 Hello and welcome to another episode of our special series Beating All Odds. In this series, we are recognizing leaders who are working round the clock, making new plans and ensuring that despite all the challenges that COVID-19 has thrown at us, our economy and business remains as little affected as possible. With me today is one such leader, Mr. Shekhar Banerjee, Chief Client Officer, WaveMaker. Welcome to the show, Shekhar. Hi, Nazia. Welcome to my new office. My home. We are all working from home. This is my new office. Yeah. So, Shekhar, to begin with, I want to... But I get a very good view of the sunset from my phone. So, I'm very lucky about that. Yeah, you're a rich man. So, Shekhar, I want to start with the first question. What are the big challenges that this work from home has thrown at you and the lockdown? And how are you ensuring that your peers and your team and everyone remains as enthusiastic or as engaged with the work as possible during working from home? You know, there are two questions in that. One part is that how do we keep our teams going? And the second is about basically the challenges we are facing. Let me first start, talk about the challenges. Honestly, it's not. When I see across my team, what we did at WTP and GroupM, before we went into the lockdown, obviously we were learning from the other markets. We picked up the positives on how we can actually manage and plan better for this period. So, we had an entire business continuity plan and we did all the tech checks. Let's put it this way. In fact, we were phase-wise, office-wise, we were doing also testing. Like, there was a mandatory managed remote working days for departments and for the entire office. It's quite funny actually. On a Tuesday, we went for a managed remote working from home in Mumbai and the entire filmmaker office was working from their home. And the next day, the news came out of the lockdown. So, it's quite amusing because we tried and we had to straight jump into the practical one also. So, you got one more day to prepare yourself? Yes. Let's take it this way. But the good thing is that what we realized is in that week's time of preparation, we roughly got a week to prepare and test all tech checks, everything. Big, big shout out to our IT team and our talent team to get everything ready before that. So, we moved into our home. We technically didn't face a challenges business as usual. In fact, the best thing was our clients. The way they responded to it and the way they adapted to it also means it's often we say that face-to-face meetings are better. We realize we are face-to-face on our application like Zoom or what we use internally as well as Microsoft Teams. Those are very effective. We are closing big decisions and big meetings. In fact, I know for a while, I was part of a full day workshop. So, workshop on a client from morning, 11 o'clock to 7 o'clock. So, if workshops can happen on a conference, I think it's just a new way of working. So, is it business as usual for you despite lockdown? Business as usual has two parts to it. One is, are we doing media activities and everything altogether or not? No, it's not. That is not business as usual. But client engagement, strategic discussions, plans for future. How do we reboot after the lockdown? All those strategic discussions are on. That's business as usual with the teams and the clients, which is very encouraging. So, work doesn't stop. Day doesn't stop. In fact, that brings me to the second part of your question is how do you think is the team going? And again, a bit shorter to all the teams. The way they have responded to the situation means let's put it this way. The most important thing that we all have to realize in this period is empathy. We understand working from home as a person. We understand we have our daily chores also to do. And hopefully I will study the photographs that I have to send you. But with all the daily chores that you have to manage, we have to, we have with our families, we have kids at home who want your attention. You have your pets at home who want your attention. And they're jumping into the car. So, all those things managed means how do we work as a pack of ones is what makes us successful in this period. In fact, what we have done is we are very comfortable with the seven members of our teams now. We know all of them now by the end of it. We understand the background noises that are happening. And the best part what we do is that like we are doing, we always make sure we all come on video. That's the first thing. We are very used to seeing each other and office bumping into each other and talking to them. And the moment we realize the moment we shifted from audio calls to video calls, suddenly the engagement completely changed. We are laughing at sharing more. We are talking more. We are expressing more. And everything is taken in a very different spirit the moment we move into the video calls. So, one thing we do is we definitely do a video call and not audio one. Second is that we have set a routine. This is a big challenge. I'm sure Nazia you would have also realized that working hours have completely diluted now. So, three days, four days into the schedule, we were talking and we continuously exchanged notes. In fact, we have daily check-ins on this one. And we are exchanging notes. We realize our schedules are going completely haywire. We put the clock. This is our check-in time in the day, morning 9.30. Then we will do a check-in and we start the day with a call. All of us come, just laugh it out. Set the routine for the day. What we have to achieve in the day, we do it. And we do a check-out in the day. We again get on a hook on a call. And we say that, okay, this is the day summary. This is what we have learned. This is what we have to do for tomorrow. Let's not check out and not bother each other. Because there are many other things. That is actually a very difficult part of working from home. Then you end up working all the time. Yes. And we try to do it because we understand that it's not just working from home. Let's remember that we have the things to do at home also. It's no more the same situation. It's no more the same situation where we are just sitting at your desk or going to meetings. We have to manage work at home. In fact, people are completely comfortable when people are blocking hours in the day when