 Good afternoon. It's my honour and privilege to welcome you to another yet new initiative from Exchange for Media. Today we discuss the growth in Bharat, the unlimited potential. We look at what has happened to growth and the demand in rural India and semi-urban India in tier two and tier three cities, which is the real India, which is the real Bharat. And to discuss that we have a panel of experts who are stakeholders in this growth journey. And the biggest question for all business owners, media owners is demand. So let's look at the demand in these key markets as we would call them. Let me welcome our panelist. We have Mr. Giri Shagarwal, who is the promoter of the Danik Bhaskar group. And he understands the consumers and the media landscape really well, having been active at it for more than 25 years. Welcome Giri Shagarwal. Thank you for making time. We also have Mr. Gul Bahar Torani, who is the Vice President, Philips for Personal Health for the Indian subcontinent. Welcome Gul Bahar. And again, health has taken center stage. Immunity is important. We have Mr. Yadwinder Singh Guleria, who is the director sales and marketing for the Honda motorcycle and scooter India Private Limited. Welcome Yadwinder. And again, personal mobility has taken the auto sales to a different level. We have Ms. Vishali Verma, who is the CEO of Initiative and again, an important stakeholder. We have two brand owners, business owners. We have an agency CEO. We also have Mr. Satyajit Sengupta, who is the CCSMO of Sales and Marketing of the Danik Bhaskar group. Again, he understands all the issues that the stakeholders have, the consumers, the readers, the media agency, and the clients and advertisers. Today we will discuss the unlimited potential, our Indian language, media platforms like Danik Bhaskar, making sure that they are the bridge between the brands, businesses, and their own aspirations. What are the media consumption habits in Bharat? What has happened in the last seven, eight months? How print dominates conversations in Bharat and still is the most potent media vehicle? We'll hear the story of consumption that is being unfolded in the Bharat. We'll also talk from a standpoint of how media agency leaders are looking at this unfolding scenario. What are the nuanced changes? So Vishali will bring in perspective there. As a media owner, how has the circulation come back to its pre-COVID levels? What are the initiatives? Media owners have taken up Indian language newspapers like Danik Bhaskar have taken up. Where is the demand headed? And we are in early part of November, Diwali is 10 days away, but what will happen beyond Diwali for the next five months. So to discuss these issues, let me bring in all the participants one by one for their opening comments. Then we'll do a discussion and we'll take audience questions at the end around 350. So let me start with Girish Ji. Girish Ji, over the last seven months, the epitaph of print has been written that print is over and the language newspapers are over. You've seen unprecedented advertising especially over the last two months. So tell us what is happening in these Indian markets in Bharat where the consumption has gone to such levels that in certain product categories, the business owners are running out of supplies. So give us a sense of what's happening, Girish Ji. I'll start with the GST collection. First of all, thank you Anurag and thank you for having me for this program. I'll start with the GST collection. You must have noticed the September GST collection has shown a growth of around 3% over last year. Now, most importantly, in all the markets, especially Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bihar and all that, the growth is on an average of around 10% over last year. That clearly shows that the market has come back sooner and with more vigor than all we all thought about it. See what happened as a human being, we get pessimistic much faster and we get optimistic also equally faster. So like extremes. So while in the month of April-May, we all thought that we are losing hope, everything is almost dead. I don't know how things will recover and all that. People were writing stories about fake news that saying that banks are going to collapse industries are going to collapse, people are going to lose jobs and all that. But what has happened? From July onwards, things have started recovering. And let's talk about categories, Mr. Guleria is here from Tuvila, Mr. Turani is here from from a consumer durable and the first healthcare and all that and all these categories have seen a huge demand. Now that clearly indicates that consumer wants to consume and especially what has happened in the last six-eight months time. The other expenses, you have a wallet and you've been utilizing that wallet for multiple things. Now your wallet suddenly has stopped using that itself for the things which you can't use now. You are not traveling. So your traveling cost has been saved. Your kids are not going to school. So your school fees is saved. So there are a lot of other savings that happened and that people are utilizing that for other purposes. As for the newspapers are concerned, very clearly all the Indian language newspapers are very happy to announce that right from Kerala to Uttar Pradesh to Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka, all these markets, Indian language newspapers have come back to almost 85-90% of their pre-COVID level. Now that's very, very good news for all of us. Both in circulation as well as advertising. So for the circulation, we have come up to almost 85-90%. Advertising, we are up to almost 80% of last year. So we still have 15-20% to go back for the advertising and that also has been lagged because of few categories. For example, lifestyle categories, apparel categories has taken a beating. So there are a few categories. For example, I was talking to one big automobile giant. Now they are not advertising because they have nothing to supply. They are running short of supply. So whatever is being made by their factories, they are not able to fulfill the demand and hence they are saving money on the advertising. So I think overall if you say the India as a Bharat, we are in a pretty okay stage. And Grishi, I'll come back to you for one more comment before you leave