel, Director of Marketing Mastercard, Sameer Sethi, Vice President and Head of Brand Marketing, PolicyBazaar.com and Mr. Ujwal Sinha, Director of Marketing, Cast 24. And let's welcome our moderator for this session. Please welcome Mr. Lloyd Matias, Business Strategist and Angel Investor. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for your attention. With the last session I understand between you and lunch, so I promise we won't keep you long despite a little delay. What we're here to discuss is really the impact and you know what sports means as a media property for various brands and specifically in the context of cricket given the fact that cricket overrides most sports in the country. And we have a very interesting panel. So starting from the extreme left, there's Hema from IPG Media Brands. She buys media for a range of clients ranging from Samsung, Tata Motors, you know Emirates, Aramco, so we'll get a great perspective from her. Then we've got Puneet from MasterCard and MasterCard have been, shall we say, long time sponsors of sport, specifically cricket in the context of India besides what they do with FIFA and soccer worldwide. So I think that's interesting. We have Sameer from PolicyBazaar and they again have been huge, you know, kind of sponsors of cricket and sports on television in general, given the category and the huge growth that PolicyBazaar has seen. And of course to my immediate left is Ujjwal from Cast24, another big user of sport marketing in general and cricket and specifically the IPL in particular. Before we get down to the discussion, just a couple of contextual points. I think you have to recognize that, you know, India as a country has about 950 million television homes, linear television, people with some form of television. I think that's a big number. And as per data, about 720 million in the last one year have watched some sport on television. So predominantly, I would think cricket would be the dominant part. So in a sense, linear television is still, shall we say, the dominant reach medium when it comes to sports in the country. And that's one critical part. Obviously, one is seeing growth in properties, cricket, various levels, right, from bilateral cricket to tri-series to international cricket to the ICC World Cups, various formats, the ODI, the T20, various formats. And one is also seeing the huge growth of IPL. That's been another significant growth. So even in the context of something like the IPL, we're talking about 420 million odd users, right? So that's remarkably large. And even as other categories of live sport grows OTT, I think linear television or television in general is too big to ignore. And what I'm hoping to do in this in the next 35-40 minutes is get a sense from each of our colleagues here in terms of how they use this medium and how critical is it to their marketing plans. So maybe I'll start with Puneet and try and get a sense of MasterCard. I know that you guys have been taking a deep position on cricket for I think at least the last decade. And you also sponsor all the in-home bilateral series, any country that comes to play in India, MasterCard is the title sponsor. But besides a tie-up with the BCCI, I also understand that you guys have a very strong position on television sponsorship to leverage your sponsorship. So we want to understand from you. One is why the deep interest in cricket, how does it meet your brand objectives? And two, what are the interesting things you do to leverage MasterCard's association? Check, check. So it's been four years that we've been associated with cricket since we signed on legendary ambassador Dhoni. We've been sponsoring cricket across sponsorship both on ground and on on air, okay? And what do you realize, just to add to your point, Lloyd, out of the 700 million consumers who consume sport in India, approximately 630 million consume cricket. And there was a recent survey done by I don't know the name of the institute, but 80% of people would prefer to watch or consume cricket on large screen. The reason is because one is it's fun to watch an experienced cricket on a large screen. Mobile screens are too there's a lot of distraction when you watch live cricket on mobile because it's screen on screen, notification, and this is one sport where, you know, it's where you form a rare occasion within the family where you watch the end, this sport together with your friends and family. So hence the attention, which you get while your consuming cricket is much higher and hence TV is a preferred medium from that perspective. To add to a few more points on this, TV still today considered as the most trusted medium. In fact, TV ads is still the number one choice across brands to build a positive impression and possibly the weightage is given by the consumer when he or she sees a TV ad is similar to the weightage given to a recommendation by a friend or a family. So it's a brand safe environment plus the scale which cricket brings to the table and higher attention span all put together, I think is a great place for any brand to be part of the cricket ecosystem. So I think we are deeply committed to sports in general and cricket obviously there on. Thanks, Puneet. That