 Once again a very warm welcome to all of you here at the Pitch CMO Submay 2018 which is powered by colors and AVP news. I would request you all to kindly please put your mobile phones on silent mode but do not turn them off because we have a very interesting Twitter contest for all of you and you all can win lots of exciting prizes throughout the sessions. All you have to do is use hashtag Pitch CMO and the most creative tweets are going to win exciting prizes during the sessions as I just told you all. Ladies and gentlemen Pitch CMO Submit brings together top marketers of the country on a single platform to discuss and share insights about the ever evolving field of marketing. The agenda of the submit each year revolves around marketing in the present context and discuss focus on the best ways to market to Indian consumers in a dynamic environment. The theme for today's Pitch CMO Submit is generating brand love. Are you really listening to your consumers? A marketers job is of mixed intuition and of listening to his consumers. Big data and innovative digital technologies have made the science of listening more efficient. At the 2018 Delhi Pitch CMO Submit the best minds in the business will talk about the art and science of effective listening. A brief note on our organizers. The exchange for media group was set up in the year 2000 with the aim of publishing niche, relevant and quality publications for marketing, advertising and media professionals. Today exchange for media is a one-stop information platform for the entire industry news, views, analytical information, in-depth analysis of events and trend forecasting. Exchange for media publication have a credible and loyal following. Presently the group has five titles in its portfolio namely exchangeformedia.com, Pitch, Impact, Reality Plus and Summacharformedia.com. Before we commence we would like to acknowledge our partners without whom this event would not have been possible. The 11th edition of Pitch CMO Submit is co-powered by Colours and ABP News. Associate partners National Geographic, 9x Jalva, Your Channel for Forever Hits. Our co-partners are BTVI, Business Television India, India's Premier English News Channel, TVF. A co-partner and batch partner are Denix-Severa Times and Dheere Se Hojaale Ki Or. Knowledge partner, Lakshay Media Group, one of the largest independent marketing and communications network. Our luxury partner, Da Milano, live webcast partner, 24 digital frames. Video technology partner, Videogram. Ladies and gentlemen let's take a look at our partners AV. In this rapid change in the world, everything should be caught on the right track. Catch on the open ocean, catch on the changing colours of notes, catch on the worry of someone's daily bread, catch on the change of paper in plastic, catch on the change of match, catch on the rising voice, catch on the news, so that you are ahead of everyone. ABP News, keep you ahead. Right, our handpicked team of content creators and problem solvers specialise in providing such solutions. That's why our solutions designed across different mediums and networks are customised, focused and effective. From creating unique branded properties to ensure brand integrations. We ensure that our solutions are effective and result oriented and that's how we help you bring the focus back to your brand. Team Lakshya worked very closely with me in deciding how to take the brand of Republic and embed it in the consciousness of people even before the launch of the channel. So we are committed to working with Lakshya for the long term because that is how we believe this collaboration will yield very rich dividends for us. See for us Lakshya has never been just an agency. For us they have been more like a consultant. So we have given them the objective what we are trying to achieve and they have always come back with a plan to achieve their objective. The first name in outdoor that comes to my mind or my team's mind is certainly Lakshya because there is a credibility behind it. There is something about this organisation that has not just helped my brand grow but which has had an infectious feeling among our marketing teams, our brand teams, our business teams and many people are editorial team. And I am deeply grateful to Lakshya and help us become the number one media brand. As we grow in digital we are going to lean once again on them and in every step of our journey we will work with Lakshya. Thank you so much. For 30 years National Geographic has told stories that have led people to care for the planet. National Geographic in Farhan Akhtar are looking for stories that will help us build a better tomorrow. You can send your ideas on www.lightscameraearth.com and you could get a chance to have your story produced by National Geographic. Additionally, two short listed stories will get published in the National Geographic's India magazine. This time let's put the spotlight on Earth. Ladies and gentlemen, let's take a look at this A.V. So, what will your film be about? About something that will