 Good afternoon. I have been here since noon, but for a variety of reasons, my session is now. Post lunch sessions are very comforting because within about five to seven minutes, everybody goes to sleep with their eyes open. And the attention is the lowest, but the applause is usually the highest because when they wake up, they are guilty of not having listened to anything. So just to seem like they have been all along with me, they will clap loudly. I am here in my capacity as a marketing person, as a brand builder. And while the subject matter is about what happens to advertising here on words, on television, I will want to give you a slightly broader perspective on where we are with the development of television per se. I began life as a marketer in Hindustan liver in 1998-99. So I have pretty much lived through the boom years of television and now and looking beyond. And there are several things that are the responsibility of television that are coming into play today. And you have to dial the clock back all the way to realize why things are the way they are today. So let me begin by telling you a story in western Tunisia. There is a place called the Casserine Pass between the 18th and the 24th of February in 1943. The Americans met the Germans for the first time in a land battle in this place in Tunisia. Now, both parties had spent equal time on the ground. The Americans had about six times more material and men on the ground. Their general was a highly regarded, highly decorated person called Lloyd Fredendoll, General Lloyd Fredendoll. And on the German side were two Maverick generals, von Arnim and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox. So the Americans thought, you know, we have six times more material. Everybody is coming to the theater at the same time. And within two days, the Americans had almost 1,000 casualties. On the first day of battle, 180 tanks were taken by the Germans. And they realized that they had been blown to bits. So immediately, emergency messages were relayed back to their headquarters. General George Marshall was the commander-in-chief. He later became Secretary of State in America as well. And he wrote to the Field Commander, who was Dwight Eisenhower, who later became American president as well, saying you have to take action. And what are the actions that Dwight Eisenhower took? He firstly appointed a person called George Patton, a loud general. He did not like him much at all. But he put him on the ground. And he created a special cell which was away from the Field Comma, called the Planning Cell, which was headed by another genius called General Omar Bradley. And within about four months from there, George Patton had already crossed over to Italy. And had it not been a decision on the Allied part, he would have reached Berlin earlier. Now in the memo that Dwight Eisenhower wrote, General Eisenhower wrote, he wrote two things, and this is part of the reason why I put this story to you. The first thing he wrote was that in battle, and I'm saying that that's true of business as well, plans are useless. Within two hours of the battle starting, all your plans will go for a toss. So he said plans are useless, but planning is critical. You have to be able to visualize as many scenarios as will potentially become available and think about them before the battle starts. I think television in India has not sensibly done that in my opinion. I'm saying this responsibly, I also spent four and a half years in television at Star. Secondly, he wrote in ending, when he announced the changes in command, he said we need to imagine that we are not so good. And in that he quoted Aristotle to say those whom the gods want to destroy, they give them 40 years of success. 40 years of regular success, you are unable to change your method. You are unable to change your war paradigm. You are unable to change the sequence with which you approach the market. And I think this has been true for television as well. The saving grace is that there is no battle, there are no casualties and the business is still thriving. So this was the first part I wanted to say it. And also, just in case you think that, you know, I'm talking about a military battle, things, outcomes can be uncertain, it is probabilistic. This is another chart I wanted to show you. Say cutback 500 years, say in the early 1600s or the late 1500s, India and China put together were 70% of the world economy, give or take. And they had no concept of what Western Europe was. And even if they knew Western Europe, they knew Spain, they knew France. They had no concept of a little island called Britain, which was windswept, no natural resources, nothing. And then within 500 years, that little island not only colonized the whole world, but I am speaking to you in English. So this is the impact that they had. The point being that transitions are not going to happen one quarter, one month, one fiscal year. The transition of technology can play out for four, five hundred years. We have just got used to thinking everything happens within a month or a week. And that's not true. And television is also seeing that kind of a change. Now, first thing to understand is, and I'm saying this as a brand builder, a television is not an appliance. A television is central to the way in which India organized itself. I grew up in Rajasthan. My father was in the Indian administrative services. He would get transferred from small town to small town. It was only 1987. He became commissioner in Udaipur. It was the first time we came to a place where there was a Doordarshan tower, so you could have a television set. And it was a black and white dayanara. It was a done thing for other people to come to your house to watch television. And so it became in many ways the centerpiece for organizing thoughts, politics, art, culture, exposure. Before the arrival of television, people were famous for what they had done. After the arrival of television, people were famous for being on television. This is the first time that television allowed Indians to be famous because they are famous. So if I ask you today, how many of you know, can anybody here for 1 lakh rupees name the last three physics Nobel prize laureates? Can anybody name the last three