makes good sense. I'll just come across to Sameer and Sameer in your category, which is insurance and policy bizarre. You all have pretty dramatic seasonality, so to speak, right? So the Jan Feb March quarter is obviously a peak quarter as they are ending and obviously April onwards is when the low starts and builds up. But you guys have also been very very big actively involved with cricket as a television sponsor. I understand that you've been one of the prime sponsors of the IPL as far as television goes. So why don't you talk us through a little bit of how policy bizarre leverages cricket for maximum impact? Sure. Thanks, Mohit. So I think fundamentally everybody is aware of the basic facts about cricket as a medium. It is a single largest aggregator of audiences in India. Everybody knows about that. It is also the biggest accumulator of male audiences if certain categories want to advertise to those audiences. There's unlike, you know, it's unlike anything else available on television. What's a slightly less talked about fact is that, you know, cricket could possibly be for a whole range of brands irrespective of how big or small their marketing budgets are, whether or not they operate in one corner of the country or nationwide. I'll give you a small example. So say for example a tournament like IPL, if you're a mass value brand, you can either just pick up the standard definition feed or you can just pick up the Hindi feed. If you're a player operating predominantly in let's say Tamil Nadu, you can just pick up the Tamil feed which is not just you know another feed in terms of just commenting. I believe the entire regions broadcast is packaged separately. So those viewers are equally engaged as much as Hindi or English viewers are. If on the other hand you're a very niche premium player, you can choose to pick up either the English feed or you can pick up, let's say only the high definition feed. So there is something in it for all sorts of advertisers. I'll give you an example from policy bizarre's point of view. So currently we operate at a relatively larger scale than we did, let's say seven eight years ago. So I remember 2015 World Cup, I was still with policy bizarre then and I was you know, we were discussing whether or not to invest in the World Cup. This if we did would be back then the biggest bet we would have taken on cricket. The budgets were relatively limited compared to right now and we thought you know the the tournament is is potentially too big and engaged to miss. So instead of you know having little presence across the entire breadth of the tournament, we decided to have a relatively more prominent presence just on the high definition feed so that you don't get lost in the clutter of multiple brands advertising at the same time. But you also reach out to a very quality audience and you engage them in a way that no other tournament can offer that chance to engage you to engage them in. So yeah, I think it's a it's it's a myth that you can't really do customized targeting on linear TV. You just have to find ways around it. Thanks, Samir. I think that's a great perspective that you know as much as one talks about the advantages of personalization in the context of digital. I think plain old-fashioned linear TV in its own way gives you the opportunity to pinpoint your targets by language feeds by HD various formats, and I think that's that's a great point. I'm going to come back to some of the other points you made which is about saturating a medium taking let's say one feed and you know ensuring you have quality presence as opposed to spring you know relatively thin around and we'll certainly come back to that. But I want to go across to Hema now because she buys cricket for a multiplicity of brands a company does and what I understand a little bit of the thinking and the process that that you go through when you're recommending a relatively mass but also a high-outlay property like cricket right and in the context of say Samsung or Tata Motors or some of the large players and I noticed that you know a lot of a lot of the brands that in IPG media brands portfolio have used cricket extensively over the last few years. So maybe Hema you can talk us through some of the experiences and how it's worked. Thanks. So first I think I just want to add very interesting. So Punit spoke about how we want to watch sports on large screens. Can you hear me? Yeah. So just before I answer is it okay? Can you hear me? Okay. So Punit you spoke about that sports people love to watch sports on large screen and very interesting for one of our clients who are into color television as a category and they were always blips in the sale when there used to be large sporting events be it World Cup or be it IPL. That's when the sales picked up because that's when people want to you know invest in a good experience to watch sports. So that's very true and that's one of the added reasons why TV makes a lot of sense and adding to some of these point of course it's the largest aggregator and therefore all clients are experience, you know my personal experience on different categories at different life stages. So when I talk about categories, I'm