 Hello and welcome to another episode of our special series beating all odds. We are all officially shut in our houses for over two weeks now. There is complete uncertainty about everything around us. In these unexpected unprecedented times, while we are struggling to do our day to day tasks, there are leaders who are sitting at home running businesses, they're managing agencies not only in their own country but also in some neighboring countries. With me today is one such leader, Mr. Ajay Gupta, CEO, South Asia Wavemaker. Welcome to the show, sir. Hi, Nazia. Thank you. Thank you for having me. My first question to you is, how does it feel to get into a crisis as big as this within three months of taking up a new position? Yes. It couldn't have been more sudden for me. But yeah, this is exciting. This is something that is completely unexpected. It's straight out of the Hollywood movie. And really, no one can plan for this and no one can be ready for something like this. And honestly, therein is the excitement and the challenge of coming through this. There is opportunity here. I believe if marketers and V agencies play it well, there is an opportunity here. And I look forward to coming out on the other side of this stronger. What do you mean by opportunity? So things will never be the same again. There will be a lot of changes which will happen. Brand rankings will change. Customer behavior will change. And it is imperative on us, the onus is on us to write this change and stand along with this consumer while he is going through this change in behavior. And at the end of it, hopefully we stand stronger in his consideration taking us forward. What kind of changes in customer behavior are you expecting? So there are several changes. For example, a lot more time going to be spent possibly on screen. There is going to be increased OTT consumption given the fact that entertainment is required right now and therefore they are going to lean in more on OTT. There is going to be increased inclination towards e-commerce. There is going to be increased gaming possibly. And these are things which are going to happen and going to be a fallout of this thing that has been put on us. And while we are seeing massive changes right now, we will not go back to normal. We will end with slightly higher levels than we got into this lockdown. So there is the kind of things that we will see changing. You are saying that in this lockdown period there will be a behavioral change in the sense that we will continue to stay more at home and consume more digital. No, so more digital is being consumed right now. People will get used to better quality of programming, of OTT kind of programming. These things will become part of your life and as it will obviously not be at the same level as we are seeing right now in the lockdown. But it will remain a little higher than it was when we got into this lockdown. You have very big clients, very big advertisers as your clients. There are many of your clients who are big advertisers. What kind of plan are you making for them right now in this crisis? Telling them, advising them to stay away from putting in, of course production is shut. What kind of suggestions are you giving to your clients right now? So yeah, this is a tricky situation actually for all clients. Because yes you are right, production is a problem, distribution is a problem. Getting stocks to the distributors, getting stocks from the distributors to the consumer, to the stores is an issue right now. Most e-commerce is also not delivering even essentials. They are having problems delivering essentials and the local store has become more important. So the challenge is definitely there. You don't have the ability to reach out to your product to the consumer. So at one end, the advertising, you would say, I might as well protect this money and use it at times when it is more useful. But then at the other end, there is also this thing of not, of losing the equity in the mind of the consumer. And then gaining it back will be that much more difficult at the other side of the lockdown. So somewhere it is going to be a mix and this depends by category, depends by brand. The key thing really right now is to find some intelligent ways to retain communication with the consumer. A lot of brands are doing it, a lot of case studies of brands which are finding innovative ways to stay in touch with the consumer. It's also tricky, you know, you can't seem to be taking advantage of the situation. So it's tricky for brands, you have to play it very carefully. You have to be genuine, you have to be honest. So you can't be completely off, but you need to find a way to keep engaging with the consumer. And also, somehow keep very, very closely in touch with the situation on ground. Because when it does come back to normal, we have seen in China, we have seen from examples in China that there is a surge in demand. And you have to be there. So it is a balance actually right now. The key thing that we're doing is we are sharing information with our clients. Information on what's happening in media, information on what's happening in different categories. Information in what's happening in different parts of the world. Because we exist in so many markets across the world. We have our offices in China also, which is ahead of the curve in this situation. We also have learned from those markets. So we are sharing all of this information with our clients. We are being in touch with them and talking to them and trying to see what are the best ways to manage their investments at this moment. So there is no simple answer depends on every client. What are some of the key learnings that you are observing from China's example? Some of the key learnings that we are observing is that there are the brands that have managed to retain some equity in the minds of the consumer are the brands that are benefiting a lot more at the end of the lockdown. The brands that have been completely off are struggling to build that equity back. So that is definitely one trend that we are seeing. And therefore it is important to be there in some form while obviously acknowledging the fact that you wouldn't want to invest all your money right now. Given that there is very little off-tick. In some cases where you have frequent street or you have retail, the sale is completely zero. But then it's a tricky balance that you need to maintain and be around. Be present in the mind in some fashion. Also this is the time when the consumption has increased a lot. I mean television can be