make you popular? Or the everyday things that just never change? About how we may be at war with our own selves? Or will your film go further? About how you stood your ground against all odds, took matters into your own hands and inspired millions to stand with you. That's the film we want to see. If you have an idea that can build a better tomorrow, then send it to us on www.lightscameraearth.com and you could get a chance to have it produced by National Geographic. This time let's put the spotlight back on Earth. We are going to win exciting prizes throughout this event. Ladies and gentlemen, to begin this evening may I call upon an entrepreneur, journalist, internet evangelist and media expert all rolled up into one. I request Mr. Anurag Bhattra, Chairman, Editor-in-Chief of Exchange for Media Group and P.W. Group to kindly please come and join me on stage. Thank you Tejal. Good afternoon, it's my honor and privilege to be here. We started pitch on 15th October 2003. This year will be 15 years of pitch. We are happy that we are again bringing back the pitch events to cities beyond Delhi, Bombay. We are taking the pitch CMO Summit to Bangalore. I'd like to specially welcome some special guests who are here. Some who come from other parts of India and some who come from outside India. So let me first do that formal duty and then I'll come to the topic. First I'd like to welcome Mr. Tim Castree. He's just gone out so at least in India it's a customary to acknowledge your guest. He's our keynote speaker, he's the global CEO of WaveMaker. So I welcome Mr. Tim Castree. It was my special pleasure to briefly meet Mr. Vijay Mansukhani who is the MD of Onida. When I saw him I told him that when I grow up I want to be like you. That is, it means reinventing yourself, that's what I meant. You as a brand as an enterprise are reinventing yourself. Welcome Mr. Castree, we acknowledge you are being here while you weren't here. Also my friend Sudeep who's now become the CEO of VIP Industries. So he's a CMO who's become a CEO. I keep saying that CMOs are idly suited to become CEOs. I would also like to welcome all other speakers. Mr. Anshuman Goenka, Ms. Naseepuri, Mr. Sanjay Bhutani, Shilpa, my friend Ajay Kakkar, my friend Amit Tiwari, Kapil Pillai, Shankarnath Vivek Shrivastav. So I'm just doing, it's a basic duty to recognize people who are speaking here. Also like I say I was happy to see you. Alokji thank you for being a part of whatever we do. You know today the topic is are you really listening to your customers? I can tell you that they say in it some philosopher said that we don't listen to here. We listen to past judgments. This is what an astrologer said. Also one of the most sincere forms of respect is actually listening to what another person has to say. I am in the next 21 days completing 18 years of marriage and I can tell you listening is a challenge. I say it jokingly. As a boss also I could accomplish more as a entrepreneur, as a colleague, as a co-worker I could accomplish more if I listened more. And I say it absolutely on a serious note. Most often in our personal lives we tend to overestimate our own understanding of an issue. I'm talking about myself so if all of you get it 100% right all the time then of course you're geniuses and I'm sure there are many in the room. But I can tell you that whenever I have listened to someone with an open mind and I'm not fond of Navjot Singh Sidhu but he said something many years on a TV show which stuck in my mind. Not that I have one. I've been married for 18 years. My mind is confiscated. But Navjot Singh Sidhu said a mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open. So an open mind because as business leaders, as marketeers, as people who created brands and are nurturing brands we tend to have sometimes right, sometimes not so right ideas of what works for the brand, what the consumer wants. And we tend to sometimes ignore ground realities. I'm not saying all of you do. You wouldn't be here in this room if you are not doing very successful. But the world is changing. There is a new normal. We've just brought out the 36th university issue of business world and we've tried to look at various parts of a consumer's life. We've looked at industries and we've tried to see what will happen 10 years from now. And the beauty is that we don't even know that there are things that we don't know. I'm becoming philosophical, sir. This is what happens as your numbers of years of marriage go up. So I'm not going to talk to you about marketing but I can only tell you about myself. That whenever I have listened more, whether to a colleague, whether to a brand leader, whether to a salesman, whether to somebody who's come to discuss something with me, I have walked out with very clear answers. If not clear answers, I've had the right questions. The job of a marketer or a leader is to ask the right questions and then listen. I think if I can master that, I can be a better brand leader. I look forward to learning from all of you about how you do the process