 Our next panel now will speak on the topic digital beyond performance. Well brands can accelerate their growth with a smart media strategy but it needs to go beyond the performance and too often performance gets conflated with digital and digital gets mixed up with the value for money. Done right digital media can have a huge positive impact on a company's cost per acquisition but what we seem to forget is that there's a tricky media balance to strike to maximize that CPA even if it's in digital. So let's welcome on stage our moderator, Group MD, Isobar South Asia, Shamsuddin Jasani followed by our panel members, Hiren Gara, Chief Executive Officer, Shimaru Entertainment, Pradeep Divedi, Group Advisor, Sakal Media Group, Sai Narayan, Head of Marketing Policy Bazaar Group, Vikram Tanna, VP, Head of Advertising Sales and Business Head of Regional Clusters, South Asia, Discovery Communications India. Can we have a huge round of applause for them? Over to you Mr. Jasani. What an exciting report, I believe that was something which we're very very excited about and where digital is going and I think we were talking about three V's, voice, vernacular and video. We are in a space where I think today digital has gone beyond a lot of wildest dreams and especially in the post-Geo age, it's really bloomed. Just to give you a little bit of recap and I'll use a personal anecdote, when I started my career way back in 2001 which in digital is dinosaurs, India was a performance marketing digital was a performance marketing part because that's where I started. I started my career in a place called Up Null and pretty much 70% of the spends on digital used to happen through the finance category on performance and that was predominantly what happened for the first 10 years in digital and finance used to be the largest and VFCI used to be the largest vendor but I think that's really changed. The last few years have been this drastic change and you've seen in the report that there is consumer durables that have come up, there is when we're talking about FFMCGs who used to stay away from digital, they have now 16-70% of their spends are coming on digital so I think there's a sea shift on what's happening. I have a very esteemed panel today and the way that we're going to work today is that I'm just going to ask them to really talk about the topic. A few of them of course and I think he's going to kill me now when we discuss inside was that in Policy Bazaar because as I said BFCI was the lead as far as performance marketing performance marketing would still be a substantial chunk of spends on digital but Policy Bazaar as all of you know spends a lot on television as well. Why? That's my question. Do you feel that now time has come that brands really start understanding the power of digital and start spending beyond performance? So I wanted to just throw that up so first to you and then you know the panel can really take that up that where do you see brands really going beyond performance and also from the publisher side how do you see that working out as well? Yeah, brands beyond performance. So as you rightly said Shams when like Apna loan started when Policy Bazaar also started Pesabar also started it was more about getting the initial customer base ready. So everything was performance, you know financial services was performance even today it is performance. To be honest we have gone beyond and put pressure on a medium like TV and media performance. There I can explain that a little bit of a scary thought when television also gets enthusiastic but on this panel we're discussing that how do we go beyond that. Yeah, but we do that we have put pressure on a medium like television and media performance because and that's happened because of the evolution of digital because of a second screen phenomena because without digital that wouldn't have been possible because we are a digital system, we are a digital company, we are the entire our livelihood depends on digital but we've been able to put that pressure on television because of the second screen phenomena. So even as I am speaking right now there are a lot of people on mobile are on the digital platform. So similar thing happens when people are watching television they are on mobile. So the moment if the piece of communication is engaging enough they end up searching for it. So but the fact is that when I as a marketer is sitting and trying to put monies I have limited monies and I have to put that monies in different mediums and you have to see that where the consumer is. So if you ask me 10 years ago it was mostly television to be more for awareness, creating awareness and then get let the consumer search for the brand. The moment he searches for the brand and the pressure would be put on the digital on performance. But now I think the things are changing. Definitely things are changing. So even we have moved beyond just performance. Obviously performance is still there. It's like bread and butter. It will exist. It's not that it won't exist. But a considerable amount of media screens would be moving towards and is moving towards building brand digitally as well. Because as I see it's about brand building. Performance is something which comes automatically when you are building a brand across medium. It's a piece of communication that you're putting out there. So and how a consumer is responding to each and every medium. So but digital beyond performance, the way I see it is a major chunk of monies will be going towards video content. The rise of video content cannot be denied. It is there, people are already moving towards different platforms to consume content. If I ask people in this room how many people are actually watching TV, the hands will be lower, lesser here. But so as a marketer, I need to be there where the consumer is. And the fact of the matter is that people are moving towards digital