they have to cook. And it's there on the calendar. It's like they're cooking. They have to clean because they're on the calendar. It's perfectly fine. And that's something we have to get used to. Our clients are getting also very comfortable with this. In fact, they also have to do it. We are picking it all. We have a lunchtime. It's quite amazing. We adapted. Human beings are very adapted. We just adapted to the situation. It has also got a human side of all of us out. We're more than being professionals. We've all started behaving more like humans. Yeah. I think the best part is when we also get to the call. I don't think that the first question is what's today on the business or what's the agenda of the meeting. The first five minutes ten minutes goes in genuinely asking if everybody is fine. If everybody in your building is fine. The neighbors are fine. Are you okay? Especially people who are staying alone. Yeah. We are making sure that we engage in it. Yeah. It's very difficult because there are a lot of people from our of stations who are staying alone. Or for that matter, somebody in the relative. And one of the female leaders in my group, her husband is actually at her parent's place, which is not far away. That means like Hane versus Mumbai kind of a story. But the moment is not there now. So she's locked alone. And it makes a very, it becomes very important for us to take care of this kind of situation. That's also part of the new challenge that have come out of it. All the positive things that you are trying to do and trying to keep the momentum on. We are still all worried about economy. We are all worried about the industry. Yeah. And you're already making recovery plans for your clients. Right? What are the kind of worries or what exactly is on the mind of the client right now? What are the kind of things they're coming to you for? Okay. I think the first thing is that mind reading is out. We are very, very transparent. Because that's the best thing we have learned in this period. We are very transparent and upfront. We understand the challenges we will face in our business. We understand the challenges we are facing in the business. It's a fact with the lockdown and the supply chain broken across most of the client's business. Even essentials are facing problems. It's not that essentials are very readily available. The first and foremost priority is actually to take a decision. What is the distribution in place? Is the retail supply chain in place? I hope everything is in order. It's not worth spending. It's a very, very clear discussion. Let's protect. Because this money can be utilized later also. What we are talking to our clients and more and more is that we have seen when in fact globally some that happened or for that matter world war two we have seen we have learnings from there or for that matter what we have seen our experience in China and we are learning continuously from our wave maker in China from which we from all we as a group are very connected and we are sharing a lot of news what we are realizing is what what I am calling it as renewed consumerism the moment people are stepping out of the lockdown there's a sport in actually spending consumers stepping out refueling or spending even in luxury because it's like it's like hope triggered by hope triggered purchase let's put it this way so they are actually stepping out and doing those shopping so it's an opportunity on the other side of the lockdown when you step out of it there's actually opportunity and therefore using this we using just played a role on our cycles you know in the sense we're all stressed up somewhere so we will all want to go on a holiday or do something once this is celebrated yes absolutely and that's where you think the brands will gain again yes absolutely there will be a momentum the moment you step outside the lockdown and and we are putting plans in together so what we are doing to actually help our clients each day is not just locally but as we make make it as a network we are we have put together an entire plan like we have weekly webcast where all our clients are joining in across the globe and we are sharing what we are learning from China if we or for that matter from London now or Germany so we are sharing a lot of information because it's giving us a kind of a head start what we do so like yesterday there was a specific discussion happened then we are also putting together papers on global plus India how each category movements are right now and then after lockdown what are the predictions that we have seen not that any prediction in fact will make sense but whatever best we can make out of this is we are trying to put and we're trying to put the plan is that when we come back we are not without a plan we should have a plan this is a completely black so on event we can do nothing about it but when we come out on the other side we have a plan that's very important and that's something which we are working on now arc has released numbers which show that viewership has increased I mean which was which is of course expected because we are all logged in our houses and the watching televisions so there is an increase of almost like or news genre has increased by almost 208 to 98 percent growth in news and and business use has increased by 180 percent and overall television consumption has gone up by 37 percent does this give some hope to advertisers do you think this with these numbers they can try advertising even despite of lockdown and other things just for building brand trust or brand value are you giving these kind of suggestions to the brands let me put it in this order this is how our recommendation to the client is yes there's a massive fitting audiences which are there to be tapped it's not just TV that you're seeing this friend even we are seeing this friend and we are seeing this on news apps online so they are online if you see news now we are getting a getting the data one week later now so and and we anticipated it's not a surprise we anticipated this however on a daily basis we have been tracking a lot of online platforms even online platforms are showing almost like a holistic graph that's the kind of growth we have seen there on a daily basis so it's not something which is we didn't anticipate so we we knew that is going to happen people have more disposable time maybe not us we are continuously