of listening, how you funnel the insights and then how you finally use it in your businesses to build brands that outlive the categories that they serve. The brands and products are continuously reinventing themselves and are becoming relevant to consumers in more ways than one. I won't talk about brands that were relevant say 10 years from now, 5 years from now, but are no longer relevant because they stopped listening to consumers. They did not reinvent themselves. And I wanted to because this is a forum or media advertising communication but more importantly brands. I'm a first generation entrepreneur. I acquired business world 4 years back and I've tried to do something with it. We are still maybe 3 months far off from where it should be. But I was making a list of people I should meet to understand the business of building businesses and the business of building brands better. And I thought of a person who I personally admire. I haven't had the pleasure of meeting him multiple times, Udeshankar. I won't talk about this person because Uday in a conversation would listen more. I met him 15 years back when he used to be at India Today Group. My friend Rajesh Shashadri introduced me to him and look at where he's come. He's reinvented himself. He was a news guy who then set up a news channel as a CEO. He was a journalist. Then he became the CEO of an entertainment group and today in the last 10 years, where has Uday taken it? I wanted to talk to you about Uday because in some way he's reinvented himself. He's a very good listener. I can talk to you about another listener that I've had the good pleasure of interacting more than 200 times with no positive time from his side. A gentleman called Dr. Subhash Chandra. I can tell you if I spent 50 minutes with him, which is the average I've spent with him, most of the times I've met. He would listen for 35-40 minutes. I'm just talking about these personal conversations because at the end of the day we don't do listening and that extends in our spheres of work. We rely on research agencies who may then use outdated techniques and preconceived notions of what consumers are doing because you cannot straightjacket consumers. Today consumers have multiple personalities. We all have multiple aspirations and personalities bucket list. So the reason I'm talking about this is listening should lead to reinvention. Listening should lead to creating new ideas and new brand personalities. I want to tell you that recently a university recognized that I have permanent head damage and on Sunday gave me a doctorate. So I'm Dr. Anurag Batra. I'm not very happy about it because I cannot help you grow here. Nor can I help myself. I'm not that kind of a doctor. But my joke to Arnab and they were telling an editorial colleague of mine Arnab and Vikas that tell Anurag that we haven't done more than one email. I've got this for emailing. Some people who work with me know how many emails I send at what points of time in the day or night. But the reason I'm bringing this up is that when I got the PhD on Sunday I was thinking of reinventing myself in terms of learning new things and learning. I think the biggest challenge is that we stick on to some of the things that have worked for us in the past and they may certainly work for us in the future. But I have realized that there is a new normal and some of the things that worked in the past may not work in the future. So I don't want to go on telling you about brands. I can tell you that we build the brand Exchange for Media purely because of our deep involvement with the community and the passion we have for the business of media advertising communication. We got lucky along the way. On 30th May we are also celebrating the Hindi Patrakarita Divas. Most people don't know that we have a site on Hindi like Exchange for Media called Samachar for Media. Which is equally popular, more popular than Exchange for Media. I can tell you Abhishek is our editorial lead on that. And you know often editors including very powerful editors call me and complain about his stories. That tells you that it's being read. So we celebrate the business of Hindi journalism on 30th May and our keynote speaker there is the Nobel laureate Shree Kailash Satyarathi. We'll formally announce it next week. I also, Nobel told me to talk about our biggest initiative and it's in a domain where brands are being built or being annihilated. We have the Tech Munch, our digital conference and our IDMA which is in the 8th year on 27th June at the Taj Santa Cruz in Mumbai. The jury chair for the IDMA is Mr. Sanjeev Mehta who has a fantasticity of brand and he's leading the company fantastically to be able to build on whatever he has. I don't want to spend more time talking about our initiative but I want to use this opportunity to express my gratitude to all our speakers who come from various parts of the country and some from outside the country to give you nuggets of their wisdom and their ideas about what the future is going to be for brand. Thank you, God bless you.