 Good afternoon everyone and delighted to stand here once again in front of you to present to you a Pitch Madison report. Naval and I just calculated we started in 2004. So this is our 21st report to you. I do hope you will find the numbers and the commentary that we present with them useful to you in preparing your own plans, giving you a perspective on what has happened, why it happened and what to expect next year. And more importantly, I think we have a galaxy of very eminent speakers for you talking on subjects that are relevant to advertisers today. So I'm sure we learn a lot from them. Now the way I see it, I think ad-ex continues to surprise us year after year, either positively or negatively. COVID may be finally behind us, but the uncertainty levels in the business world seem to continue to rise. The political situation in most parts of the world could be considered uncertain. Elections coming up in many countries around the world, not to mention the huge disruption happening in the startup world because of what is now referred to as the funding winter. And all this obviously has taken its toll on our ad-ex. In our estimate, ad-ex in 23 grew by just 10% against our forecast of 16% and a growth of 21% that we had achieved last year over the previous year. So despite GDP having grown at 7.3%, ad-ex seems to have grown at only 10%, which is the lowest growth Indian ad-ex has seen in the last six years, except of course COVID year. Looking at medium-wide spends, there was a huge slowdown in the growth of digital, which grew only by 15% against our projected 25%. For context, in 22 over 21, digital grew by 35% and before that in 21 by 50%. This 15% growth is to be seen with the compounded annual growth of 26% that digital achieved over the last decade. Traditional ad-ex is still growing in India, something that not many countries can say today, although the rate of growth has been slowing down year after year. According to us, traditional ad-ex grew only 7% compared to our forecast of 10%. If we look at the figures at a quarterly level, one sees some gets one more surprises. One sees that quarter four was the best performing quarter with a contribution of 31% to the full year and in absolute terms added as much as 4500 crores or 50% of the annual growth. So we did see quite a bit of tension for the first nine months of last year. For the first nine months saw a single digit growth and quarter four saw a very high growth of 18%. Boosted of course by the festive season and the ICC T20 World Cup. All of this contributing to 31% of total ad-ex. If you see this slide, you will see that as the year progress, ad-ex seems to have gained momentum quarter on quarter. From a historical perspective, last year witnessed the slowest growth rate in five years in excluding 2020. In absolute terms, ad-ex close just a little short of one lakh crores closing at 99,038 crores. It added 9,200 crores. Again, for context, ad-ex added a little over 15,500 crores in 22 over 21. So in 23, the addition has been only 60% of the previous year. For some more perspective, we looked at work that estimates global ad-ex and ad-ex around the world. They estimate that ad-ex in 23 closed at 971 billion USD, that's nearly a trillion. Global ad-ex makes the Indian ad-ex look good though in terms of growth. Because having achieved a 10% growth, global ad-ex achieved only 5%. The construct of the Indian market also continues to be very different from the global market, which is dominated by digital, which has a share of 73% versus our India share of 40%. If you look at what is happening in other countries around the world, Brazil and India are now the two fastest growing markets in a market that is dominated by US, which accounts for 31% of the 970 billion. The top 11 nations of ad-ex, which contribute to 63% of global ad-ex, grew by only 2%. US also grew by only 2%. India unfortunately continues to be a very minor player on the global ad-ex stage with a share of just 1.2%. Now looking at growth rates of individual mediums, digital has grown by 15% only and TV2 has grown at a slower rate of 7%. The figures we look at and the way we calculate them, I know there's a little dissonance with the financial results that have been put out by the major television companies, but we are giving you a consistent year-on-year sort of performance the way we see it and we arrive at this slower rate of growth of 7%. Print the second largest traditional medium has registered a single digit growth of only 4% and is still shot by around 800 crores of its pre-COVID level. OH and radio recovered quite well with higher growth rates of more than 11%. Digital continues to dominate ad-ex with a 40% share and gain 2 percentage points against gaining 6 percentage points the year before. TV, the largest medium till 2021, further dropped share in 2023 and is now behind digital share by a full 7 percentage points. Print is losing its share year-on-year and contributes 19% to the overall ad-ex. Cinema, radio and OH maintained share over the last two years. Looking at the same data category-wise for traditional media we see that FMCG continues to be the largest contributor with a 33% share and the category added almost 1500 crores in the year last year. E-commerce continues to be the second largest category with a share much lower share of 14%. E-commerce and education both saw a degrowth. Automobile sector however saw a dramatic recovery and with multiple launches in 2023 grew by a whopping 18% to become the