platforms. So I think that's a good way for the other panelists to come in, especially when we're talking about video. And how do you see the evolution really of a brand that you represent? Shimaru in terms of the evolution and how do you see now digital really making an impact which I feel about three, four years back was not. Now it's making a clear impact on the business itself, not just marketing. It's making an impact on your business. So your thoughts on that? So I think for us, every new media over the last several decades has been an opportunity to grow the business and reach out to more consumers. With digital, if I have to just rewind the clock, probably about three years back, it was less than 10% of our business. And today it's nearly 30%. So within three years, with the advent of the 4G broadband explosion, and with that the huge rise in number of digital video consumers, I think we've seen a humongous rise in video consumption. So if I can just quote few stats on what kind of numbers we've seen. Today, one of our key channels, which is in the top 10 channels in India called Filmi Gane, which only showcases retro Bollywood songs. We actually have nearly 90 million monthly active users. Now, arguably no other television channel also which has music content. So no other music channel probably has that number of monthly active users. More than probably, so even our key channel, our flagship channel, Shimaru has about 70 million. That's another channel that we have. That's again about 70 million monthly active users. So the consumption of video, digital video is real. It's here. I think that's really the key message. What we've also done is we've worked with a lot of brands in terms of working with various call to action, in fact performance driven campaigns. And pretty successful performance driven campaigns, we've been able to target with many of the brands, considering the kind of content we have and it serves a different target audience. So there we found some very interesting case studies. I think digital is something we are very, very excited about. And in fact, we were announced recently about our upcoming OTT app. So video streaming service, which will be a Shimaru destination, is also in the works in the next few weeks. I think that's really amazing and I think Vikram can perhaps add to that because belonging to the same kind of industry. Where do you think that digital is today in the portfolio that you have? And where do you feel that for your brands when you're talking to brands? How do you actually start saying that, okay, now our brand's really coming up to you and say, okay, now there's a big larger discussion that's happening on digital than maybe before? And is that really driving a lot of your businesses ahead? Let me actually start with one of the points which you made, very interesting. You started with the first two years video and it's so true. For me, when I look at video from a content perspective, the lines are blurring. The full form of TV is now total video and total video is television or digital in that aspect. And I would probably feel that every single individual as a marketer will start looking at the medium that way. And when you look at television and digital, two things come to your mind. And like Sai rightly pointed out, he started off with performance in digital and now wants to look at it in television. I think like him, everybody's considering that. But the reverse is true. When you look at television and digital, when you start thinking of performance and you want to say the other P stands for television, which is perception, which where the premiums are going in. But I think both these mediums, television and digital, will continue to control the two P's effectively as an overlap. And to me, perception is bigger than performance at any point of time. It's different that you'll allocate your ad dollars in a different way, but if you get your perception right, you're thinking long term. The difference is, are you talking to the heart of the consumer? Or are you talking to the mind of the consumer? You can attack the mind of the consumer when you start talking about performance. But if you want to appeal to the heart, there's nothing but perception, whichever medium, whichever video platform that you want to pick. And I think that's something which is really going to make a difference in terms of what is a new age brand or can a new age brand actually go to the next level? Or is it a legacy brand? So if I have to look at any particular vertical, let's look at Airbnb versus a Hilton. What's the difference? Both are fantastic brands. But Airbnb is also going to influence you as a consumer, saying life is easier. This is how I want to go about doing it. Hilton is a brand which you'll always look up to. Both are created in that. But are you really saying that I'm appealing to the user rather than just a buyer? I think that's really going to set the difference in terms of which is your creative strategy to kind of get there. So my question is that has that moment arrived when we are talking about the perception of television? Has that moment arrived when a brand can say, okay, can I just do this on digital? Can I just get away with using only digital to enhance that perception and to create a brand and not really think too much about digital? Or you feel that the lines are blurred now? I mean, what is video and what is television going to be? So your thoughts in terms of that? Yeah, so Shams, it's really a combination of what you want to reach in terms of consumer as an audience. The first leg is you want to get reach and no matter what television is going to give you that reach, in today's world, the cost per contact is the cheapest there. But are you able to fine tune in the programmatic manner which digital is giving you no? So you will see ad dollars getting split in both the ways, depending