us. I want to know, till Diwali, we know this demand will sustain. What post Diwali, what are the few suggestions slash predictions that you have for beyond Diwali? Look, I am very clear. All the people who ask for predictions, Sir, tell me what will happen next year, what will happen after 6 months. These are all things about making an excel sheet. The world is right now. I think we should focus right now that in Diwali, we should cross the last year, sail or achieve the last year. That is should be the target. Thank you so much for being so real and pragmatic. We would want one more comment before you leave but let me bring everyone. Now, Yadwinder, Grishi talked about your category and we know that both in four wheelers and in two wheelers, October has been a bumper month for most brands because the need for personal mobility has gone up. Give a sense of where the sales are coming. What's happening in the tier 2, tier 3 cities and why are they such a big ray of hope for a product category like yours? Yeah, thank you for bringing me in as far as the auto discussion is on now. Now, here what I want to say that initially when the first unlock happened in the month of May, obviously because the rural had less number of COVID cases, so the economic activity was more in the rural and at the same time, there were many who were employed in the essential services and they were doing their duties, hats off to those COVID warriors, but they needed that individual mobility and unfortunately, there was no other way to go than the personal mobility because the public transport infrastructure was closed and there was anxiety also to use that public transport infrastructure on account of the hygiene, the social distancing and all. So this new need of individual personal mobility started coming in quite early, which we have not predicted it earlier. Now, with the unlock 5.0 now, which we are seeing, the urban has also started opening. So that's what you once you see the results of October, even though it is a wholesale number, it is with anticipation of a productive festival ahead of Dhanteras and Diwali, which normally I say the four days, the two days of the festival already gone, the Durgapuja in Dashara and now the two days are left that is Dhanteras and Diwali. So far so good as far as the first two days are concerned, we saw the positive retail sales. Again, I'm not talking about the moment of truth is always a retail rather than the dispatch number. So we were in positive retail in from the first Navratra up to the Dashara. So that has given us a very big confidence as well as optimism that once we are moving ahead to the balance 2Ds, we will see another spike. One is on back of this increase need and propensity of the customers to go in for their individual personal mobility, not the public transport infrastructure, whether it is the metro or the city bus, even the share taxi or auto like that. And second is now more sectors have started opening up. We are seeing the hotels are opening, the restaurants are opening. It's not only now the delivery at home. We there are people who are also going and doing the fine dining. So the people have started moving out because of the unlock 5.0, which is which has also increased the need of mobility as well more. There is a hybrid structure of the working people work from home as well as many who are moving to the offices, they are back to the office with even though it is 1 third of the manpower. So they also need their individual mobility. Now there is no transport which is being provided by the companies because of the COVID and because of the health and anxiety around the social distancing, but there is a mobility need. So we see that this need will be sustained because there is no vaccine around social distancing need to be maintained and we cannot be very optimistic of the hygiene suddenly and drastically improving on the public transport infrastructure. So with this background, we believe that the push from the rural demand, we are seeing the tractor sales going very well. There has been good monsoons, the MSP of the previous crop has been good, Kharif sewing has been good. So there is positivity in the rural, there is urban opening up. So both put together, not only Bharat alone, now India and Bharat together are expected to shine in the upcoming festival. Thank you. And dare I ask that what is the role Indian language newspapers have played in this, including Danny Bhaskar? Because again, there is a widespread knowledge that the habits of reading the newspaper in their own language have not changed. It may have got impacted in the early part of COVID, but as Girish Ji said, circulation is back 85-90%. Give us a sense of what's been your media and the very briefly. Yeah, I agree with the fact that in the early part of COVID, because it was not being allowed and it was under lockdown, so most of the people were consuming social media like never before. So obviously, most of the market has even including the auto or the rest of the industries have gone more on the digital marketing. I think if I go on another webinar, which is only digital exclusive, I would not be changing my statement. Let me be honest, it's not that we are right now discussing something on the print. So we should be pro-print and once we go to digital, we should be pro-digital. There is a balance we need to maintain based on the existing market scenario. Obviously, and definitely, there has been a larger consumption of social media. But at the same time, there is also a bit of the trust which we all talking about. So any mistrust, basically all of us agree the mistrust, rust the wheel of progress. I repeat mistrust, rust the wheel of progress. So traditionally, we have seen the print has always a large following and a very high degree of trust because once it is printed, it is there on the paper. It's not that you can just tweak it and go back and you can change your tweet or you can withdraw your comment. It's not like that. So vernacular has really played a very, very big role as before we started this webinar, we were discussing behind the scenes that there is a group of people and group of readers who are very, very close to this habit of having the feel of the paper in their hands while they're consuming the news or they are following