third largest contributor with a share of 9%. According to a list of top advertisers it is significant that the top 10 advertisers grew to X of total ad-ex growth demonstrating to us that large advertisers seem to have greater confidence in advertising and what it can do to a brand and the company's profitability experience the benefits of advertising in the last few decades and using it effectively. Six of the top 10 in our list are FMCG players. We have only 11 new entrants in the list compared to 14 last year. Predictably we have only one start-up this year in our list compared to nine last year since start-ups have all slashed their advertising spends some stop totally being uncertain about their future rounds of investment. The contribution of top 50 advertisers to total ad-ex is 30% same as last year and so is the contribution of top 10 at 14%. Television and digital continue to be the favorites of top advertisers accounting for as much as 88% of their total spend. Depending at who the top 10 advertisers are Unilever, Rekit and Reliance continue to maintain the top three ranks. Godrich Consumer Products has moved up in rank dramatically from number 12 to number 5 having increased its spends by over 50%. The next five brands in our elite list are Mondalis, PNG, Coke, Maruti and Dream11 who has now dropped in rank to 10 from number 4 last year. Let's now take a closer look at the individual mediums. First we'll start with digital. So as I gave you the highlight, digital too seemed to hit a speed breaker after a very long time probably the first time in its history in India at least. Despite this slow down, digital again increased its share of ad-ex to 40%. I must remind you that in digital, we recognize spends of only those who you and I consider as advertisers and do not include the lack of small sort of spenders like individual shops, beauticians, interior decorators, samsari shops and housewives on Google and Facebook who as we know contribute a very, very substantial part of their revenue. So we believe it would be misleading to just look at the financial data from an advertiser's perspective because that vitiates the construct of ad-ex. Now what caused this slow down in growth in digital? This is widely known. A lot of startups who earlier focused on top line thanks to easy availability of funding at inflated valuations are now in distress to find further investments. Many businesses within startups like edtech have substantially reduced their youth's spends if not stopped totally. Byju's a very, very large advertiser and the naming sponsor of IPL some years ago seems to be in a survival mode. Real money gaming has got crippled because of the government's stance against it leading to a levy of 28% GST and so has cryptocurrencies fallen out of favor with the government. But with a 15% growth digital ad-ex stands at 40,000 crores. Now whilst from an Indian perspective digital is the number one medium with a 40% share we must remember that in global ad-ex digital accounts for 73% share. China and UK are even higher at 80%. Many countries like Japan, Germany, France, Australia are somewhere between 50% and 70%. So it kind of tells you where possibly India is headed over the next few years. When one looks at digital figures by quarter again the figures are surprising. Quarter one and quarter two figures are really dismal having recorded a low growth rate of just 4% and 6%. Digital picked up only in quarter three and quarter four achieving a growth of 20% and 24% respectively. So basically digital reflects the same pattern as total ad-ex. E-commerce platforms as by now we all know have seen high traction amongst advertisers and we expect advertising on e-commerce to be almost 7,000 crores registering a growth of 25% over the previous year which in turn has seen a 35% growth over 21. So dramatic increase in e-commerce over two years. With that growth e-commerce stands with a share of 17% in digital ad-ex. Video though continues to be the largest category within digital with a share of 33%. Let's take a closer look at television now. The darling of most seasoned and serious brand builders has once again skidded for the second year in succession with a low single digit growth of 7% and now stands at almost 33,000 crores. A saving grace for television was a busy sports calendar in the second half starting with Asia Cup in September followed by India versus Australia series Asian Games and then finally the ICC Cricket World Cup in October November. In our assessment TV ad-ex without the sports genre would have grown by only 4%. TV share is steadily declining from a high of 42% in 2020 to 33% in 2023. You will all will recall that according to us in 2022 digital became the largest shareholder in ad-ex overtaking television's numero uno status which it had maintained for eight long years. In terms of revenue by quarters all three quarters, quarter one, quarter two and quarter three were subdued quarter two despite IPL and registered only a growth of 2%. Quarter four brought cheer to TV ad-ex when it grew 17%. Broadcasters I believe have to give due recognition to FMCG advertisers who unlike other categories are not their fair weather friends and despite everything that happens in the environment despite the pressure on their profits because of increase in raw materials and what not increase their spend on television from 13,725 crores to 15,353 crores an increase of 12% and which resulted in increasing their category share from 45 to 47%. Production