 discussion, which I'm sure will interest all of you now because the invaluable role of influencer marketing is becoming more and more relevant than ever before, right? With the production of ads on hold, most of the content being produced on social media and digital is being made by the influences themselves. So right from their homes, thus the role of influencers has been extremely important in producing and distributing content. We have some of the biggest brands here. We have one of our very well known influencer here one more time. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope all of you are ready. Just comment in your chat box how excited you are for this next panel. And yeah, let me now introduce you to our panelists. First, Debu Smita Majoondar, head of marketing Puma India, very warm welcome to you. Thank you so much. I'm very excited to be part of this panel. And I think it's something everyone is experimenting with, especially during the time of COVID. So looking forward to the discussion. Absolutely. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of interaction from our audiences as well. Introducing to you our next panelist, Warren Alak, co-founder and CEO, Mama Earth, very warm welcome to you too. Hi. Hey, glad to be here and to talk about our story and how we have used people to tell the story of people to others. Absolutely, so excited to hear about it. Welcoming Kushwubinani, content influencer marketing and brand advocacy head at Diageo India, very warm welcome to you too. Hi, everybody. Looking forward to the discussion today. It's going to be interesting. Absolutely. Also welcoming our panelist, Harish Narayanan, chief marketing officer, Mintra, very warm welcome to you too. And let's welcome the influencer of the day, Nikunj Lotiya, founder, B. Unik. Nikunj, very warm welcome to you too. Hi, thank you. And I'm glad to be here. And our last but not the least panelist, Juhi Singh, co-lead talent management pocket aces. Very warm welcome to you too. And now let's welcome our session chair for this panel discussion, Lakshmi Balasubramanian, co-founder, green room network. Very warm welcome to you too. Hi guys, super excited. Really looking forward to being a part of this panel and all the interesting discussions. Absolutely. Such a varied panelist that we have here. So Lakshmi, I would leave the screen to you to take the discussion forward. Sure. Awesome. Hi, everyone. It's really nice to be here on this panel. Work from home and, you know, online meetings and now webcasts. Really interesting times indeed. So let's kind of begin with what's the hardest topic right now. Being a lot of ad shoots and photo shoots, you know, a lot of content production, so to say, has come to a grinding halt with the lockdown situation. Many, many brands are coping and coming up with really new innovations to kind of manage this scenario. In fact, as an agency, we've done some interesting stuff where we've converted influencer videos into television ads, we've converted influencer content, you know, just run them as a paid partnership and run them as ads. They're in fact pushing a lot of influencer videos to use innovative ways of shooting and tell the story on edit and we're pushing the envelope in every possible way. So I'm happy to hear what, how our brands here and how all of you have used influencer marketing, you know, as a, you know, to kind of compensate the shooting lack of shooting problems that we have right now. Debra Smith, how do you want to kind of get started? Sure. Yeah, I mean, when it finds first, in fact, the way it all opened up for us is the day I was supposed to do one day shoot. That was the day, I think a day before that the lockdown was announced and we had to cancel the shoot. So it kind of happened at the very point of when we were about to go out there to do one big campaign shoot. So that's when the, you know, the conversation started internally that if now going forward this entire season, because it's a, for us, it's a seasonal story, right? So it was a spring summer starting and soon after the end of season sale, you're ready to do all your launches, you planned all your shoots and you realize that's not going to happen as per the plan. So I think the first and the foremost thing that we kind of looked at was to keep the conversation going to repurpose some of the content that they have done in the past, because which was not so much product focus, but more narrative led to actually went back and looked into our whole content bank and picked out content which we could repurpose together. That was the first few of the things that we attempted. Then it moved on to doing where it was about putting together a creative direction, giving a direction to our influences to fit. This is how you can shoot. This is the objective of this particular content. And this is how we plan to do it. And once we have shared that direction with them, they were sending us content that is in their own houses with their own phones or friends, etc. And we use some of those. And at this point of experimenting with, you know, shooting through FaceTime. I mean, that's something we've not done. So if we were to like look at doing, getting our influences on a FaceTime and trying to do some shoot with our in-house talent, because even for the shoots, we typically depend on an external crew with a director and an Islam photographer. With none of that to with us, we kind of getting the internal team to find ways to do it. So it's been very, yeah, it's been quite a huge learning curve if you ask me with content and all of our teams really having to put the envelope and think of absolutely new ways. And we all are looking up by, you know, things that other brands are doing, other influence, and trying to kind of get some inspiration from what's happening outside. And yeah, that's how it's been. And it's a continuously, we continuously learning. And we also know for the next few months, we will not be shooting because even if things open up to kind of just go out there, everyone would feel a little bit of a discomfort, right? Even to get an asset out to say, okay, now we're gonna get so place can shoot. We don't want to create that. So we can when things open up, we want to find ways to do shoots, which are which which are quick fixes, but where the quality is not compromised. It's a constant learning curve if you ask me. Absolutely. What about you, Harish? Is it I mean, with fashion, it's a completely, you