on our meeting but there are people with the disposable time so we anticipated it however this is this something which we have to understand is my business as usual on the ground is my distribution and my retail distribution retail also that my supply chain is in place am I there in the market or not if I'm not then the money spent may not result in any business unless you are a brand or a category who's trying to create a disproportionate share of mine in this in this time it's a great opportunity for all the brands that's how we are bucketing it out brands with very strong equity already but a broken broken supply we are asking them to preserve and wait for the other side but the clients who are looking for disproportionate share of mine at this point of time because it's a low clutter period also most advertisers are also cancel campaigns it's a fact we know that so also have the rates gone now add rates have gone now we have not engaged on this specifically so there might be opportunity but we have not engaged on that but definitely there's a there's a case where the the clutter is low so if an advertiser wants to get gain a disproportionate share of mine and especially if you are a native online or a tech firm you have an opportunity genuine opportunity because low clutter plus you are online so there's you have clients for using this opportunity yes there are so for a lot of PPG and the usual TV advertisers who have come down there are others who are other sectors would these be bulk of it will be what I will call it as tech firm all tech companies all tech companies this is a bulk of it is by tech companies which are who are doing it other places there are there are advertisers who we are engaging this is the first opportunity on that lens other pieces that there is a great opportunity for brands who may not be there in the market to actually tell a very genuine story and that's something which we are engaging very actively with our brand there are brands across from we are engaging and we'll start seeing it in maybe in another week's time or maybe another two three days time you start rolling out what we are doing is how we are producing content that is out of form and how we are bringing in basically talent together who are who are basically also working from home and producing genuine content which is of value to consumer you have to be it's you know it is not brand speak it is not brand speak it is purely how we can improve consumers life in this point of time when they're locked inside the home and that's a genuine story in fact we have done only an inciting work around that we make a content team has in India and globally have worked on an insight key and what are the genuine fears and triggers on which consumers are sitting on and is there is there a let's put it an opportunity may not be the right word to use but is there a kind of brand genuinely improves their life you know when they are operating from such constraints in their life so that's something which we are also working on so so definitely three pieces is that there are categories who can who are still able to fill in essentials plus tech who are stepping in and actually advertising at scale then there is a huge content story and third piece is also e-commerce a bit right now e-commerce is disrupted in the last one week time because of the mandate on only supplying essentials and etc but we are cracking e-commerce delivery on our everyday business and we are sharing that with our also clients as their supply or distribution of e-commerce comes back from track and they keep opening zones and we are seeing it cracking it on every day we are stepping up again e-commerce as an advertising option as those platforms is like brands advertising on e-commerce and also thereby gaining from that so that's another piece which we are very aggressively walking on a daily level Shekhar you told me that you're you're tracking markets that were affected before us and now they are back to business for instance China what are the kind of learnings that you've got from there and I mean it's we don't know how long the lockdown in India may go on we don't know how far are we from resolving this crisis but where do you see India as comparison if you compare it to China or other markets that have suffered from the similar crisis and now back on track getting back on track We definitely see China as a great example whenever we are on the other side of it what happened with China is that they skyrocketed with the entire epidemic and then also with the complete lockdown and the number of the came tumbling down I think I'm very happy with the effort that the government is taking today because we went into a lockdown much earlier than many other European countries we went into it much earlier so hopefully if we don't be stupid and we follow all the rules we may not be that badly impacted what we have seen in Europe and also previous calls that we behave responsibly and we are not stupid having said that what we definitely seen from China is that what first thing that we talked about there are a lot of categories including luxury cab categories they have just started finding like anything we are seeing almost yesterday on a colony and we got a sense that most of the sectors are recovering at a speed that that is unbelievable and they may some of the categories are back to almost 70 percent of their original numbers so that's the kind of speed at which the recovery is happening in China we have seen this and we definitely have a lot to learn from it basically but we have to be prepared we cannot suspend work we have to make plans and keep it ready for the day where we get to lockdown we defend I don't know when we'll actually get over in India I don't think so 15 days if we look at the realistic deadline the way the numbers are moving right now we might be in a lockdown longer than that that's what we have seen from most of the market person but what it says is that that we should not stop communicating to our consumers simply because they are also looking for coming out on the other side and it's very important we don't break the habit since we are in a 21 day lockdown typically 21 days is what it takes to break a habit or a big habit we should not break the habit of the brands they are used to also so there's a merit talking continue talking and be prepared with a