on what your brand objective is and where your product lifecycle is. I think that's very, very important in terms of which stage of the product lifecycle you are in. Thanks, Sai, coming to you finally because globally I think the death of print has been really spoken about quite a bit. Sorry, to you. So there, I mean, I'm talking to you. And I think that's something which we really need to think about in terms of how print is going to and how video is really between print, video vernacular. Where do you feel that we are going towards as we go into the future? This is better. Yeah, great. Thanks so much, I'm, you know, I have a slightly different take on this whole subject itself. So we're talking about, you know, measurement or marketing assessments beyond performance. I think if you talk to any marketer in the room, their ultimate litmus is not about which medium is being used. It is always about the kind of ROI that they're going to get on the marketing investments and spending that they're going to do. The logic of using digital and video in isolation or in combination with traditional media or what we call as a multimedia approach is perhaps a decision that a marketer has to take in the best interest of the audience that it is wanting to serve. When as a print publisher, major, which is now transferred, you know, transforming into digital business as well, when we look at our business, there are two key themes that are emerging. One of the things is how do we integrate a digital DNA into our organization, which is to say that we are in the business of content aggregation, which is news, and then disseminated it back to the audience. How do we make sure that every part of our value chain understands that the information flow today is largely digital based? The quantum of information and the nature of information and the space and the speed at which the information is coming back and being made available to the audiences has to change rapidly to keep the time. So we are making significant investments on that and I think marketers are realizing that. So a lot of campaigns that we get, for example, in print and television actually has a digital component attached to it as part of an integrated solution. The other part is how do we do content integration, which is really talking about brands that have specific messages. How do those messages get integrated into all content that we put out, not just the digital content, but the print content as well? And we are seeing that we are able to give a much better ROI to the client beyond the traditional measures of performance by actually integrating all of that. Now, is that an easy journey? Perhaps not. You know, I mean, you can compare the entire print industry which continues to be extremely large to, you know, a very large cruise ship. It's like a Queen Elizabeth II or something like that that is there. And all the digital businesses that these print publishers are starting are like lifeboats. But you see the kind of investments that are now going into making these lifeboats really agile, really responsive to the client. And I think the sustainability and survival of the print industry will depend a lot on being able to integrate both the mediums. Even in the West, when you talk about the death or the demise of print, I think it's been spoken about for decades now. But the fact is that there is a combination of print and digital that continues to survive. So there is a value accretion and a value recognition of what print provides. But more importantly, as the audiences shift, and you know, Rajan Anand in his earlier address, and I think most of the people were here, spoke about the fact that today you have 400 million Indians on the internet and with a 1.3 billion population, you have another 400 million coming in in the next four to five years. And a large part of them will come in vernacular languages, regional languages, because that is where the penetration of internet is going to go. So the publishing business today is gearing itself up to meet the content requirement as well as brand expectations on this area. And I think as the brands recognize the value of vernacular mediums and regional mediums, transforming themselves into digital organizations, they will see a lot better bang for their buck than they will see in standalone digital. So Pradeep, one of my questions was that as print, and we've spoken so much that the medium is going voice and vernacular, of course. I mean, that's something that you're strong at voice and video are a lot of print publishers forced on digital to also have a video play, which they don't technically have on their print publication, of course. And hence having an existence on digital means you need to have a video play. Because all we're talking about when most of the people now are talking about is right now digital is equal to video. A lot of that spend is digital is equal to video. A lot of the brands spend specialty is digital is equal to video. So maybe a question there. Do you feel that something that is also something that a lot of the publishers are doing, traditional publishers, which perhaps they're not doing on mainline, but they are doing on digital? Absolutely, Shams. Because you should divide the publisher universe into two large parts. There are publishers who have also gone into, because of their DNA of news generation, into news television. We are one such publisher and there are quite a few other publishers. Almost every large regional group today has a regional television associated with it. I mean, you have Sakshi TV, Inadu, Inadu T-TV, Sakal Assam TV, Lokmath S-I-B and Lokmath. Pretty much every Malayalam and Ormai Z-M-M-T-V. So there is a large amount of news and content that is getting aggregated on video. And the combination of the print reporting, print journalism, content creation coupled with the video content