know, different story in itself. Have you been trying experimental ways and using influencer marketing with the foods being stored and, you know, no photoshoots, no production, it's absolutely nothing. So how is the kind of managing First of all, thanks for having me to be here. For us, it's not a new thing. So we do work with influencers quite a lot. Even if you look at our past, where we created our own IP, which was to passion superstar, that was all about influencers. We have used influencers in a big way when it comes to our own app store as well. So when we do a big sale event, which is the end of reasons later, we actually use influencers as imagery on the platform as well. So this is not something that we needed to pivot to be always used to a lot of this. Recently, we also launched this thing called Vintra Studio, which is like a mini destination of passion content on the app itself. So we work with influencers quite a bit. What has changed as we just heard from Debo is the constraints of shooting and of the kind of stories that we could tell and the scale at which we can tell the stories. But see, the way we look at influencers is the spectrum of celebrity, right? They are very well known, well paid, top tier celebs. You have your new up and coming influencers and there's the whole spectrum. The way we work with them is we make them our voice for fashion expertise or beauty expertise. So when it comes to style and lifestyle expertise, the target audience that we have is Vintra, which is the young consumer. We always tend to listen to somebody who they can relate to. They feel yes, this person is likely. So what we have done recently is once we reopened, we actually ran a campaign where we shot a campaign in an influencers house with a couple. That is doing very well for us. We have always worked with them on social that has worked tremendously for us. So it has an extension of our BAU. And you might even be upon this because it works so well for us. We don't see it as a special scenario. This is something that I would recommend to everyone, where if the audience will listen to a more relatable person or personality, more than they would listen to, you know, somebody who's distant, this should be a core part of what we do as a strategist. That's how we look at it. Thanks. Awesome. So, Varun and for Mama. Yeah, so yes, so I think I am on the same page as Harish. We have a very young brand and our journey is about three and a half years old. And when we started, since then, one of the communication insights that the brand is built on is millennials trust other millennials, right? And that's a, that's a proven insight which has been captured in multiple data points as well. And hence, since the beginning of the brand, we have tried to tell our story through other relatable, real people rather than just limiting it to brand communication. And so for us, actually, this was really business as usual, because we never really were into larger production assets. We were using repurposed content and content through in which other influencers, bloggers, bloggers were telling our story to consumers and using them, that content and promoting that content to tell the story of the brand. So I think that continued for us. I think what what changed during the lockdown, it was how do you create more relevant contextual content, which will hit home harder during these times. And when I'm saying contextual, I'm saying using the context of COVID, not just talking about COVID, but the fact that you're locked in, you're at home. And hence, how does your beauty regime change? How does your baby regime change and creating and driving some of those more relevant conversations when, in fact, one of the activities which did exceptionally well for us, which we did with over 2000 influencers in the country is something called a corona working outside, like police, like, you know, health workers and sanitation workers. And we used influencers to actually do that, because we, we sent out these sanitizers 25 to 50, each to all these 2000 influencers, and we requested them to just be our goodness ambassadors and said, I think those kind of things in this relationship, it was for us. Great. That's interesting. How about you, Kushboo, do you want to share how it has changed for you? And what are the interesting things you all have been trying to do during this time? Hi, so I think for us also, like, you know, Divaswanta and the Harish, they be used to work with influencers extensively and across different categories of influencers starting from like celebs to micro influencers to nano influencers. I just wanted to share like an interesting example of something that we did, which was more contextual. So one of our BlackDog, it has been advocating, you know, taking a pause for at its brand purpose level. But the brand comes, which we had was about, you know, actually going on a holiday, being, you know, going out fishing, all of that suddenly in this fun, it became a bit, you know, not so relevant. And but there was a lot of conversation because the world was on a pause, everybody was on a lockdown. People were talking about what to do in a pause while we wanted to put out a message that it's important to you know, stay in those and be safe. But we also wanted to push out a message that, you know, this is a opportunity to actually do something of the pause that you've been posted to learn a new skill, you know, do something that you always wanted to do and never had the time to do. So what we did was we actually got wheeled, we asked to do two content pieces for us. One was very red Shakespeare, all Shakespeare plays and recap them in three minutes. And other one was that he said that he's never really done written a serious song for his band, Alien Chutney. So he went ahead and wrote a romantic song for Wi-Fi, because it suddenly became the most important thing in his life. So, and the content did really well. And we used that for the last couple of months instead of brand comps. So I think what influencer like a influencer like we helped us do was actually create contact stool content, which was culturally relevant while helping us push the message of staying indoors and being safe. So I think that was something interesting. We did over and above a lot of other stuff that happened for us in the drink space because people were not drinking outside, bars and pubs were closed. So there was a lot of upskilling that we did possibly something that