 Hello and welcome to our segment, Beating All Orts. The COVID-19 induced lockdown has literally brought about a 360 degree change in the way advertisers and marketers are looking at things. Now, we're trying to get you a lowdown from one such brand because we have with us Mr. Anil Dua, Executive Director and Group CEO of Dish TV India. Hello, Mr. Dua. Hello, how are you? Great, great, great. Tell me, when the lockdown was first announced, you know, it seemed like a challenge which our industry might never be able to cope with, you know, a month and a half down the line. How do you see, how do you think we're fed? I think very well. I will say that industry, the companies, the management have really risen to the occasion. And in my mind, that has been a striking feature of this lockdown. Maybe it is the instant to survive. Or rather, I'll say the desire to thrive, you know, which in the competitive context that these companies have grown in, which has marked this phenomenon because I see most of these companies trying to outdo each other in terms of continuing business as usual. And it's a fun to be part of that and to be observing that. First of all, you took as a, you know, as a brand when you realize there's no turning back in the face of the crisis. We planned, you know, we realized that there's a lot to be done, you know, and various alternative scenarios can unfold. So what we did was that we took measures to first of all, see that all our people were safe and they were ready for the coming times. We also did drills and saw to it that, you know, whatever happens in any eventuality, our service goes on. Business continues because we have a 24 hour service for the customers. Our transmission, our head and IT systems have to work nonstop. And of course, we built alternative scenarios to look at various new alternative things which may have to be done, the responses which may have to be enabled in different situations to see that things keep working and customers stay engaged, stay entertained. We are some way through the lockdown. I mean, it might get lifted anytime we hope. You know, but tell me what are the big challenges that you are still facing as, as an individual as also as a, you know, as a group CDO? I will say at both these levels, the challenges have been interesting because they have got converted into opportunities at an individual level. I think it is living to a new routine, you know, which have never lived seemingly very fixed, but actually far more dynamic and demanding than it has ever been, especially for a business and industry, which requires, as I said, 24 by seven kind of nonstop trouble free service. As an organization, I think we are a very people to people contact business, you know, whether it is our field meeting with the dealers, whether it is our technicians visiting the households, or it is our subscribers engaging with our call center agents all the time. We had to ensure that life goes on as if nothing has changed from a subscriber point of view. And while we had to do very different things, I think by and large we managed to ensure that and those challenges, of course, still continue. We have surmounted a fair bit of that, but, you know, we keep on finding and discovering new ways of improving further upon that. Also come up with a campaign called the recharge. Now, what was the insight behind that? And how are you also helping your consumers get through this crisis? Well, I will say it's a very positive tape on the current situation. You know, of course, in the situation of lockdown, you are trying to contain the pandemic. But also the lockdown marks a break from the usual humdrum, the usual noise of our modern life. It's like a detox. It's a rejuvenation. It's a recharge, you know, and that's what this campaign recognizes. It says that, you know, while the neighborhoods are quieter, the roads are safer, the water and air are cleaner, you know, we are ensuring that you can stay at home productively. You can stay at home happily. And we are trying to see in every way that your entertainment is always switched on through various things that we are doing. And as our other brand says, while this TV says recharge, our D2H brand says stay home, stay safe, stay entertained. And together with these two campaigns, we are actually given that very positive message, a message of possibilities, a message of possibility in the current situation. But tell me, was your first reaction one of, you know, wanting to slash the advertising spends like most people, most marketers do. Did you think, you know, the first thing I can do is maybe cut down on all different expensive mediums? Is that how you went about it? So we have to recognize that some of the mediums like auto form and cinema have all of course been rendered redundant. But, you know, we've maintained a minimum presence on TV. We've upped our presence on digital. The advantage we have is that we have our own home channels talking to our own subscribers. And that's an important thing because our repeat business, our upgrades, extra content comes mostly from the current subscribers and our home channels are the major medium of advertising. So they have been with us and they've been a very important medium to communicate all the things that we've done. For example, we extended credit almost three times to what we used to do earlier in terms of paying later. We've started several free services, whether it is kids service or it's fitness service or it is senior people