that we are giving is making a very compelling case for marketers to have a large video route access on the news business. Even for pure play news organizations, which have started off as television organizations. And I mean, you know, Republic is one such instance. I can't really think of anybody else. Even large organizations like A-B-P News actually started off as a print organization, then completely divested into a television and now are playing a fantastic digital business largely on the back of the legacy of both of these businesses. So anybody who has a television business is able to integrate video far better. And I think it is needless to say that the recognition of having video content is absolutely there and without that we know that survival is at stake. The challenge will be for tier two, tier three publishers who don't have a strong video play. And as with any industry, you look at telecom over the last decade and a half in this country. You should have eight players and I know from Swan to BPL to all of that today you have two or three majors. There is a shakeout that is inevitable in this industry. The same thing will happen in media as well. And those that have kept pace with the times in terms of investing in video, investing in digital, really transforming the DNA of their organizations into digital will survive. And those that don't will not. I mean, that's as clear as writing on the wall. So I think the report says that the spends on digital is going to be 31% of overall spends by 2021. And that's massive. Do you feel that now? I mean, globally, there are brands which are getting launched. And this is for the entire panel, which are challenging the way legacy brands are really thinking. So one brand which I was lucky to listen to when I was in Cannes was a brand called Glossier, which is launched out of New York. So there was this publisher who was a blogger on Condenast who had about 5 million people who followed her blog, who's created this women's and men's, for that matter, product for skincare and for lipstick and all, which is now competing with the biggest brands in the world. And the entire strategy is to go online and co-create the products with the consumers. Do you think that moment has arrived in India where I can, and the other example is the dollar-shaped club, which again was predominantly using the digital medium to scale up their operations and really a center of that beyond finance, because we know that the entire finance industry, of course, does that for an FMCG kind of category. Do you think that that moment has arrived in India or do you think that moment is still a couple of years down the line? Because if I read into what the report says today with the 450 million people that are there online, I would believe that it's right for businesses to use digital to transform and to really talk about what they're going to create along with their consumers. I don't think that's happening enough. Do you think that's something that in India are we ready to do that? I mean, Shenmueh was a great example of 30% of the business happening through digital, which might be 50% in the next couple of years. That itself is an example of how content is really gaining out of digital, so your thoughts on that. Anyone can just take that. So I think one of the important things that will play a role is, at least from a marketer's standpoint, is the kind of content that you create. Also, you know, all these bands that you're talking about, a lot depends from, goes from category to category. A lot of people might not want to follow policy buzzer Instagram page because it is extremely boring, so no one wakes up in the morning thinking about insurance, right? But they think about, they want to follow a film star or some cosmetic brand or so. But also, what I've really seen these days is if you create an excellent content, a piece of content which talks right about the brand and also has a good strong story, that content automatically finds its own medium. You might not have to spend even a single, you might just, the great test of a good content is that when it is being shared in your WhatsApp groups. So you're not spending any money, but it comes back to you, and that's not even in your media plan. So it's also about creating a great piece of content and then once a good piece of content is ready, then it just becomes a matter of how much money is that, as I said, 31%, 20%, 40% on TV or digital. As a marketer, I see that building a brand is important and the medium then becomes a secondary object for me that knows where I should be spending more money. Right now for me, as we've already seen that digital is definitely eating into a major part of our television budget. And we are largely on two mediums, which is TV and digital. That's because we can also track that. So I feel that a good piece of content, if you look at, and this change has been brought upon by the consumers because consumers want to watch good content, be it entertainment industry, be it even the brands, if the consumers even have the power today to, if they don't like a piece of content, they rip it apart. So it's also a good content that you create, it will find its own medium. So just wanted to, so my question was slightly different. So what I'll do is I'll park that aside for a minute, come to the content play because we'll come back to the display if you want because if you started content because this entire panel actually is perhaps the best panel to really talk about content here. So I'll park my question because you just start with content. A huge part of where the media spends, the spends are going on digital and I think the next three years is going to be the entire content play. So when we're talking about beyond performance, content is going to be huge and of course vernacular content and English content and English content. So your