the current affairs. So this is going to come back, complimented obviously with the digital media because there is a social media usage and short news consumption has also increased at the same time. Both are going to compliment each other and vernacular even in social media as well as print is going to play a much bigger role. Thank you so much. Let me bring in Vaishali. Vaishali, we heard a media owner. We heard an advertiser as a media agency. You're responsible for spotting trends and insights and making sure there's an ROI and there I say sales today. Today, clients want even more delivery than they possibly wanted it before. So give us a sense of what's happening and how do you think Bharat is the real champion? Yeah, so I completely agree with both Mr. Yadavinder and Girish. So let me start by saying that Bharat, which is as defined by the Tier 2, Tier 3 cities we are talking about has been a big potential across categories. So for CPG, it was always there. For Auto, we heard even for a lot of digital companies, you know, the e-commerce giants today, even for them and the reports which all of us have been reading that almost 50 to 60% of the sales which the e-commerce clients advertisers got this festive was from Tier 2, Tier 3 cities and also the amount of sellers who came on, you know, the platform were from almost 60 or 65% of the sellers were from Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities, you know, and there have been towns like, you know, Jaunpur, Jhumri, Tillaya and I was just reading a lot of these cities which has come. So that makes us believe that the resurgence of back to economy has come primarily from these, you know, towns and cities. Of course, at the back of, you know, huge digitization wave, I mean, today we are talking almost about 600 million internet users. So huge digitization wave and of course, a very good, kharif crop and which could have, you know, even given a lot of impetus impetus to the rural economy. So we see the same trend as far as the consumption behavior is also concerned. Of course, there was a brief period of lockdown which was April and May when we did see, you know, the newspaper circulation coming down and today even our independent sources makes us believe that it's almost back to 90% and most of the advertisers are back, you know, to print medium for their advertising and for two reasons, you know, and we all know the amount of credibility and trust a newspaper carries is unparalleled number one. And number two, the immediacy, which, you know, most of the advertisers are seeking currently. So everybody is looking at ROI, quick returns, quick sale. And there is, of course, a demand. It's a short period of six weeks. And newspaper does deliver, you know, on those parameters brilliantly. So that has, we're seeing that trend across. Of course, there's some sectors like lifestyle or travel, etc, which have seen a setback, given that people are more at home. So that trend we see, like a lot of those sectors, and even for most of the advertisers we handle, if they are in the lifestyle or in the travel sectors are not, you know, forthright right now, but other than that auto, CPG e-commerce, tech platforms, most of them are back, right? And most of them are back. And they are back with print and television, digital, you know, the same combination, which typically works, which is no different from what we had seen last festive. And a lot of growth, again, from language, when I say language, which is non English. So I have seen spends overall coming down for English, as far as, you know, even the newspaper advertising is concerned, and shifted more towards, you know, language newspaper again, in, you know, adherence to the kind of markets and towns we were targeting. And I think I also want to call out some of the publications did a lot of effort, even initially to break those, you know, myth. And they did a lot of campaign around safety norms that there were a lot of inhibitions earlier that we should not touch the newspaper, etc. It could be the carrier of COVID, etc. And hence, there was a very brief period when people went to e-news paper. But I think now it's in our opinion, it's almost 90% back. I totally agree with you, Charlie. And thank you for bringing that perspective. Gulbar, you know, again, your category, I'm hoping is growing healthily, not just being, you know, growing at a marginal pace. Tell us, what have you done over the last seven months to be able to pivot around what you've done to find new strategies, especially last two months, in terms of harnessing the potential of Bharat. I think, first of all, thank you for inviting me. And it is not about last two months. I think it is about what you are doing, especially in the month of April and May. You know, what consumers have actually come to come and come out and told all of us is like brands have to be responsible and brands have to be there when they need them. And I think if there was a time when consumers wanted brands to communicate and give them a platform to share and consume content, it was in the month of April and May when, you know, there were little avenues to, you know, go out and do that. So I would say whatever we are seeing in terms of demand and also what brands have been able to do is also a factor of what brands did in April and May. And I would completely agree with Mr. Girish because, you know, it is, we get pessimistic very soon and we get optimistic also too soon. While the reality is, if you keep the basics and the fundamental in place, and when I say so, so still, for example, we deal in, you know, categories which are do-it-yourself. So whether that is male grooming, so whether that's your trimmer clipper or whether that is the female grooming. Now, this was a phenomenon which was already gaining speed pre-COVID also. What COVID did was it actually accelerated the phenomenon. Consumers actually started using these gadgets more often at home. They realized that they can be of great help. And this is going to stay, not only till Diwali, but beyond that also. So few of the habits change have also happened, which is going to actually help brands and businesses to grow. And coming to Bharat, I think kudos to, you know, all the language, newspapers and all that. I belong to Bhopal and Mr. Girish will