 Let's quickly move on to our next speaker session for the day. We would like to invite Mr. Anand Bhatkamkar, CEO, Densu. Mr. Bhatkamkar is the CA and CMA by profession and holds a fourth graduate diploma in digital business. His experience expands over 23 years, which includes five years in auditing firms and 19 years in media advertising and communications industry. He is also being elected as the CEO Anand was with the network as CFO South Asia and COO India. He's also member of the Densu India Network Executive Board and Greater South Executive Board. He will be speaking here on this forum on the topic of changing marketing mix in accelerated digital adoption. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me as I welcome Mr. Anand Bhatkamkar, a very warm welcome to you. Hi Cathy and thanks, thanks pleasure to be here. And it's really, I was just listening to the earlier panelists, so great discussion and I think it's in a way a segue to what I just want to sort of discuss about on how during this pandemic period, it's just having an impact on the way the marketing mix or the media mix is changing. So I just quickly share my screen, just let me know if that's visible. Yes, it's visible. Perfect, sure. So just sort of to talk about right because last year or last 15 months we have seen the pandemic ravaging us and this one quote by Vladimir Lenin actually that gets quite important or quite relevant. It's it's pretty old centuries old quote in that sense. But what he talked about was there are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks where decades happen. And that's what has happened during the pandemic to our industry or to our economy actually. The multiplier effect that digital adoption has had on our businesses, I think it's tremendous like for example, you'll see over here e-commerce, the e-commerce adoption that e-commerce deliveries within eight weeks we reached the scale which was managed in 10 years. So that that's something within weeks you have sort of covered what a decade couldn't do. Similarly telemedicine which has become quite prominent for us now people are staying at home, you need to sort of our home bomb, no visits. So telemedicine covered almost in 15 days at 10x sort of utilization. Similarly, remote learning of the kids, the children actually were forced to be at home. The schooling has been happening from home, college education and in international education. That's something which has sort of just become home bomb. People are on screens and then completing the education. So within two weeks, we reached almost 250 million students, I think that's that's something which would have taken years to sort of cover that until now in normal scenario. And similarly remote working, all of us, even today we are having this session normally it would have been in person, we would have been meeting somewhere and then interacting. Video conferencing that has just gone many folds 20x growth in three months. That's something again wouldn't have been possible earlier the zoom of the world or Microsoft Teams, it just completely changed the way we were operating. The consumer was operating the world in which we were living. And that has made a huge huge huge sort of an impact. Similarly, entertainment, people being at home for the last 12 months. Online entertainment has taken a huge boost. Disney managed to achieve within five months, which took almost seven years for Netflix for their subscriber base or for their growth. I think that's the kind of adoption and that's kind of the growth which we haven't seen over the last one year. And that's rapid, rapid movement. The earlier panelists were speaking about the shift which you are seeing. But while we are looking at this, what's quite important and what you'll see critical is the consumer or the user and the customer is planning actually for now because the focus during the pandemic period, it's more on what's happening now than earlier plan of a long term planning. That's something which has changed. So that becomes quite critical for the market years when they are targeting or they're working with the consumers as well. Because there's a fundamental shift in the way consumer behaves or the behavior. And some of that is a long term or sort of long lasting. Such as the focus now is more on what is essential than much, much sort of convenient way of products to be procured. Luxury goods takes sort of a second importance over what is my primary need just now. Similarly, digital and only channel has become important or my first priority. The adoption to online spending that has improved by almost 25% increase in the intent to move to the online. That's something which we have seen in our research with our cohorts as well. And there was a commit earlier as well. But when the consumer is looking for or a buyer is looking for online or for the new brands on the other aspects, I think there is an openness in switching over. So the brand loyalty which was there earlier, there's a more need on sort of ensuring that that consumer sticks to that because he's open to switching to different brands when it comes to online. Because there are that many more options available than you would have in a physical or sort of physical world actually in that sense. And again, what's driving this is most of the consumers or most of the citizens currently are home bought. Even we speak after the second wave as well. People are home bought and they will be for a while. So this behavior is going to