economics Nobel laureates? Can you name the person who invented or discovered the vaccine for COVID? No. Do you know Kim Kardashian? Do you know X, Y, or Z because they are on television? So television has become the coinage for our times. This is a very powerful thing from a brand-building point of view. And so television for the first time allowed us a rate card regime in which you can buy appointment audiences. You can grab their attention and you, depending on the genre of programming or even the time of the day, can create great traction for your brand. This was not possible before the arrival of television. And every civilization, every economy develops around some central theme. So England, let's say in the 18th and 19th century, developed around the newspaper and railroads. America in the 40s and 50s, when great brands were being built, was organized around the automobile. India was organized around the television set till it lost that momentum to the mobile phone. And today, India is organized around a mobile screen. And television needs to live up to that reality and have that change. Still, it is the largest media platform in the country. It has now slipped to number three rankings worldwide. But I have worked in several categories from, you know, from financial services to Al-Kobev to, I don't know, of large-scale media that can operate minus TV. So TV is very much center stage. It is the largest platform. You know that we have breached the 1 lakh crore mark in terms of the aggregate advertising pool. And this year and onwards, we will breach the 1, lakh 25,000 crore mark. Now, television is growing and it is growing for the right reasons. But there is a problem amongst professional marketeers and amongst the gurus. The one problem is what I call declared death. This is dead. Every year, I hear of three things which are dead and three things which are the next big things. The death doesn't happen and the big things don't necessarily pan out the way they have. But very simply put, if we have say 20 crore households today and roughly 100 crore people who are within the catchment of TV, that penetration will grow to roughly about 80% by 2026. So we have said 25 crore households. But where is the headroom? The headroom is going to be in rural. Digitization is not as big a deal. Digital media is not as big a deal in rural. But the content will become zipping across various screens and television needs to find an intelligent way to stay in the heart of the content dialogue. And this is one thing that I think needs to be done. I would be happier with television advertising if that was happening. Now, television is, like I said, relevant because A, it is the biggest. B, it is still growing. India's economy is growing at 7% give or take. That means every 10 years, we will double as an economy. Now, when economic growth happens, it happens two ways. One is top down and one is bottom up. And in television, the bottom up growth is more credible, more relevant than top down. Because if in my house, if suppose my income jumps to twice, you know, two-fold in five years, what will I do? I will not have a television set in every room. I will have a bigger television set. I will have a connected TV. I will probably have more subscriptions paid for. But the volumetric consumption will not go up. So the important thing is it needs to have a race with digitization. There is that old story in the Panchatantra about two kids who were coming back from school and the tiger started to chase them. And they were both running, trying to save their life. And then one guy says to the other, brother, I don't think we will be able to outrun the tiger. So the guy who was running faster says, I don't need to run faster than the tiger. I need to run faster than you because whoever is slower will be eaten by the tiger. So that's broadly the story of competing medias as well. And not only is it relevant, it's powerful because it has effectiveness in audience aggregation that is still true. It has effectiveness in direct and indirect methods. I can advertise on digital. I can get form fills. I can get click to call. That much of live commerce is not possible with television. But it will not aid my brand measures as much as television will. Because the power of television was it was a tight medium. Everybody was seeing, say, Chitrahaar at the same time. Now I'm revealing my age. I'm about 84 years old. But back in the day when Chitrahaar or the Sunday movie was a big deal, most of India's big brands were built in that time. In the digital era, the brands that have been built are largely digital brands or e-commerce brands. So it is a tight medium in the sense that I'm seeing something and everybody else I go to school with or I meet in the colony or are living in my building have also seen the same thing. So we are responding symmetrically to the same stimulus. Today with fragmentation, that's not the case. I'm seeing completely something else. It is curated for me. It is fed to me. And this is doubly true of digital. So my father who is not very digitally savvy tends to check out news of whichever company I work for. So he was telling me that, you know, this is a very surprising thing. Whenever you join a company, Google starts to give more news about that company. He didn't realize that it's adaptive and it's giving him more information because he's searching for it. Now, this is a powerful thing where curating of the medium is concerned. But it's a dangerous thing where advertising is concerned because I don't, the market of one sounds very seductive but the market of one, I'm not interested. I'm interested in customizing for the market of one and personalization is important. But I'm also interested in hundreds of crores of people at the same time. And that I think television is still able to give. Now let me come to this business about OTT. So Netflix, which is celebrated across the world, proved two things. Content through internet protocols and subscriber base is live and flourishing. They were able to make subscription work on digital. But how is Netflix? I am a great admirer and a regular consumer of Netflix content. I'm just saying this from a questioning point of view. How is Netflix different from premium