talking about established large beverage category, which is like highly penetrated categories to categories which are tech categories, but large large players and established players to new age categories which are maybe you know digital payment or other such categories. Cricket has a role to play for each one of them in different ways. So it is not typically seen as a quick reach and a build brand of the rest building brand awareness platform but I think its role is much beyond that. When cricket happens, when IPL happens, there is no escape. If you if you're advertising I mean all data points especially if you're talking to certain set of audiences and if you're not talking to people who are non-primetime viewers absolutely there is no escape that you can miss IPL and that clearly builds a very strong case for IPL or for any other sports for cricket especially. The numbers are huge. The numbers, I mean your top 50 programs during IPL will be only IPL matches. I mean maybe somewhere in a 51st or a 52nd program could be a regional program. So that's the power of cricket and the combined power of the combined reach of any high impact shows which also comes at a premium you know comes close to what IPL can get you. So clearly the number is a big reason for all our clients to believe in the power of cricket on television and as I said that various categories, I think what is very critical for us what we see is that you need to be very clear on why you're getting into IPL or why you're taking into investing that level of monies because if you're clear on your role whether you want to talk about a new news you want to build brand awareness or you want to have regional focus or engagements because I feel Disney Star has done a fantastic job of grooming the platform, the kind of investments that they have made behind making it multi-lingual. I mean the power of it's a national, it's the only platform which is national and there is no other platform or content that can you know get the entire country together. So but within that national platform, how have they figured out geographical solutions by giving language feeds, by giving local brand ambassadors or local assets in terms of commentary. I think that allows a lot of brands especially which are into a portfolio. I mean I don't want to name my clients but they are clients and the entire portfolio can leverage the solutions so beautifully by you know looking at specific brands being played in certain markets. So there is a certain way we look at clients which have a single product and to advertise on there is a certain way that we look at clients which have a huge portfolio and how entire portfolio can have focus, customize solutions for each geography which is an offer that IPL gives us. So yes, absolutely I'm in our experience and we've measured it very clearly. We have I think very important for all clients to ensure that there is a measurement matrix either you know they should do their own or be in partnership with star but clearly go in with an objective, what is the needle that you want to move and do measure the effect of that and we have seen good results. As I said different categories, different life stages of category, but there is a needle that moves provided your problem identification and your solution is in line. Great. So short point cricket moves the needle. It has reach, it has impact, it has scale and also I think what you're calling out is the fact that there are relatively customized solutions. So if you want to reach a distinctive geography or a distinctive set of audiences you can get there. So I think point well taken. Coming to you Ujwal and you know I know cast 24 has you know grown phenomenally in the last seven years and I think cricket has been your primary property, a brand property both on air as to some extent on ground as well. Yes. So why don't you talk us through your experience of you know how you guys have leveraged cricket and you know some of the unique instances when it's possibly helped you all get an edge over your other competitors. Sure. Thanks Lloyd. You know I think Puneet and Sameer spoke about the reach of television and the viewership that cricket gets there, right? So around 80% of people who are on TV do get in touch with cricket and you know when you look at the car market today, auto market, I think roughly one out of 12 households have a car. So the headroom to grow is huge, you know, and that is where you want to reach out to the masses, right? And that is where you feel cricket is your best bet considering, you know, the TG of automobile has a very good overlap with cricket. Little but thankfully we are seeing positive signs of that interest coming back the last two tournaments including the ICC T20 and the bilateral before that both of these tournaments rated very well. This also gives us a chance to, you know, also reach out to a lot of these audiences throughout the year. We are not just dependent on the IPL period being the sole cricket tournament happening, which is a great thing for us because we're not a seasonal advertiser. We advertise throughout the year and like you said it is to flatten out, you know, the lowering demand curve. Because