television or be digital. So what is this particular point? How are you communicating this to your advertisers or your clients that you know this is the time when the consumption as for park numbers. If we talk of news channels, the consumption has increased by 268%. It is like again another unprecedented thing that is happening right now. So what kind of, how are you looking into this aspect of. So actually this again goes back to our first situation. So there's one side of it, which is the advantage of media being at its most effective possibly. But also the other side of the coin, which is that the brand possibly does not need or needs to save up a little bit of their investment. So it comes back there. We are using the advantages or the increases in media profitably to the client. So there are some genres of programming, which are going up a lot more than the others. There are some media which are not as fast based as the others. So we are keeping the client constantly informed of all the shifts. And given the objectives of the brand and given what we would like to do at this moment, we are utilizing media to our advantage. You also have Netflix as your client. Their consumption right now I think is must be at its peak and not just India almost across the globe. I mean I don't want to know the exact plan that you have made for them, but I would want to understand what is, as a media advisor, what is your suggestion for a platform like that? No, so obviously it is a fantastic opportunity for Netflix. These are those tipping point moments that come and a brand must make the most of it. And yes, so our recommendations are to work with the brand. Obviously I can't tell you too much, but we all recognize it. How do they advertise? So it's about getting the consumer to know that there are entertainment options available, which are far superior. Is it more on television or digital? Yes, so a lot more on, you see it is all in home media right now because there is very little out of home. So yeah, so it's a mix of TV and digital that we are using. Apart from what you are doing with your clients, you also have hundreds of people working with you. And these are very gloomy days, a lot of people are directionless. They do not know how to keep their spirits high. So how are you handling your team at this juncture? Absolutely, it's definitely a challenge and it is far more difficult than one would. On the face of it, if you were to tell people before we went into the lockdown that you could work from home, people would have taken it with open arms. But as we have all seen, we are actually working a lot more in this managed from home environment where the lines between home and office are also blurring. And we have other challenges at home like managing stuff at home that needs to get done since you are in the house. There is no house help and a lot of people who the couple is working has house help and now they have to manage everything on their own and the office is on. So it is challenging. So I think the first thing is empathy. We all understand the challenges and like my people, like the 600 people we have in office, even I am going through those challenges and I am completely empathetic of what they are going through. This is something we need to understand and we need to be flexible with them. I think that is important. The second thing is to be in touch. There is nothing like communication right now. It's tough. There are some singles we have in our office and they are locked up in a house alone. It is not easy. It is definitely not easy. There is no one else to talk to. You need to do everything on your own. These are tough times. So communicating with people is most important. So we have tried to ensure that there are fixed times of communication across levels. Me with my executive committee and then so on and so forth. And then us communicating with each office at one time. So we have had some very interesting chats with having the whole office come on one call, which is great fun, getting them to put on their videos and sharing and seeing the other people around. So one piece is communication. Second piece is I think we need to have some fun and that is what we are trying to do. And what has been nice is that people across the level have taken initiatives. So we have someone from our data team who has started classes on data analytics, which I think is such a fantastic initiative and it took off so well. There is so much traction in what she has started. So that is a wonderful initiative. It came completely from the person and it's a big hit. There's another team which had a jamming session. So they were singing one of Friday evenings. It was so lovely because people were coming, contributing, getting their guitars, playing a song, an unplugged event across cities. It was fantastic. The amount of energy, amount of positive energy and it gets people to interact with others and feel part of the whole and not feel isolated. We have also done some quizzes and some kind of excitement is constantly being done. I am very fortunate to have very young, passionate people who are pulling it off on their own and that is nice to see. So in that sense I think to go back to what you are saying, this is a challenging time for our people. One is to recognize that it is a challenging time and to support them in whatever way is possible and to try and communicate and keep spirits high. So as long as we can do this, I think we are managing to stay together as a flock. Honestly, I believe the kind of connections we have made today in these last two weeks you don't normally get to make in an office. So normally I would be in an office in and out of meetings, where we get to meet everyone on a regular basis. But here I am talking a lot more, communicating a lot more on a one-to-one basis. A chat like this is as personal as it can get. And I think that is the advantage that we have all seen in these last few days. Coming back to the larger economy and the impact of this crisis on our industry, how much do you think this is going to slow down our growth this year? Yeah, so this is not going to be easy. And I hope for all of us that we are in a position to get out of the lockdown as soon as we can. It is important that everybody supports the lockdown and stays at home and manages it. Every week we lose is going to affect us more. All of us are into scenario planning, so looking at what happens if we manage to get out of the problem in April, May, June, whatever, depending on when the lockdown ends. It's going to hurt us