TV? Because it is not user generated. It is not live and engaged. It is not bite-sized. So all the defining characteristics of digital are missing in Netflix. What is true is I don't need to be a couch potato. I can go search and find and I can do binge viewing. But that is no different from, let's say, premium television spaced over a period in time. So the game is the same. But Netflix happened to TV. TV did not happen to Netflix. Or take the case of YouTube. Is that a perfect alternative to TV which is internet ready? Or is it internet disrupting the world of content? And nobody has the right answer. We don't know. Only time will tell. Now we live in a world where every screen is an access screen. Roughly, if I remember right, in America, color television started in 1967, 68. In 1969, Neil Armstrong went to the moon. And when NASA sent a man to the moon, the total computing power on the planet was less than what is available in your high-end washing machine today. So everybody's phone is a television studio. Is a television set. Is a screen which allows you access to 50 different things. Now to imagine that somebody will cut away from that and watch television in isolation is expecting too much. So you need to have the centrality for content in the way consumers live their lives. And we live in a world where every device, practically speaking, is a television. There is a transformation in screens. There is a transformation in demographics. And there is a transformation in choice architecture. And the last one is the most important one. I want to choose what I want to watch. I don't want to wait for you to beam the next episode. Now I find connected TV is probably a good thing to pursue as an economy, as a collection of consumers, and especially for the television industry. Because it allows me a certain access to a very special set of consumers, and that will fast expand. And it also allows me targeted messaging and curation. So it allows for mass and it allows for customization. And the genres that are most popularly followed, which are true for most advertisers, are movies, music, news, et cetera. And so therefore this convenience is driving audiences towards connected TV provided they can afford it. And addressability is driving advertisers to connected TV. Advertisers are by definition very opportunistic people. I have no shame in being opportunistic. If anything gives me one fraction of a percentage more in terms Of return, I will opt for it. And therefore it is the onus is on TV to be able to Broadbase the book of offering such that I am able to get More portion of my budget goes to them. The challenge is in their court. Now, another thing which, you know, everybody talks about AI, but I didn't have this for fashionable reasons. In my business, in trucks or in passenger vehicles, the The latest, forget all of that assistance to in the sales And marketing domain, artificial intelligence is going to Allow you to adjust your rear view mirror without you Having to do it. So the feed on who is driving on the air updates And the whole experience is going to be more software than Vehicle. And this is as much true for television. And by the way, I must acknowledge that media in general And television in particular has lived through probably The most number of technical changes in any industry Certainly in this period of time. So in America, for example, they went from the stations To cable TV, it massively expanded. Because suddenly they started earning distribution fees. Then it went from cable TV to, you know, video on demand. And now this cord cutting phenomenon, it doesn't work in India because the business will polarize. So at the top end, there will be very, very rich audiences Which are available in happy niches. And then there will be the mass audience which still gets Free TV. So cord cutting is not a big phenomenon. The bigger phenomenon is where is the interest? What is the window of attention? And today, if I'm not mistaken, it's anywhere between Two hours and two hours plus for the younger age groups. And on average, about three hours and 30 minutes. And that's still humongous amounts of time. Because another mistake most English-speaking marketers Make is that they think that the world is like them. So if I'm not watching TV at home, I think India is not Watching TV at home. And that's not true because it's so large and so vast And so populous that many things that are happening in, Say, a mirad or a unna or a asan soul or a karur or a katak For the first time may have happened here 15 years ago. And many things that are happening in a katak today may Not happen here for another two years. E-commerce is a classic example. People like to have access, and e-commerce gives them That access. So how does television have that? I believe ai assistance, and this is a simple example of Voice commands, but I think artificial intelligence will Play out in the world of television in very, very dramatic Ways in the near future. I have a teenage boy, and for him, the television is also A screen, and the experience that you get on the large Screen for things like gaming. So if there is an integral play here, I think gaming We have barely scratched the surface in this country, And I think television also has a role there. Now, if you see effectiveness, as i have already mentioned, is Always a multiplier between the effort that it takes to reach That many more people and the personalization that i can drive. So for decades in, let's say in the world of fmcg, the Challenge was how do i get to that incremental audience, And then regional tv universes kicked off in a big way. They were very competent. They were very good content stacks. People were making money there. Advertisers were able to reach. So if i am advertising in Tamil Nadu, or in telugu markets, or In canada, i don't have to think of one television across. That's why i find it funny when they say regional language. Because it makes me believe still we think english, hindi, And regional language. If you are sitting in chennai, that's not the world view. It is tamil, english, and whatever else. And that's a wonderful thing for television to explore and Exploit. Now, because i began life in fmcg, fmcg is a great indicator of Which