thoughts, each one of you because again content is I think the biggest, strongest panel out here, your thoughts in terms and then we'll come back to my question because we were already talking about content. So I want to just talk about that. So all of you all in terms of how do you feel each one of you all. So when we're talking about Shamaru as well, where is the entire content play, both as someone who maybe spends on content as well as someone who has advertisers on their spaces of content. So, you know, we can take that up. So, you know, the real difference when you say and say kind of mentioned it, once you have the right piece of content in your writing it, I think that's the first step and digital actually allows you to target a user versus a buyer. Most mediums will help you kind of attacking a particular buyer. When I say buyer in the traditional filter in the sales funnel, you are going through various processes where you are targeting your kind of then looking at research and then it ends at the purchase of a product. Now the sad part about is it you've done so much and then you don't know really am I going to chase the guy for the second, third, fourth, fifth, seven, 10th repeat. But I think when you start looking and targeting at users and digital allows you to do that more than any other medium and that's going to be really the inflection point to your point, even the makeup example which you gave. It's really an example of looking at the user and not the buyer. It allows you to experience that and then there is a repeat per se. There are there are several advantages of a user. It's not only coming for a second or the 25th time. I think most important is once you have a user, the user is your marketer. So you really then look at word of mouth. You look at this person going and offering free, honest advice to people in groups, forums, et cetera, what their experiences of the brand are. And to me, that's the real tipping point saying, can you get to the user? I think the day that usage gets maximum across brands, you will see the tipping point in terms of spends across brands. I think you've made again the point that I was again spark that because that will help me put my point across in terms of the digital is disrupting businesses. But your thoughts on content. So Shams, the whole content story for us plays out a little differently. See, as a news organization, the credibility of our content becomes paramount. When you look at entertainment content, the ability to do what is known as integrated advertising or branded content is a little bit easier because you are so we've Leslie seeming brands into this story. The line of the narrative that is going on in an entertainment context, but the audiences here realize that they don't want that when it comes to news, because news has to be strong, credible, factual, and therefore our ability to actually integrate or put branded content becomes very limited. What we tend to do is to have contextual advertising, which is to say that if this particular story, which has the context of a particular industry or a user base or a community. And if there are brands that have saliences that appeals to that audience, we can have that contextual advertising going on in our digital property. And that's what we end up doing. Even in print, when we were doing branded content stories, we have realized that the credibility of papers that was actually doing branded content, even if it is a boxed content was being called out by readers are saying, you look, this is not really news. And I don't think that that's going to change in the digital universe at all. I have a question there because I had this conversation with one of a traditional media company, a publisher. Is that really how the consumer sees it? So my question is very simple that when a new age consumer was in the 18 to 30 age bracket, things that the news is coming from Huffington Post. Half of that is really content which is branded to an extent. So for that kind of an audience, which is already thinking that this is news for me, I totally understand that authenticity matters. How do you then in that kind of a scenario, because I had this conversation with another one, how in that scenario are you competing or you don't want to enter that as a company? The other company that spoke to saying that we stand for something like this, so hence we are not going to do that. You are absolutely right. So every organization, that is a news organization, takes its own sort of editorial call on the extent to which they want to integrate content into news. There are some that will absolutely not stand for it where there is a church and state separation between the editorial team and the business teams and business teams really have no say in what the editorial content gets pushed out. There are some that have clearly defined areas of grey that okay in entertainment section, in sports section, in areas where brands' alliances are higher, you can go ahead with branded content but when it comes to core political news, anything on economy there you can't go ahead and do it. So there are do's and don'ts of all kinds. So as Arnab was saying in his previous speech that I have a right to my opinion. So editorially almost all publishers take a stance of how they are going to integrate it, which is what I said that it is difficult for a news led portal or a news digital organization. To actually have integrated content or branded content, it is relatively more easier for them to have contextual advertising. Now that reduces the efficacy from a return standpoint, which is why when you see the spends coming out on digital, the news sites actually tend to get much lesser unless it's a very high topicality. So there is a state election results coming in the audience shift there. So that's where the money is moving. The dollars immediately start shrinking, the minute