agree that there is aspiration and there is also potential, but it is up to the players to identify that and also tailor make, you know, products and communication for that aspiration. Sometimes what happens is we believe that one side fits all and we also are of the belief that what is relevant in Delhi is relevant in Bhopal or say, for example, an app code may or may not be. I'm not saying it's, you know, and that is why consumers are there. Consumers are speaking out. They are keeping their aspiration out. They are ready to spend. It is up to us to crack that code, identify the inside and also not take it for granted saying, you know, one strategy fits all. And that is why I was hearing the comments in terms of media planning. I think that is also one of the topics wherein I am always been faced with questions in how much percentage of your promotional budget is going to now digital and print and all. I think not a relevant question. What is relevant is, is my spend increasing on all the platforms? Is there a platform wherein we have stopped spending? Now, that's more relevant because with the growing needs and with the growing aspirations, maybe your promotion budget has also increased many, many forms and that's where you see all the all the mediums and platforms getting their share of, I would say, expense. So that is why I would say Bharat is fundamental to any brand's growth now. The only thing is, it is not one size fits all. And we need to really dig deep into the insights and then, you know, I would say make communications which are relevant for them. Thank you so much, Gulbar for changing the perspective. I wish more marketers thought like you. Saptajit, you heard everyone and again, it's your job to be able to find those innovative solutions that Gulbar is talking about that one size doesn't fit all. There's no cookie cutter approach to it. Advertising in the traditional format doesn't, you have to do activation, you have to build a solution. So advertising is definitely very big part of it, but you go beyond. Give us your sense of the kind of solutions you at Deni Bhaskar have been providing and give us a sense of what's happening in the market through that. Yeah, so very clearly, you know, one thing that and we have talked about Indian language newspapers getting back circulation and, you know, categories coming back, all that is true. But, you know, I think more importantly, what we have managed to look at is very early on, how to get the customer back to the advertiser, because that I think is the crux of where our revenue rests. And everything that we have done over the past four, five months has been, you know, channelized towards that. We have looked at, you know, very clearly two things, the Indian language newspapers, especially, you know, in the markets that we are, the advantage that we have apart from the trust and credibility is the understanding into the market. You know, every city has its own nuances. You know, we are not catering to homogeneous markets, right? The state has many parts. For example, you know, Gujarat is not one Gujarat. There are, you know, several places in Gujarat, Gujarat, Gujarat, Gujarat is very different. There's southern Gujarat, Gujarat is very different. So we look at, you know, breaking up the kind of markets that we represent into, you know, regions into cities, and then working out solutions based on that. So, you know, based on the need of the advertiser, the client at the moment, looking at the context, looking at the communication, looking at what works in a particular market, our solutions have all been based on that. We do have, you know, a very, very sizable print presence. We do have radio, YSM is a large station, and we do have considerable digital presence now. So we have used all of that to provide solutions which are delivering, you know, and they are delivering. We know that because advertiser after advertiser come to us and say that yes, response is coming. And there are several, you know, you know, several of these deals which we have done which are all about getting the response. So result-oriented or, you know, accountability-based models that we talk about. So those have been, you know, pretty successful. So this probably, you know, has been our approach which has really helped. And this is evident in the kind of response we have gotten the festive season where we are already back to about 85% of our value. Thank you so much, Satyajit, for making Girishji. We've been able to bring all the stakeholders into this conversation. Advertiser who sit at the head of the, so to say, the table because it's their money that we kind of utilize to be able to fuel our growth to give a free product to the consumers. So tell us, Girishji, what are the things that media planners are still not seeing? But there are things, there are non-obvious things. I remember meeting you 21 years back in the office of a leading media agency. I just started exchanging for media and I was sitting outside and you were coming and meeting a media agency CEO. And I remember my first conversation I'd known about you when I met you for the first time. And you talked about, you know, how there were things on the ground that planners were underway. A lot has changed in 21 years, but a lot hasn't changed. So give us a sense of post-COVID, what are the new realities that marketeers and media planning professionals need to be kind of brought up to speed with? So two different things. One is the media planner and one is the marketeer. So media planners look at the numbers. They only look at a number because they don't have the ground understanding by themselves. Unfortunately, the format of media planning doesn't allow them to go to the ground. And especially what I've seen in last 15-20 years time, that media planners have eliminated themselves a lot from the ground reality. They rely on the numbers only. While on the marketeer side, they have 100% knowledge of the market because they're sales teams, you know, they keep feeding them the number what is happening on the ground. I was talking to a couple of other friends of mine, those who are into businesses. So they have been now talking about that how they want to reduce the strength of their marketing team at head office and shift that team into these regions. Because see, sitting at Bombay and Delhi, you still feel different perception about Bihar. 