stick for a while and that's going to have a long lasting effects as well. So the focus is shifting more towards the quality of the product to be seen or brought out more and more in a simplest possible manner and value which the consumer derives when we are looking at online purchases or online shopping, the digital shift. So as you would see the behavior change which we are noticing in our interactions with the market years or when we're working with the data, with our clients as well, the customer journey of the consumer. That's something which has to be mapped on digital. Because the consumer is not keen just now, because of the COVID scenario, people don't want to be out there in the market. The physical interaction has taken a backseat. There was an example of SCOTA as well, online launches which has come in. So in person experiences that has taken a backseat slightly and more focus is on interactions through digital, through UI, UX. That mapping that customer journey becomes quite important. And the digital adoption to map that customer behavior. I think that's something which is critical for market years now as we move forward. That has become quite important. What's getting more focused similarly at the same time is the digital content. The content consumption has tremendously increased over the last one year. And that's across multiple mediums or multiple schemas actually in that way. The learning, e-learning, or it's across news and entertainment. That has increased manifold. Similarly, gaming which has become sort of next stage or it's in a way sort of competing with cricket as well at times. I think that's where the content consumption has gone up. The need for creating that user content and which is going to engage your consumer for a long term. I think that's getting more and more important. Similarly, as a result of people being online and not being there in person connections, the hyper local communities or creation of online communities that has become quite, quite prevalent. There are WhatsApp communities or WhatsApp groups which are there, which leads to commerce, which leads to commerce convergence and business convergence. That has become a sort of a norm, which again changes the cohort in which you go and target the customer, the personalized interaction with the consumer. I think those hyper local communities are becoming quite important. When you look at overall consumer behavior or the change in the way the consumer is interacting now. And there's a focus because of COVID, because of being at home. A large focus on the living, healthy living. Health consciousness has gone up. There are more focuses on online training courses or physical improvements. Similarly, online medical care, that's gone through a huge boost. And as a result of all of this, what's becoming quite important is the awareness. Or there's heightened awareness amongst consumers on the security, the data, the privacy, the data protection. So there is sort of a huge ask from the consumers on how the brands or how my market here also is looking at protecting my privacy, taking care of my data and then not sort of exposing me to any other aspects. So I think that entire journey when a market is mapping, that gets quite important. And even government is taking that much more precaution and that much more actions. Now we are across on the new IT Act, which has become relevant. That becomes quite important for market years when we are collecting the first party data or you're looking at getting customer information, PII. That is something which is becoming prevalent and the consumer is much more aware of how a market year or a lot of advertisers are collecting their data and connecting with them. I think that becomes as we move forward. And as part of this entire journey has become sort of a very critical area. What that means for the brands as well is in a way it's sort of rebooting the relationships with your customers. Or when I'm trying to target my consumer, it's again relearning. Because new segments have come out when people went online. People have started getting more interactions, more health freaks, you can call it in that sense. Remote workers whom you need to target earlier, they used to be in the offices. They used to be in the malls. You need to target them at home. Do it yourself, enthusiasts. There's a new community which is sort of coming up. So the way the market years or the brands were reaching out to the consumers earlier. You need to unlearn and relearn that, retarget them, personalize your communications based on those segments. How you understand the consumer cohort or your customer cohort. And getting that back to them. And similar at the same time, innovating the way you're getting your engagement with the consumer, the products which you get across. And the marketing spends obviously need to be re-aligned. And when we are taking them to the customers. And for large part of the brands, in the earlier panel also, you would have heard or sort of we listened to the panelists. So shifting from physical to digital. And many of the brands actually have moved and are moving on to digital only journeys. Which is leading to the e-commerce convergence. But I think that's something which has become quite important. And that's part of the market year's quite, quite critical aspect also. And even at Denso, we are working with multiple of our clients. On mapping that journey for the consumer. And getting the brand onto that consumer journey. And the