deep. It's hurting us at the grassroots level. You have the lowest common denominator, the daily wage earner who's been hit the most. His consumption, which is the bottom of the pyramid, is getting affected and therefore it keeps going up. So it's going to be quite bad. It's difficult to put a number on where we will be. But all I can say right now is I hope by the end of April we manage to recover. At least manage to get back into work, into more normal life. Even after that it will take at least six weeks or maybe longer, eight weeks to come back to regular consumption. So it's going to be at least a quarter of a hit, a good quarter being hit in April, May, June. All of us together hoping it comes out soon and we can get back on track. It is also put a lot of pictures on hold, right? So a lot of other things will also open up once the lockdown is over. That's right. Which sector you think will be affected the most? It's like print, television, digital of course appears to be the least affected. But how is this entire thing going to affect the print domain? So like you said, television and digital have been least affected and possibly have been positively affected. Print has been negatively impacted basically because they have not been able to distribute. And even after they have managed to get government to go ahead to allow newspaper delivery to happen, there are societies which are not allowing newspapers to come into the society. So it's definitely is a challenge right now for them. But print has survived and they have been innovative and they have really put themselves together. Doomsday for print has been predicted for the last 10 years I'm guessing. But they have managed to stay afloat and they have been innovating. They've added digital, they've been doing a lot of on-ground activations. They're bringing themselves together. So I'm sure they'll find a way to stay to come back and they should be okay. Even after for that matter must have been completely. So that's what I was coming to. The worst print is out of form. I feel for them. I mean it's a complete wash out. So it is a challenge. But you know I'm just being positive about it. Once this gets over life, we'll come back to normal. People will hit the cinemas again. People will be on the streets again. So it will come back. But yes, they will feel that it for these two, three months that we will all be away from normal life. There are crises like this which I doubt you have experienced anything similar ever in your life. What are some key lessons that you have learned? In these two weeks that we have completed, we are almost in the last week of lockdown. Hopefully. Yes, so actually there's a lot of learning. There's a lot of introspection also. You get possibly some time to think. Time to think when you're not traveling really. Because all of us when we talk, we feel our days have become far longer. We are starting our days earlier, we're ending them later. And we're constantly on the phone or on the teams. And trying to get work done. Yeah, so but I think some of the things definitely that possibly I have learned is one is to stay a lot more connected. I have enjoyed being a lot more in touch with my people. And I think that is something that I would like to continue going forward. I think we have all realized that there is merit in work from home. And it is not as unproductive as it was thought to be. And we can definitely use that. And maybe there will be a lot more work from home as part of normal process. Because it is effective communication on these apps which have all come up. Which were there but have started being used now is quite effective. And I'm sure that that will be used a lot more. And so to me personally, I think one is being connected with people with my clients. Which has improved a lot and quality communication in this form. Where you are a lot more personally connected is definitely going up. And I think that is something that can be a lot more as we go on. The other thing I think is empathy for each other. What I have seen is across teams, across between us and client. We have become a lot more understanding of each other in this situation. And I think that is something that we will take away positively with us at the end of this lockdown. We also feel we all have more time. Like it's been three months since you become the CEO. I was chasing you for interview. It was finally in the lockdown that you could give it to me. I'm sorry about that. You had so many meetings. You were always in some of the other meetings. And I was in different cities. So now we get that and we are still meeting all your people. That's right. And we have managed to find time and quality time. So that definitely is a positive. Because the whole idea of this series is to get leaders like you to inspire young people who are confined to their homes like all of us. But at the reaction less they do not. Maybe they're not as experienced as you. They do not know what to do in this situation. So what kind of advice would you want to give to them? This is a good one. I would say firstly look after yourselves. Use this time to do a little bit of exercise. Exercise is zero right now. Given that you're not even walking to office. Use this time to get some exercise and keep some time for yourselves. Eat healthy. This is possibly the only time that you'll ever get to eat ghar khana and the kind of khana that you will make you healthier. So use that opportunity. Find some time to learn a new skill if you can. The office is providing a lot of opportunities. So we are creating a lot of programs that people can join to learn a new skill. Either join that or join anything else that you've always wanted to do but never had the time to do that. And spend time with the people you care about. Call them up, speak to them. It's important to keep your spirits high. And we are social creatures, social beings. So it's important for us to be connected with the people we love. So I would say use this opportunity. Get healthier, get fitter. Use this opportunity to enhance yourself, enhance your skills. And stay connected with the people you love. Thank you so much Mr. Gupta for speaking to us. Anything else that you would like to add? No, you take care of yourself. And I hope this is done quickly. And we are back into action. And the economy and the way it is impacted. We are back with the family time also now. Thank you sir. Thank you very much for speaking to us. Stay safe, stay at home. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Take care. Thanks Nazia. Bye bye.