service. You know, all these things we've been able to communicate very effectively through our channels. So that has built in the gap to a large extent from conventional advertising. We've also created radio spots, you know, so we've done things, but of course, you know, the traditional spend on traditional media definitely is not at the same level. But given our unique advantage of using direct marketing like SMS, email, registered mobile numbers, you know, and digital marketing and home channels, we've been able to stay connected with our customers. As an advertiser and you know, as a platform, not just as an advertiser as a platform. Now they say that it's literally boom time for OTT platforms. Do you think it's the perfect occasion for a watcher to rise up to the occasion? Watcher is very close to our hearts and you know, it's been labor of love. But I'll say first and foremost, it is an opportunity for our DTH platform because people are at home, they are watching TV, we've been seeing all the data, the TV viewership has gone up, TV viewing time has gone up. So that is the big opportunity for the DTH platforms for both our brands, Dish and D2H to up the ante and to really, you know, stay connected and grow the business. Yes, for watcher, it's also been a very important phase. The interesting thing about our OTT service watcher is that it supplements the DTH platform. While DTH is about long format consumption in family time, family space, watcher is all about short form, snackable consumption in individual time, individual space. And therefore the two together kind of go hand in hand snuggly. So we've been able to actually grow both the businesses during this period. And both of them have added subscribers and volumes and revenues. You're saying there's an increase in revenue in this period for watcher? See, watcher is by and large, you know, a service for our Dish and D2H subscribers. It's also available to non Dish and D2H, but because we've not been marketing it very aggressively right now, it's a fledgling brand. It's a youngest OTT brand, but very promising. So therefore, right now, we haven't gone into either SVOD, the paired SVOD or ABOD in a big way. But still the volumes have grown, talking specifically about watcher. You know, we had grown to a million downloads after a few months of relaunch, and that's the number with which we entered this year in January. Then in January, February, we doubled it. We added one more million. Then, you know, since then we've been adding almost a million every month. So as we talk, we are at about 4 million right now. Because digital is a medium which is being consumed the most. A lot of advertisers have literally moved to digital, you know, e-commerce platforms, social media, et cetera, et cetera. Now, do you think after a couple of months, the trend is going to continue or is it going to be back to the same, you know, television will be the main medium and you know, OOH, everything will fall in place just the way it was. So you see, this has been a long-term trend. The growth of digital has been a long-term trend, so it's here to stay. It's got some Philip under this lockdown. But certainly, you know, the traditional media, I think the Indian ingenuity will ensure that the traditional players also strike back, you know, they make a healthy comeback and we'll see everything else also coming back. But yes, this may, you know, move to the next level. But I think the traditional mediums are here to stay and we'll see them come back in new, innovative ways. And another interesting thing that, you know, agency heads have told me is that, you know, their relationship with their clients have changed. Now, they are a lot less demanding. Would you agree? Well, I think it is always mutual. I think the agencies have also been very forthcoming. They're truly playing the role of creative partners. I think the creativity and innovation has really blossomed during this time. You know, almost everyone has been shooting videos and TVC's from home and we've done the same. We've created radio spots. We've created TV commercials and of course, you know, advertising agencies have been very innovative in doing that. So I think our engagement during this period has gone up. We've been ideating together, brainstorming together and several new ideas have come up. So I think it's been a good period from the relationship point of view. And one last question. What is your biggest learning from the lockdown? I think opportunities like this are the time that you can reconnect with the customer as a brand. No time is a wrong time to build trust, build credibility. And that's what we have been able to do. We have, I spoke about positivity. So we put our money where our mouth is. You know, we've started a dish positive channel on the dish platform. We started a D2H positive channel on D2H platform. On this, you get all the authentic information about the pandemic like testing facilities, like precautions you should take. So all positive, informative, authoritative information that any D2H subscriber can get on these channels. So we have been as a brand trying to forge that relationship with our customers that even in time like this, actually we can convert the situation into a huge opportunity to build that trust and credibility with our subscribers. That that's actually a very good thing to say. You know, let's try and turn this adversity into an opportunity. Indeed. Thank you so much Mr. Dua for speaking to us. Thank you.