two of our core categories are term insurance and health insurance. Both of these are relatively low-demand categories. So a lot of advertising we do is to create new demand. And while obviously the efforts are more fruitful during the season, but you have to still keep on doing it the rest of the year as well because you need to create that demand. It's a very, very low penetration category. I'd also like to add one point to what Puneet mentioned about, you know, owning the entire tournament, looking at on-ground, looking at on-air, etc. So what Policy Bazaar has done very consistently is broadcast advertising. We've done a lot of FCT advertising and there is a very fundamental objective behind it. See, we are operating in a very low-demand category. We're trying to convince people that hey, you need health insurance. You should buy it. You need term insurance for your family. You should buy it. We're trying to convince people to enter the category. We're trying to convey the relevance of the category to them. To be able to do that, the audio-visual format works best for us. Storytelling is not possible on a static logo print. Thankfully for us, we are also not operating in a very heavily competitive category. If we were, we would also be advertising a lot on-ground to be able to build a higher recall versus the competitor. To gain an edge over there. But, you know, thankfully we're not. So we're just advertising a lot on FCT. We're doing a lot of storytelling and that happens throughout the year because we've clearly seen if we stop advertising, the demand sort of, you know, in a very immediate manner, it starts to go down. So overall advertising, yes. And cricket, I think, is like a cherry on the cake. It adds a significant chunk to the overall GRPs that you were getting in the plan anyway. So yeah, IPL is important, will continue to be important while it's slightly off the season. But I'm sure all the other relatively smaller cricket tournaments are equally important. Great answer, Sabir. Thank you. The kind of elephant in the room and, you know, one must address it, we are in peak FIFA season, right? And lots of people are taking fair amount of football and one expects that this very niche audience grows through the course of this tournament, especially when the knockouts happen, right? So, of course, a lot of the timings match in Indian time being in Qatar, you know, there's a 930 game, there's a 1230 game. Want to get across to both Puneet, you and Henhema. Understanding, is there a belief that other sports are really an option to cricket, right? One has seen in the last, say, decade or so, growth of other leagues, right? India Soccer League, there's the PKL, the Premier Cavaldy League. You've got badminton now, you even got a chess league going, various formats. To what extent are other sports a viable property for brands, right? Maybe brands that can't afford big-ticket cricket spends. Do you see brands building sizeable, you know, recall, sizeable impact by taking a deep position into other sports? Maybe you want to start Puneet and then I'll have Henhema. Yeah, so we've been doing and listening, doing a social listening exercise for almost 12 months. And the key to the tool is to figure out and pick up conversations which are consistent with volumes. And the reason why we're doing this is to understand in our target audience, which are the factors which is the most talked about and which the audience are more passionate about. And over the past 12 months, there are three buckets which we have found. The first bucket is women empowerment. There's a lot of conversations about women empowerment. The second bucket is Pride of India. And this is where sports come in, you know. The entire point of Indians representing India on a global stage, which is Olympic sports, which is sports like badminton, that is when you see a lot of conversations and a lot of affinity from the audience and support towards these sports person. The Nira Chopra phenomena. The Nira Chopra, the Lakshasen, for example, is the world number five now as we speak. And the Himadas and, you know, the entire non-cricketing world, if I may say so. From that point of view, we have a lot of associations and we will, you will see a lot of associations from MasterCard supporting sports outside of cricket. Purely because it is data proofs that there is a sense of cultural homecoming, if I may say so. You know, that's a, that's, especially the younger millennials feel this vibe, which we today see, which was not the case possibly four years back. Great. Himad, just a, yeah, your perspective on this, other sports. Yes, there is definitely a role that other sports, emerging sports play. Depending on what your requirement is and what are you chasing, if you're chasing reach, may not be, the answer may not be yes. But, you know, if you're looking for a passionate set of audiences, if you're looking for a specific set of audiences, definitely, whether it's football or kabaddi are talking to quite a different audiences. But yes, they both have a huge potential to, for brands to, and in the long run, I think this is the right time because they are emerging as we call them. It makes immense