the election results are over and you know unless you wait for the next big news to come. That's the story. And from Shemaru's perspective, where do you see, so do you see a big content play as an IU also going to advertisers or to, is it only going to come from the regular beauty revenues that are coming into your business or the content play, content integration is a big part of what you see in the future. No, I think in fact we have a dedicated full-fledged team that works with a lot of advertisers. We've run quite a few campaigns for advertisers. I think the advantage that gives us at least is that it because our team understands our content the best. So it helps us marry the advertisers need far more closely and you know we were discussing about performance based and all of that. So in a different way because you know there's a different type of target audiences that one is able to create or cater to with that kind of with the kind of content play that we work with. So I think for us of course driver content is the key ingredient at the end of the day which gives us the kind of numbers that we are able to generate or the reach that we are able to generate. But at the end of the day how we can write on that reach and work with various brands. So we've done a lot of creation work for brands also. We've done a lot of you know pure play advertising but it's performance based because the kind of target audience that we are able to work with I think that's. So I think that to me is you know important. Second is if I have to just look at it in a slightly different way you know there is a lot of segmentation and categorization that at least we have worked with because what we are saying or what we are seeing also is that the consumer is heterogeneous. It's not one consumer just the way in television we have 500 you know channels in like 30 different of 40 different categories same way on the digital side. So for example we have a very very large play on the devotional front Hindu and Islamic or in fact multi faith Sikh etc. You know or in a lot of regional languages Gujarati etc. So there again the opportunity to work on specific audience segments I think is is available and that's what we kind of look to play. Of course a lot of our revenue but I mean YouTube at least particularly there's a lot of Google that comes into the you know into play because the bulk of the revenue gets channelized through the Google this thing but there's a lot of work that our teams do on that. Okay so again we'll come back to my question last the question that we had again which we're talking about brands really and business is really using digital and I think I'm going to use and I'm going to come back to you because you had a thought on that. So as he said I think what brands what a lot of brands are doing right now that they're using data to target consumers for marketing needs. So they say okay I want to micro segment and I want to reach out to those consumers and get my message across. I think what a lot of brands across the world businesses across the world are doing is they are going to the same set of consumers and creating those products along with those consumers using the data that's coming back from those consumers. And I think that's where a lot of the world is moving towards. So that's coming back to the question that he said was that okay are you really getting to speaking to those segments are those spec segments really making a difference to your brand and your business. And I think that's I feel that the time has come now where we need to understand data in a much larger way. So Policy Bazaar can create products along with consumers because of the data that is there which is not possible right now in other mediums. The other mediums don't allow it how much ever you say that I can track television you won't get that kind of data on television. So that's where we are today. The understanding of the consumer and hence going beyond just performance to really make businesses and brands use digital to launch or to make a difference in the business and how we're conducting that business. So that's really the idea of a brand like Glossier or a brand like in the dollar shaped club because it's end the other day and understanding who your consumer is and how that is. So that's something to add when we're talking about this and then so what we'll do is we'll close and then we can ask some questions. I was only coming back to the fact that you spoke about this fashion brand cosmetics brand which engages with the audience and you know has created like a billion dollar valuation business the U.S. Glossier that's what I was talking about. I was only alluding to the fact that there are brands in India which have adopted a quasi similar route and I've had tremendous success. I mean look at what Falconi Nair has done with Nike right. I mean it's it's been a it's been a phenomenal journey. They've engaged with millennials where they have their own branded products and they are also marketing products of all the established brands and creating a new category altogether and using purely digital. I don't see their ads on television perhaps they do but I've not seen any of those and you know I definitely don't see the entire business that was created using purely in India. So that's that's really the whole. I think the the final journey that you can take as far as beyond performance goes is that how do you use digital to actually create an entire business even in an FMCG category. And I think that's that's really digital beyond performance. So I'll now leave it to the audience for any questions and then we can kind of wrap up from there. No questions. We will wrap up. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for the panel. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That was indeed an interesting session a huge round of applause for them.