digital journey for the customers. But while the sales are happening, what's quite critical is as people are not able to move out. The virtualized after sales service also. That becomes much, much more important. Because it's not just the sale which is getting the things completed. The product, once it's there in the consumer's home. There is a need, since people are homebound, on how do you sort of deal with on after sales services installations. Or if there are any issues subsequently. So those do it yourself, sort of a kids the videos which need to be going out to the customers. I think that gets quite important, creating that content. Creating that customer experience and that affinity post sense. I think that has become much more important. And then instead of your customers visiting to the branches. Or customers visiting to the sales centers. The virtual sales center being available for the customer. I think that's become quite important. And that's where the entire development of your ecosystem. It gets quite, quite important. What that has done also is the e-commerce acceleration. While consumers have moved online the content consumption. The social commerce also has seen a tremendous increase. And the consumers who are earlier only physical. From there the new users getting onto the online shopping. That has increased in the last 12 months tremendously. And that's not just the consumers or not just the users. It's increased across the categories as well. The categories which were earlier not there on digital or online have moved on to and there's a tremendous increase in the opportunities which are available. And that in a way is reserting in increasing the spends. The online spends of brands. Similarly, consumers buying online. That has gone tremendously. In one of our, what concerns reports. What we have done as a study as well. What we have noticed is there is a tremendous increase in daily online shopping as well. You'll see in, even within our home families. That daily there are multiple deliveries which are happening. And families are shopping online in multiple places. Husband, a wife and a kid will be asking or sort of buying their needs on a regular basis which happens in silos. But that's something which is increasing the overall velocity in the spending as well. While we are looking at this. It's definitely more towards your routine supplies. Your medical supplies which were earlier physical have moved online. Similarly, groceries have largely moved online with the e-commerce activities. But when we take into consideration the entire market that is overall India, urban and rural area. While this adoption has been tremendous. We have gone through quite quite aggressively. At the same time it's still reaching just eight to 10% of the total retail market in the country. So there's still tremendous scope for brands and market years in increasing the spend. Because this trend is going to continue for a while. So this remains quite a focus area as we see now. As well as in the next few years as well. And the e-commerce market is expected to grow almost three times in the next four years. I think this trend is going to continue. And that's where definitely for the investment for the focus and digital as being the primary area of focus for brands will keep on continuing. So when we look at 2021 or a move to 2022 also in our digital report also we had called this out. Digital has remained a strong medium as it comes for reaching out to the consumers. It was discussed earlier as well. Mobile first or mobile being the norm as the digital. Digital was the only medium last year during pandemic time which has grown over 2019 as well beyond pre-pandemic. And now digital has become the second largest medium behind television. At the same time gaming and OTT has seen tremendous boost in the last 12 months and that will keep on increasing. OTT more from the entertainment, Amazon Prime, Netflix or Wood or Hotstar tremendous growth onto those areas and there's tremendous opportunities for brands to partner there and then reach out to the consumers because consumers are there. The commerce opportunities coming through OTT platforms or social media that keeps on continuing. Similarly is the case with gaming industry as well. Gaming industry is seeing more and more consumers and gamers coming on board. And it's increasing more with advent of the smartphones, easy availability of broadband and then the entire networks being out there, 4G and then 5G sort of coming in play now. So I think that's something which is going to keep on increasing this trend as we move forward. So digital which has grown, it will keep on increasing and is going to be the core as we move forward as well as the bedrock for the market years on the brand journey and on increasing as overall marketing spends. Having said that, television does continue to be important and it still remains as a key medium and the reach is unparalleled even as we speak now and it will still continue to be, is the largest medium and as we see post the second wave as well as we are coming out of that TV has seen a strong comeback and then we have seen sort of revival in TV to be much faster. So television still continues to be a focus area as we move forward and will remain to be so for the next few years as well. Print was one medium which had seen a maximum impact during the pandemic because of the lockdowns and it did see tremendous degrowth. But that has again come back, but at the same time during