very strong plan when you come out on so does that mean that if the lockdown continues for a longer period some advertisers may again start advertising absolutely it's not it's impossible for us to say after that love what will happen is that again a lot of a lot of categories and brands actually work top down on a marketing panel which is like building awareness that price consideration that's followed by this thing if we not continue and that's something which we are at also actively talking to our clients in our how as a wave maker we plan is the consumer journey which is a having a strong priming bias leads to a great active conversion if you're not going to advertise the priming bias for your brand in the category will come down and that priming typically a brand with a higher bias priming bias almost converts my neck versus the brand which don't have my next time better conversion versus the brand don't have priming bias so it's very important that we don't lose that and the thing is that let's also understand there's a lot of brands and categories have a season coming up season have more relevance in this in this kind of the situation so I was still June and July on when there's a lot of seasons thanks for a lot of brands leading into festive and a lot of brands start building momentum much earlier those work will not stop and work on that is already on and at the same time we see that they may not be able to evade it because inspected we are not staying in lockdown that long so you'll have to start building up front my last question is about your final words that you would like to or a piece of advice that you would like to give to youngsters who are still new to this domain this business and they're stuck at home they do not know what to do they need direction from you so what would you want to tell them oh uh this is something which we are actively doing internally also but not just wave maker this is for the industry I know I know what you think and I generally thanks for the opportunity to talk to all of them uh because uh I generally believe that this is a tough time understanding that none of us have ever experienced it's a lifetime of our experience think about it like that have you ever thought for so many days we'll stay at home means uh but in itself is a very different thing you'll we have not experienced anything like this and we'll never experience something like this in our life but yeah hopefully yeah definitely I'm very positive that we're not going to be doing what we are talking generally talking is that to all our people internally and to the community as a whole is that uh don't follow the grid that's my first request to you all of all all the individuals it's not it's not the best time that you think that you can actually get into the bed cuddle inside of uh in under your blanket and live the life stand at your window look outside through the world the sun rises every day the day is beautiful the birds are chirpy in fact the dogs are enjoying the streets know that they do usually so it's a right blue sky I posted a photograph on my facebook a few days back I've never seen such a beautiful sunset ever so and that's from my balcony so I'm teasing so there's a lot of positive things around so don't get bogged down by this thing second is that definitely don't participate if you in WhatsApp groups which are talking a lot about the negativity it's perfectly fine if you switch off perfectly fine look at the positive side engage with the positive news don't uh don't get caught with all the forwards that are happening 50 percent of them are fake the ones which are genuine might have already come to you through any of the news apps or newspaper so or on news channels press them and not on this WhatsApp forward third is set up a routine start all the time finish on a time and for the routine make sure you get up and get ready it's a very important part we both are like for example ready to be on a call it's very important that get ready for the day get up wear your wear a nice clean t-shirt or shirt dress up sit under the table do video call and not uh this thing and second is uh have fun just as a group just as a group uh gather together keep all those people you stand out with go for you use to go for a small break none of them are there so just get on a get get on uh use zoom use uh microsoft team or skype and just have fun together and exercise it's very important you explain it triggers a lot of positive energy and that's something i'm talking every day to my team also another is something which we are generally trying to do is is uh include your family it's perfectly fine it's uh we all are renewable and if you if you don't if you don't have your family around especially take care of them because the people who are alone please take care of them they are all your friends another perfect time to lose bad habits you may not be able to step down for a small break to lose them lose this bad habit it might be a blessing in some some a personal health point of view these are basically the points i'm leaving with all of the things and finally the last bit is that is that uh it's my personal experience what i want to also share is that i never felt so connected with my team or with my clients ever before it's an amazing experience we are talking more we are engaging more we are getting on media calls more uh we are much more closer than the normal times it's amazing it's amazing a bit ironical but i've never felt so close with them because we are engaging that many times on this day we're getting on a call uh me there's a problem joke long time we have not seen you it's a common joke that we every time say when you get on a call so these are all also the positive side so we should uh feel the positive side and enjoy it more do some great work as we are in time explore the feels that we have not explored at all in days and the final bit of advice uh train it's the perfect time to upskill yourself there are enough and more training modules if you don't have ask your management for the training modules and go on training go go for rigorous training not everybody has the same workload so go for rigorous training upskill yourself it's a huge opportunity to upskill yourself that's my last thank you shaker thanks a lot for joining us stay at home and stay safe stay safe thank you and thanks see you but bye bye