99% of the media planners, those who don't come from Bihar and Jharkhand, they can't even imagine how the Bihar and Jharkhand would be, for example. And thanks to all this OTT platform and that movies, the UP and the Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan are shown in a different image also altogether. You know, so you think of UP, you think of Mirza poor and all that. Now, that's not the reality of life actually. But that's how the media planner believes. While the marketeers have much more knowledge. So I would actually suggest all the media planners that guys since anyway, you're operating from home. Okay, so your company should now give you a transfer. They should post you in Lucknow, Kanpur, Bhopal, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam, and you rent a house there and you operate from there. So two things will happen. Your work from home will continue as well as you will understand a particular market. And then the kind of value input you will be able to bring into a client's media plan will be humongous. And that's what marketing people do. If you ask Mr. Gulbahaar and if you ask Mr. Bularia, these people travel through their market practically every week. But for COVID in last six, eight months, otherwise every week they are in one of the regions. That way they understand the pulse of the market. So I think that is most important for any marketeer. And also media planners need to understand they are media planners, but for market. So hence they need to understand the market. Beautifully said, Girish Ji. Oshali, would you like to respond to what Girish Ji said? Yeah, the first disclaimer, I'm from Jharkhand. And I'm from a small town place called Ranchi. And so I agree partially and not completely because, yes, most of the people sitting in Bombay and Delhi could not agree to it until the time you do market business, et cetera. And hence we rely a lot on publications themselves to educate us. So we call them for roadshows and we call them before the start of the festive to give us insight into what's happening. And that gives a lot of insight, which they actually give it to the planners. And similarly from the advertiser as well, because they have a lot of on-ground response from the dealers, from the distributors, from their RSMs, et cetera. So numbers, yes, are used directionally, but there are a lot of these insights which we pick up both from the publications as well as our advertisers. And that would be my desire to continue doing it. And as much as insight, we could pick up from, I mean, nobody would know, you know, a Bhopal like a Danny Bhaskar or nobody will know UP better than a Jagran and so on and so forth, right? So it is extremely important that planners and buyers spend that time understanding the nuances of that market. And as somebody was just saying that it is, you know, it's micro planning, which is coming in, right? So every state and every district has to be there separately. And where will the next level of growth come from? It will come from more customization, right? So hence it's extremely important. So agreeing a bit and also saying that from our perspective, we would always want to take as much written sites we could drive from both advertiser and publications. Dr. Jit, your view? Yeah, surely. So I definitely want to say, you know, the kind of planning that needs to take place now and we are seeing this every day. It's not at the level of, you know, and I know of certain large advertisers who are not even looking at metros this time, you know, they didn't look at it. Typically, plans used to start from metros. This time, for the first time I got to know that, you know, no planning has been done for the metro. We are looking at states and within states, we are looking at regions. And then, you know, going down to the level of maybe districts. So that is that I think is pretty, you know, pretty much the ways things will emerge out of this. And the planning will happen at that level, you know, that understanding that insight is something which, you know, has to happen. And I think we as, you know, players in the regional print are very well placed there because we understand markets like Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP and whichever, you know, 12 states we are in in a very different manner and we can give you local nuances which, you know, perhaps no one else can get. And then the, you know, based on the context, based on the regional nuances, based on, you know, the insights that emerge from their communication can be tailor made, which will have to give because otherwise, how will you get result? Thank you so much. Let me bring in Gulbar, your comment on what Grishji said and what Vaishali and Satyajit has said. I think very, very valid. I would just like to add one more dimension to it. I think one of the fundamental things from a process point of view, which we should keep intact is briefing and debriefing both. See, I think a lot of times we assume things and, you know, we believe that this is, so I have particularly observed, as Mr. Grish was saying, that, you know, marketers know their market, but sometimes even the media plan as agencies, you know, they are in a hurry or sometimes even the marketing brief is not very, very clear. So I think from both the sides, the idea should be that we should be able to clearly articulate our vision of what we want out of this campaign. And I would request agencies and media planners also to probe more so that you know exactly, you know, what the person wants. And I think if this process goes well, then you will see more creative ideas. Otherwise, what is happening is we are falling prey of a cycle and we go by assumptions that this is what the person is saying and this is what the needs. For example, I see a lot of people coming and starting with digital. I don't know whether I need digital or not. I'm just saying that I need to do a campaign. So I would say listening is an art which has to again build in and have to stay, you know, we have to keep our focus on the basics of what we used to do. Thank you Gul Bahar. And anyway, you have a very unique name. It's the only Gul Bahar, I don't know. Male or female, let me clarify. Yeah, Dvinda, you