sense to associate with them right now before they get crowded like cricket and be associated with it. Like we always used to say, you know, there was a time in our media strategy presentation, we used to tell our clients own cricket and be dominant. I don't think so anybody can own cricket and be dominant because it's so huge and it's so expensive. But I think that opportunity lies in the other sports, which if you're targeting youth, while the IPL may give you numbers, but yes, at the same time, the audience that you will get in FIFA will be a different and a focused set of audiences and they see your brand also in a different line when they see your brand in that environment versus when they see it in a mass environment. So, yes, there is scope provided you're not reaching, chasing reach numbers. So I think key takeaway we're seeing there is that you're saying there is scope for it, Nish, for other sports as well. And I would say the other thing is, you know, in my experience in the marketing space is also that brands want to be in a positive environment and sports. Cricket, of course, because of your scale, but sports in general is a much more positive place to be as opposed to be, shall we say, relatively more toxic environments and one is, you know, and that begates the next last question, if I may, in the context of Twitter and toxicity, and I want to get your thoughts, Samir, briefly on the fact that sports provides a very safe, positive environment, right? When people are, shall we say, not really the controversial family sitting around enjoying sport, having fun, you know, snacking and doing the good things. There have been properties sometimes that peak, but many brands don't feel very comfortable, right? News is once a genre sometimes that, you know, I know the big spikes have been involved myself in the past during counting days of election, but there are brands that stay off it, saying that this is not the best environment. How do you guys see, you know, other spikes that come in, which are outside of cricket and the sporting genre, and even though they might give you a huge amount of eyeballs? I completely agree. I couldn't agree more. I think when a brand scales beyond a certain point, the ability to take risks decreases from a media point of view, which is why we obviously like to operate purely in a brand safe environment. Cricket is largely and I think almost entirely a very brand safe environment. We have, you know, seen globally very, very few controversies around football, et cetera, here and there. Not very commonplace, very isolated, but we've seen those. With cricket, it's been fairly consistent. It's a very positive sentiment around cricket. I think brands generally would like to be associated with very positive sentiments because it drops off. And, you know, also with leader brands in their respective categories, it is expected for them to, you know, operate in a lot of very big tournaments because a lot of times when you do it very, very consistently, the audience also start expecting you to be there. And if you do it over a period of time, you form a bond because these are repeat audiences. Day in, day out, you'll be able to build a recall that somebody who's off cricket won't be able to because, you know, like we said, it's happening throughout the year. Great. And this is that last point just to bring you in which well is that the context of, you know, cricket being a good brand safe environment. I think the other exposure that brands take is with ambassadors. You guys have, I think, MS Dhoni for quite a while right now. And is that also a concern that now and then if the ambassador gets into a controversy, what happens to us? Do you all kind of have a little watch out on that front? Yeah, of course, you know, that can be a deterrent at times. Goes with the tough. Yes, it does. And so you, of course, like some of you said, when brands become big, they want to play safe a little bit there. And that's why I think, you know, MS is, is I think the safest bet that we can have. And and of course, you know, it's it's not only that they get some real good stuff also with them. Right. You have a cricketer for a brand ambassador. You know, he's got a national appeal. You don't have to go for regional stars. So I think that also plays in the favor. Fantastic. Thank you. That's been a wonderful discussion. Thanks, Pima, Puneet, Sabir and Ujwal. I don't have time for questions. So I believe you to the paucity of time. Well, we won't be able to take any questions as of now, but feel free to contact our panelist of the record, maybe for the same. And with the same, I'd like to thank you all and offer my sincerest apologies for the slight technical issues with the same. Can we please have you all in the front for a group picture? And I'd like to request Mr. Shalini Shankar, National Head, Business Development, Luxure Media Group and Mr. Atul Bhalla, Vice President, Luxure Media Group to kindly join us on the stage to present a small token of appreciation to the moderator and our panelists. Thank you so very much for a rather interesting session and for a lively discussion. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Thank you.