and ad-tech predictably saw a dramatic drop of 41% taking the categories rank from number four to number eight. Automobile on the back of good sales and new launches increased their spends by 21% and so did household durables. Hindi satellite mainline along with second line and sports are the two major genres and contribute to over 45% in value but Hindi satellite in fact marginally de-grew in FCT while sports increase its FCT by 8%. Hindi movies de-grew 6% and English movies and infotainment de-grew by around 30% by FCT volume. Regional genres ad volume remains stagnant except Marathi which witnessed almost a 10% volume growth. Let's see print now. Print in 23 has failed to reach its pre-COVID high of 20,045 crore and reached only a figure of 19,250 crore registering a 4% growth rate. But you must remember that ad-ex growth of 4% whilst growth in space consumed by advertising is 6% seems to indicate that publishers are now pricing their medium appropriately to attract advertisers and help them get good ROI from print advertising something that advertiser friends should take note of and not abandon print. In terms of absolute numbers print in 2017 was at 18,650 crore and today after 6 years is at 19,250 crore which means a compound annual growth rate of only 0.6%. In terms of share of course print continues to be the second largest traditional medium but continues to drop share from 22% in 21 to 21% in 22 and now 19% in 23. When you view a print figures in a global context you have to admire a print ad-ex resilience. Walk estimates print to be only 4% of global ad-ex compared to 19% share in India. In 22 share of print in both India and Germany the two citadel's of print was the same at 22%. However in 23 pulse Germany retained its share more or less India has lost two percentage points. When you see the quarter wise figures of ad-ex in value you see that quarter two figures are invariably the lowest and quarter four the highest. This split across the year is not seen when you do an analysis by space consumption indicating that publishers vary their rates by quarter depending on demand. Auto FMCG education retail and real estate contribute 50% to print ad-ex. This year auto is the leader of the pack with a 14% share and contributed most to the growth of print ad-ex. Travel tourism, BFSI, corporate clothing fashion and jewelry have also contributed well to the growth of print. In terms of languages Hindi newspapers with a growth rate of 10% have witnessed higher growths than English at 8%. Both the languages continue to contribute close to 65% of the total print volume in 2023. Vernacular publications of these languages show a flat to marginally negative growth in volume. Coming now to OH, OH seems to be finding favor with more and more advertisers and believers in OH are rushing to use it more intensively. This is reflected in the 13% growth rate OH achieved in 2023 which is substantially higher than that achieved by TV and print the two dominant mediums amongst traditional media. But all this has not helped OH gain its share, it has maintained its share of 4% similar to OH's share in global ad-ex. After the COVID crash in 2020 when OH understandably collapsed from a high of 3500 crores to 1292 crores we have witnessed steep increases in OH's spends almost every year till last year when we closed the year with 4,140 crores. In the past there have been large variations from quarter to quarter and quarter to and quarter three were much softer with ad-ex speaking and quarter four. In 2022 we saw more uniform spend across quarters and this trend has continued in 2023. Looking at the revenues category wise the top four sectors maintain their share of 55% of OH ad-ex with real estate leading the pack with a share of 19% followed by retail FMCG and consumer services. FMCG which moved up in share to 13% in 2022 rolled back to a 11% share last year. Organized retail maintained its share at 13%. Let's see radio now. Radio's road to recovery post COVID has been a gradual one. It has experienced a growth of 12% in 2023 to reach an ad-ex size of 2272 crores. Four years after the pandemic radio ad-ex has finally reached its pre-pandemic level and radio share seems to have stabilized at just around 2%. Here again a quarter-wise analysis by ad-ex throws up that in terms of value there is a considerable drop in quarter two indicating that sellers offer special incentives in quarter two to fill inventory. Ad-ex failed to experience substantial growth in age two despite the festive season and assembly state elections and quarter fro grew only 5%. The largest share in radio ad-ex continues to be held by real estate at 16%, followed by FMCG at 12%, auto 11% and BFSI 9%. In terms of growth auto registered a 48% growth followed by real estate 26% and retail 24%. Lastly let's review cinema. Here again you'll find the figures surprising despite blockbuster movies getting released almost every month in 2023 and many movies doing a box office collection of more than 500 crores Cinema advertising in India grew by only 36%. I say only 36% because the base is very very small. We had projected an increase of 75% to reach close to 800 crores. I remember several years ago our prediction was that we would reach a thousand crores the next year. The figure is still short of pre-COVID level by almost 300 crores. Cinema advertising contributes less than 1% to our ad-ex now. So it's time now to share with you our growth forecast for 24. As I alluded to earlier with so many major countries around the world including the US going in for elections this year and three continuing wars around the world global uncertainty is at its peak. Because we live in a connected world the negativity that prevails in the western world we think will have some impact on Indian ad-ex. Our forecast for growth in 2024 is therefore more realistic. 