heard, Girishji, that marketeers have a first-hand knowledge of the market because of their sales numbers, distributors and marketeers doing market visits. And I know over the last 20 years, Girishji consistently said about media planners making market visits. I think that in the first conversation I had with him at the reception of a media agency, and I think more than 20 and a half years back, I hear parts of that today and what he said. So do you think you'd be moving more marketeers to, let's say, regional offices where sales are happening, where they need to understand the nuances of what works in terms of media vehicles? You'll have to unmute yourself. Dvinda, unmute is the second most popular word of 2020. First being over, third being mute. Yes, yes. And then, you know, I just thought of a headline for exchange to media. Unmuting the Indian economy the Bharat way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then also please add instead of ICU to ECU because right now we are meeting all virtually. So I would like to answer into, you know, I mean, I will add two things to it. First was what was the take of Mr. Girish on this. So Girishji mentioned about, you know, there should be a media planner, then we have marketeers and how do we take the feedback? And Mr. Gulbaha also added the brief. So I think it's a mix of all the things. There need to be a collaborative approach. When I say collaborative approach, it cannot be there without trust. You know, that is the basic ingredient to have that collaborative approach. Otherwise, it is going to be merely a cooperation. Any collaboration without trust is merely cooperation. That means we are not able to exploit the possibilities fully. So the media planner, and then the marketeers and the media agency itself, if the purpose is very made very clear, you want awareness, you want to have sales, you know, what is the objective or from the client perspective, if that is briefed properly, and then we trust the abilities of the professionals and equally giving the weightage to the feedback by those who are sitting in the market. You know, everybody has regional office, whether it is Philips or Honda, you know, every company has many regional journal offices which are closer to the market. We call them eyes and ears, but once we want to spend the money, then we ignore those eyes and ears, you know, that will not make the things happen. So we need to have that trust coming in and then with the approaching with a collaborative way of doing the things where we need to trust the professional inputs and accordingly, you know, finally pick up a mix of the media. And I would also like to say that today we must also understand that there are lots of WMDs in the market, weapons of mass destruction. And once there are lot of weapons of mass destruction, then marketers have this big, big challenge, how to get the attention of this, you know, customer who is already 24x7 online and sometime maybe going into the hard paper to read. So what is, you know, what their consumers or intenders are basically consuming. So this is very important for them to get that human attention and awareness towards their products or services, what we are selling. So then have a revised and recalibrated media mix based on the season, the product, the market, the target audience and expertise input, you know, outside in approach. Sometimes it also happened that the brand feels, you know, not invented here approach and NIH syndrome. I know the best and nobody can know better than me. I am at the pulse of the market. So all those things are there. So I think let's unwind ourselves, open our mind, have those inputs outside in, definitely things will be much, much better. Since you talk of weapons of mass destruction, I just want to ask you, who do you think will win in the American elections? Biden or Trump? I don't know. I'm sure you get who's the weapon of mass destruction. But you said distraction, sometimes. Yeah, I just modified from destruction to distraction. So I think the master of distraction may win the election. That's not a very clear answer and a very clear answer. So you're saying Trump may win it. Okay. So it's a very close election. We'll see, Girish, who do you put your money on? Biden or Trump? I'm not saying supporting. I think right now we are trying to be focused on Bharat in India, you know. So what happened in the U.S. is our second priority. So as we said, this is a time to be more local, talk about our country and being at war. But what happens if a Democratic president comes in, at least the popular perception is Trump and Republican president is better for India in every way. But that's the reason it is relevant. But I just wanted to, since he talked of WMD, we'll come back to Bharat. Thank you, Girish. You are bringing back us to Bharat. And now let me take in, there are about nine questions, 19 questions, not nine, where nine last time I looked at. So I'll take a question that Manoj and I are asking. Most of the markets tier two, tier three, tier four will only rely on print because of the credibility of the news, where a reader can definitely ask the reporter of the source of news maker physically or face to face about the authenticity. Believe it or not, there is no electricity in a lot of markets, so there are television dark areas. TV plans may be ruled out in prime time. It's a common. Vishali, what do you have to say? That I'll take Gulbar and Yadwendra. I didn't understand the question. Basically, Vishali, he's saying that one in, there will be television dark areas, so hence Indian language newspapers become the first choice and the source of news, the local reporter, the editor are very local. So you actually know by reputation what is true, what's not. So he's advocating the case of Indian language newspapers to be more effective than television in some of the hinterland. Okay. So I'm not sure whether, you know, more effective. I think it's television has a different role to play and print has a different role to play and both work in tandem, even if for smaller cities as well, because you do, you know, use television for your brand building, creating that long-term awareness and sustain your campaign, et cetera. There's an emotional connect you want to build with your brand, et cetera. And