way the marketing dollars will flow. And if you see even today, the single largest stack is by far The functional advertising that gets done on television. Harpic is the number one advertising brand. So it's a toilet cleaner. And it basically tells you that efficiency both in terms of Reach and cost per reach. But also effectiveness in terms of impact. They're not putting that money there because it's legacy. They're putting that money there because it gives them a return. Now, let me try and change the slide. Now in the commercial vehicles business at tata motors, we've Done about 15 to 16 large campaigns in the year. Hopefully none of you have seen it. Because if you have seen it, then our media planning is Really tight because you're not supposed to be looking to buy Trucks, but we have explored all genres because our b2b Enterprises are largely business driven. So business verticals are large on television. General entertainment is large for the small commercial Vehicles business. We have tried to create opportunity stacks in regional Languages and now routinely our influencer content is also In about 11 languages. We are trying to sell innovations via television. Anti-collision mitigation system, driver alert systems, Sustainability, these are messages that need large audiences Because these innovations take time for vehicles on the road For people to experience it. So we have been consistently using television to build this. Also we have been doing content stacks for advocacy. And this advocacy is partly on television as Episodic content, but also as free content availability on our Universe. So we invite people in to create capsule content. Then they put it on mass media and on digital media and on Social platforms and it's finger feed for things like whatsapp. Because we have 10, 12,000 sales people going out every day Meeting other people who may be looking to buy trucks. And at that time they need to evidence the success and content Capsules work well. Half an hour episodes may not be the way that truck advertising grows. Television also gives us a larger than life canvas. Unfortunately I am running late to catch a flight but I will Perhaps play just this video to show you how we are trying To tailor make content to make it more appealing. Not only on television screens but even places like cinema. So if we can play this. Bridge. Cement. How to reach the school? If education can reach there, then why not for school? This happens. Like I said 15 such campaigns. We try and socialize this first on television. Plain vanilla storytelling. But what is important is what is the deck length. How many tons can it carry? What is the wheel base? What is the service package? All of these things don't go very well on television. So immediately following the television campaign, we will then Have an on-ground accompaniment. We will have influencer content. We will have social media content. Then go back on television. So a few weeks in then build through other means. Then a few weeks back on. And this pulsing is also important for us to be able to Gauge the return that we are getting. By and large it has worked well for us and we intend to Continue more aggressively on television. I am going to skip a lot of the other apps. If you go to our YouTube channel you will be able to see Almost all the recent campaigns. Almost all of them in some proportion have been on television. Now, India is a growth story in print. It is a growth story on television. It is a growth story on social media. It is a growth story across the world. And I think in terms of sentiment analysis that we get routinely India is probably one of the most optimistic places in the world. Sometimes I feel perhaps we are irrationally optimistic as well. But optimism is a good thing. It is a good problem to have. Because basically if you feel your tomorrow is going to be Better than your today, then you invest in the future. And that investment also means putting money behind things that matter to you. So it leads to cross category conflict and television should celebrate that. Because I have a choice to make. Should I buy an air conditioner? Should I buy a two wheeler? Should I learn computer programming? And that's all coming out of the same wallet. So television will have a problem of plenty provided it is able to give Addressable audience tax to the advertisers in time and evidence that it works. Because this rate card business of tired cost per rating point kind of advertising Is now facing serious alternatives as challenges. So in ending, I will say interactive TV in my opinion, it's an early bet, But it's going to be a big deal. Connected TV certainly is making quantum increases happen. There is growth of regional content. And I don't think of India as one TV market now. I think of India as at least 10 to 12 distinct television markets. There is increasing popularity of niche channels. And when I look to launches and aggregation, I look to sports. We are proudly associated with wrestling. We were co-sponsors for associate sponsors for Kabaddi for a long time. We invest in commercial time on all sports. I find also that the rise of ad-free TV is something that should be Seriously considered by the television people themselves to see What alternatives they have for those people who will see TV Intermediated by advertising. Because advertising somebody in one of my brand courses in Leavers had said, the more you see, the more you know, the more you know, The more you see. So it is a virtual and people don't get tired of advertising. One magical thing about India is people actually discuss advertising. I have been across the world. I don't think there are very many markets where people talk to each other And say, this is not done. It is becoming bare bones functional. In India, advertising is also art. It is also mainstream. It is celebrated. And that is why people continue to invest behind audio visual as The primary medium and behind TV as a large platform. I have been writing about it. I have been thinking about it. And thanks to people like exchange for media. I present about it. If you have any further comments, et cetera, these are my social handles. Please do write in. Thank you for your time. That's all I had for you today.