12.2% with which we believe will cross the 1 lakh crore landmark finally. Warx forecast for global ad-ex in 24 is a growth of 8.3%. In the past years Indian ad-ex has grown always many times the rate of growth of global ad-ex. This time the gap has decreased. I would encourage all of you to read the last section of our report titled economic insights driving our projection. One of the highlights identified by our Nagraj our in-house economist is that while GDP growth is at a high of 7.3% which we all talk about and so do all the foreign expert visitors who come to our country. In 23-24 Nagraj finds that the private final consumption expenditure component of GDP one of the three components that make up the GDP in fact is expected to come down in 23-24 which may explain to some of the marketers why buying of products and services in our country especially by the masses is a bit sluggish. We expect digital to grow by a modest 17% and traditional medium once again at a slower rate of 9%. Key factors that will contribute to this growth are the upcoming T20 Cricket World Cup, general elections leading to heavy spends by political parties, organic growth coming from the largest contributor FMCG, new launches in the automobile sector and more and more advertisers adopting the digital medium. We recognize that we may be further aided by tailwinds which could come from post-election results when we expect new aggressive reforms being introduced to stimulate the economy and growth in volume of FMCG. But we feel we'll get a little pulled down by headwinds from global uncertainties, the continuing war and the aggravation of disputes among many nations and funding winter which is likely to continue at least in the first half keeping start-up spends subdued. We expect no medium to degrow in 2024. We witnessed last year a dramatic slowdown in growth of digital whilst digital will continue to be the key driver of ADEX. We expect it to grow by a modest 17%. Despite the onslaught of digital and the popularity of video on digital and connected TV and whatnot, we believe linear TV will continue to grow because large and seasoned advertisers continue to believe in the brand building power of television. We expect TV to add another 2700 crores and grow by 8% in 2024. I can't help but say that we get the feeling that broadcasters seem to have less confidence in linear TV than my advertiser friends have in India. We expect print to grow by 7% in 2024 against an expected degrowth of print of minus 4% in global ADEX. We expect radio to grow by another 12% on the back of 12% growth in 2023 and we estimate a further 15% growth in outdoor and a 35% growth in cinema. Looking at shares, digital will further gain share and will now be 10 share points more than TV share. Outdoor radio and cinema are likely to maintain share. Linear TV is expected to lose share despite growth. As against global ADEX, in 2024 it is estimated that share of TV in India will be 2x of global but digital share will be half of global. Finally, as usual, we would like to end with some advice for all our advertiser friends. Our advice number one is, please do focus on volume growth. Do not sacrifice brand building advertising activity to protect quarterly profit. Market analysts, we believe today understand the game reasonably well and reward volume growth, not just profit growth. Also, you can't build a sustainable successful company through the years, every year, through cost cutting alone. A second piece of advice, at least for the immediate years, is to focus on premium products. There is a growing realization that we now have in India a sufficiently large number of upwardly mobile individuals who are upgrading, buying larger cars, travelling more, taking more holidays, upgrading to larger homes, buying larger TV screens, buying more gizmos and what not. And we need to cater to their needs. In contrast, the large lower middle class are a bit constrained with low increases in income and inflation reducing their purchasing power. As a corollary to this point, our next point is to focus on modern trade. Because modern trade we have seen is growing at a much faster pace than Kirana stores. Our fourth piece of advice is increase media reach. This is necessary, we believe in a country like India, to take full advantage of India's demography. TV is efficient and effective for brand building, but some viewers are watching now less of linear TV, are not watching it at all, having moved to connected TV. So we have to use digital and mobile to reach those audiences who now watch less linear TV. And our last point is, again flowing from the earlier point, that there is now a very urgent need in the industry for advertisers to establish a common measurement system for multimedia. With more and more brands using multimedia and more and more of them are going to do so in the next few years, this should indeed be our priority. And advertisers should take the initiative to do this and fund this study. We cannot expect media owners with conflicting interests to agree on a common methodology for doing this. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for listening to me.