print, of course, has, as a powerful medium, delivers instant, you know, launch, feed, immediacy, very good for promotion, partnerships, on-ground activation, et cetera. So both have a different role to play. I don't think so one can replace each, but my answer would be that one needs to understand what is the objective and the role what we are trying to achieve from your objective of your brand or consumer, whichever you're talking about. And then accordingly devise the best media mix and to handle questions or to handle situations where they are, you know, media dark, et cetera. Yes, there are television dark, sorry, electricity problem. But I don't think so, that stays for long. I mean, whatever I'm hearing, things are much better. There was some, during summers it happens, but it's a very temporary situation which we would, you know, which we know. Thank you so much. I want to move towards closure and let me bring in all the panelists and I'll take some questions. But I want to ask you what is your top lockdown lesson? Let me start this time with Gulbar. Gulbar, what's your top lockdown lesson? I'm talking philosophically. I'm not talking so much business, media, brands, and then kind of extrapolated to our area of work. You'll have to unmute yourself, Gulbar. So I think philosophically if you ask me, I think it was a great reality check. Okay, we were all running and running without actually taking a pause and checking whether we are in the right direction or not. I think personally if you ask me, I think that was the biggest lesson to see that where we are heading to. And if I have to correlate it with the business and all, I think the most important thing that COVID has taught us is, you know, anything and everything is possible. I think none of the business... Never say never, never say never. None of us ever thought... Gulbar, do you think I can grow hair? Always, always, always. I think everyone in the panel will agree. Thank you so much for giving me hope. But jokes apart, I totally agree with you. Never say never. It is open. We've taken a pause. We've slowed down. We've looked at things. And a lot of kind of mind blocks in our reality have been broken because we said this is not possible, that we've survived with all that. And in some cases, Thrive would absolutely write that. And I think as a result of that, we are more open to ideas and new ways of working. And also, we have learned that we have to be agile. Agility matters a lot. Speed of response, speed of a solution, speed of go-to-market for the campaign, shooting campaigns in very limited resources and with high insight because we couldn't travel. So and clearly that I brought out the best in us. Sometimes they say necessity is the mother of invention. And you are creative because there's no other choice you have. So clearly, thank you, Gulbar. I fully agree with you. Vishali, what is your top lockdown lesson? I think there are many, but the biggest thing is I think what I've started... I've started valuing everything. So you value time, you value relationships, you value everything around you. And secondly, you learn to be far more patient and you're far more resilient as compared to what you were. So things will happen. If there's a certain slowdown, but things will happen and stay positive. Thank you so much. Staying positive, corona negative, but otherwise positive. And I totally agree with you that one less is more and very importantly, resilience. We all have resilience within us. And when we bring it to play, magic happens. And you're right, we value, we don't take things for granted, whether it's a relationship, our health, or just having a cup of coffee in a restaurant. I mean, it seems like a luxury. I mean, just traveling and being doing the same things that we did in the past, if you felt like going out to those, don't take anything for granted. I think that that's true. And enjoy being the moment. We need to be mindful. We need to, and long plans don't necessarily are relevant. I'm not saying they may work, they may not work. We don't know what will happen in the future. Edwin, your top lockdown lessons. So as you mentioned, you know, unmute. So I, you know, that's the first learning of this colonial era, right? Yes. So in the first lockdown, there was nothing to go out. The only way was go in, you know, inside and introspect. And I must say that this crisis basically triggered the quickening of advancement. And this advancement is not only related to your business, I would say advancement or whatever you're planning to do earlier, maybe spirituality, you're, you know, developing your passion, giving more time to your family or, you know, starting something new, new, becoming more health conscious. But when people got time, it quickened that advancement because they have, you know, ample of time to think over. Somebody went into, you know, cooking and a lot of new recipes, spending more time in the kitchen or spending more time on Ludo or some other, you know, games, which we never played with the family for many, many years. So definitely it was a time to go inside introspect and look at the world with a total new vision, which our otherwise daily 18, 20 hours of the regular routine kind of work would not have given us time to think over these things very seriously. So it quickened, as I said, the advancement in whatever was your purpose of life. Thank you so much. Sir Tejit, I have known you personally for many years. What's your top lockdown lesson? So, I know my top lesson is something that you referred to in a certain way. I think as business professionals, we give a lot of time trying to manage the future. But, you know, suddenly we came to, you know, a position where we don't know what the future is. So what I learned is, you know, how do you manage the present? I think that it became very important. Managing the present, managing, doing the right thing today. And you know, then day by day, every day, you do the right thing and things are taking care of themselves. Thank you so much. And let me kind of extrapolate that, you know, when you look at startups, you look at early stage businesses. Earlier they talked of GMV, they talked of how much money we've raised. I think their mentality has shifted to a Marwari mentality. How much money did we make