the pandemic what's seen also is print news has remained to be the most reliable and the most credible source of information even in now. So I think that still continues and that will remain so as we move forward as well. But even on that side, the print, the publications have started adopting to digital and then sort of making investments into the digital strategy. So it's a print that is physical plus digital both coming together. So digital while it's a separate medium the way we look at it, still is going to drive the entire growth for television and print as in the overall ecosystem as well and it will keep on growing as we move forward and taking that leadership role as we move forward. So quickly, just wanted to sort of touch base upon from market years perspectives as well because as we are seeing this growth or the digital adoption as it's happening and consumers are going to be long-term onto the digital space. There are a few things the market years also ought to look out for or they would be sort of focusing on and we are working with our clients also on these lines but it's essentially the MaTeC adoption that's going to be critical. E-commerce has become important. So the usage of AI and machine learning in understanding the customer finding that right media makes where your consumer is or do you reach out to the right consumer at the right time, the personalization or scale which the other is also was speaking about. All of that gets quite important but I think that's backed by the MaTeC, the CRM solutions, identifying the right tools which you need to sort of deploy work with your consultants and advisors on getting that across with digital being at the forefront, I think that gets more critical and when you're getting that strategy across creating that hyper-local communities for your markets using influences, the local influences in driving that adoption, taking care of your customer your loyal consumer base and developing that further. I think that becomes much, much more important and that will remain so as we move forward as well as we start on this digital adoption and digital journey for the brands, you move them onto your e-commerce platforms the direct sale, after sale service I think hyper-local communities creating your own communities which creates that long-term fan following and your consumer loyal consumer base gets quite important. That will help on in the future QQ list environment on creating your first party data developing that data and then creating those analytics as we build on that I think that's going to be quite important and while you're having that the data and the analytics I think creating those immersive experiences for the consumers, your UI UX your experiences on your site as the consumers interact through mobile through online and digital schemes or in future on partly personal space also I think that consumer experiences creating them through the digital interaction I think it's going to be quite important and I think the advent of the 4G and 5G as we're moving forward and access of internet across the country I think that that's going to sort of increase this much, much more so humanizing that experience for your consumer I think that's going to be quite important and marketers need to ensure that that something is built into your strategy as we go out to the markets as well and then mapping your consumers but what's important I think as a closing point also for me on this is going to be the brand purpose that's something which was called out earlier as well because more so in this COVID times people are looking forward to their brands with whom they partner with or the brands whom they are sort of using on ensuring that the brand is purpose driven and the brands do communicate that back to their customers in the communication I think that needs to come out quite clearly the societal affinity for the brands the same time what does the brand stand for and for their existing customers what's the value that brand is getting across I think that brand purpose being articulated very clearly beyond the digital adoption beyond customer interaction beyond creating those communities of loyal customers for the brand and from the marketers I think that's going to be critical is from long-term perspective more so in the current scenario the brand purpose and staying true to that brand purpose I think that's going to be quite important so I think it's more on as the marketers start looking at the focus on how you interact and then sort of take the brand forward as well it ought to be ideas led it ought to be tech enabled by technology through MaTeX, AtTech similarly using AI and machine learning and data driven using the data on ensuring that you target the right customer and reach out to the right people with the right messaging that's going to be quite important so during this pandemic time as we're moving forward from here I think these are the few things I thought are going to be quite important and that's what we'll hold in Longstead also for the brands and as we move forward so that's something just wanted to share as my thoughts for the world so thanks if there are any questions or comments more than a few sort of thank you, thank you so much Anand for that wonderful session unfortunately we've run out of time so we can't take questions right now but we thank you for your time and sharing those insights here with us on this platform thank you so much thanks, thanks pleasure to be here thank you thank you