today? They live by day by day. Valuations will automatically happen. We moved from being unicorns to profit cons. You know, headlines change from how much you raise to how much sales you've done. So clearly, if you put in your best in the moment, everything else becomes better. I agree with you fully. I want to end by the panel by asking your final comments for future. And let me start with Satyajit, you've this time. Newspapers have reinvented themselves. Indian language newspapers have reinvented themselves. Tell us how have they been able to reinvent? Give us a sense of what you've done in Denmark, Bhaskar. So very clearly, you know, the kind of connect that we have established, see, the things like credibility, trust, things like, you know, non-metro or the Bharat market coming up. I think this has been proved for quite a few years now. It's not that it's happened. What has happened probably is that this entire pandemic has facilitated or hastened that process. But what I think we have managed to do is we have developed a much stronger connect with our advertisers. We have also demonstrated a lot of ability to, you know, give results. That I think is the most important because once you demonstrate that, then there are a lot of confidence that we get from advertisers, which has been evident in, you know, a lot of case studies being built towards how, you know, communication, how, you know, as I was talking about, sales link deals, etc. have been happening. And that will is something which will stand us in good stead in the future because we have to build upon this. Solution after solution tells us that, you know, marketers will need regional print to work not only, you know, more in terms of more ad volume, but in very different ways as well, in terms of integrated communication, in terms of on-ground activations in terms of, you know, looking at market insights and how city-wide plans can be made, etc. So that I think is pretty much the way we are looking at working with advertisers in the future. Thank you so much, Satyajit Gulbar. Your final comments. No, I think if, you know, if you talk about print, Satyajit summarized it very well. Nothing to add there, but I think overall I see a lot of positivity in the environment and we have to keep doing the things the way we are doing and stay agile. I think otherwise nothing to worry unnecessarily. Thank you so much. And you are going to increase your media spend, right Gulbar? I think I even need not to say that. Satyajit will get on that. Mishali, your final comments. Yeah, so I think we should have a long term, a little bit of a long term view. So festive, yes, is for, you know, quick reserves, etc. But we need to build longer relationships with the brand and hence a continued relationship in some form or the other we should continue to build with our brands because there is plethora of choices available to the consumer and hence brands who have managed to build a successfully emotional connect are the brands who, you know, survive for long in your consumer's mind. So my submission would be that we should keep thinking and innovating our solutions towards building a better connect with the consumer. Yadwinder, your final comment. Yeah, just taking forward from where Mishali left on, you know, the brand and to summarize, I would say, and that too in vernacular and because we all talking about Bharat, so I will try to put it in Hindi only, that, you know, all the brands which recalibrated their nithi, nith, they will keep their naam, namak or nishan. That's a beautiful sentiment to leave it on. I'd personally say that this has been a time of transformation as Yadwinder rightly said, to introspect, as Gulbar said, be in the moment, do the best you can right now. And as Vishali said, of while you do all this, have faith in the universe, think a little longer and have faith. And Satyajit, you rightly said that we need to provide solutions. So I would say, I keep saying whenever there is rain, look for rainbows. Whenever it's dark, look for stars. I think it's the time to look for rainbows and stars. And there are enough in the universe, so to say. So thank you for talking to us about the potential of Bharat, which is huge. It is untapped. I think the growth in almost every category will come from Bharat. And Bharat also is a lot about, I mean, it's an aspirational Bharat. So as things get better, they will also kind of embrace categories and products that for now, they're not embracing and using. I would also build on what Girishji said, that the share of wallet today is kind of directed towards essentials. So actually, there is much more money because they've saved money in the last six, seven months, and they're putting it on real estate. They're putting it on mobility. They're putting a technology. Gulbar talked about, do it yourself, economy. That's where it's big. By the way, I use a product of yours, Gulbar, two products of yours, not one. And I bought them from a shop in Defense colony where I live. So I'm just saying that I think the best time is ahead of us. It's been a good Diwali season. I think the last two months have been good. We hope and pray that for the next few weeks, COVID actually kind of subsides. And we do return to some kind of normal because right now we are living at normal times. So I wish you luck. I wish you health. And I wish you a good festive season. If we have these three businesses and media will thrive. Thank you so much. God bless you to all the exchange for media viewers and readers. Thank you for making sure that we get your respect and your attention all the time and keeping us as a leader. It's very difficult times when we as a platform are asked to take sides and we've chosen not to take sides. We believe in being balanced. We believe in being being positive on the ecosystem. And I can tell you that media still has a lot of credibility left and all the stakeholders have lots to contribute. So I will leave it on that and thank all our viewers and readers for engaging with us on a daily basis. Thank you Satyajit. Thank you Gulbar. I filled in for Nawal because he's not been well last four days. I'm sure he'll be okay. But at least I got an opportunity to talk to all of you. Thank you once again. Good afternoon. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.