I could share through the conversation. So most of the stuff, in fact, I've seen the, the Beatles poem and the song and really, really fun stuff. So Nick, do you want to share some, you know, interesting content that you've created possibly for a brand or otherwise, you know, you shoot every other week, right? Otherwise. So how has it been going for you? To be very honest, every other day now is not weak, because that's nothing else I can do right now. That's what's changed. In fact, I'm the most productive right now than the past 44 to five years. And firstly, thank you for inviting me. It's a great pleasure to be with all of you. I remember I used to work for DiGio when I used to be a bartender for like four or five years. I've bartended for them. And yeah, I mean, influencer marketing is important right now to be very honest. I use mama's product and the, you know, how I can know about it is because there's this influencer called Trituber, who I follow a lot. Like, you know, the best probably fitness I would be channel level. So I used to follow it religiously. And for me, that's what it is. Like if he said that this is good, then I feel that it's good. And that's what I feel is with, you know, with micro influencers or like, say, I feel that if you see Shah Rukh Khan driving a Sandro, I know that he's not driving a Sandro for sure. Like, you know, if you see someone like Trituber promoting something like mama, then I then, you know, that that connects really well rather than seeing Shah Rukh Khan driving a Sandro. And if you talk about content, I feel it's we have gone back to basics now. And I remember starting probably like six years ago when I started making YouTube videos, I didn't realize how to make videos. I was a bartender like I was bartender for like seven or eight years. So everything that I learned about making content is through watching content is through people around me is through experimenting stuff. Like, I still remember the first time I landed a tripod from a friend of mine. And I sat on top of a fridge to like, you know, shoot a shot. And that's when I realized that you know, the friend later came and he opened the legs and I thought it's just to keep the camera. So that's how YouTube, that's how content creation is supposed to be. That's what I feel right now. Everything has become too mainstream. Like, you know, YouTubers are making highly produced videos like, you know, impact me too. But I feel this is the space that I always wanted to be. And that's how I started making YouTube videos. I love making videos. I'm not a very analytical guy. So I don't watch a lot of content to these days. Like, you know, in the past three, four years, I've not watched any content. So I feel that if you watch content, there are two things that can happen. A, if you don't like it, you'll be thinking like, what is happening in the world? Why is this content doing so well? And B, if you like it, even if you don't want to, your subconscious mind tries to imitate that. I used to watch a lot of K&P, I used to watch like Life According to Jimmy. And then when I started making content, I started making content which is similar to them. So that's why I don't watch content at all. And everything that I make right now is through surrounding. And I live in Mumbai. So I've always lived here. So anyways, the access to bigger stars or the creators that I wanted to was not accessible to me because it's like a tour distance for me to go to Bombay and shoot. So not a lot of, not a lot has changed. But I'm kind of adjusting in the place that I am right now. And I'm in a happy space. I love making what I'm making right now. Exactly. It's back to basics doing the fundamentals, right? Obviously, not a good thing to say, but the views and like, you know, everything has been increased right now since everybody has that hope. I'm trying to capitalize on it and like, you know, try to produce as much content as possible from home. Just to add a small point toward next aid, I think what has happened in the last two months is that earlier you really took focus on production value within the field of content. So the focus has shifted to storytelling and, you know, that's always a good thing. Yeah. So, how is that worked out? So if, you know, even we've done some work with Mintra, we know that Mintra is really particular about the production quality and likely so for a fashion brand. So how has that been something you've been able to kind of manage despite? Are these like FaceTime calls? Pretty much all of that. So he launched a campaign two days ago. So you might want to see that on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook. So what we have, and Nick put it very nicely, right? Storytelling always wins hearts and minds more than anything else. So while you keep the premium look and the visual picture perfection of fashion, you can always tell very human stories in this day and age, even while shooting at home. So we picked a couple who was near one of the directors who could go and shoot at their home. So we found a way to get a director to their home. So I mean, all credit to my team who's been creating magic like this. They went and did Jogad, find a person who could who was living to a couple who were influencers, then they went to their homes and shot. And if you see the creative, it is as impactful as anything we have done before. So in terms of storytelling, in terms of the looks and look and feel, the kind of fashion proficiency that we wanted to show, it's all there. So as an industry, we are being pushed to become more creative in the way we tell stories, the way we make our choices on media and also the way we partner with these creators. I prefer the term creators over influencers, because it's not just influence, these are creative minds which are telling amazing stories. And it's just making us push our boundaries on how we can make these things happen with the constraints. Constraints always brings out creativity and that's happening in plenty during this time. Do you want to tell us how it's been for you all at pocket cases? I'm sure a lot of your shoots must have been installed and a lot of new plans might have, you know, come to we can't hear you, Julie. Okay, I think there seems to be some kind of a audio issue. We could I can talk in the top of pocket cases. Sure, if you have any more fun stories to tell us. No, I mean, like I'm just saying that for me, what I feel is pocket is that college humor pocket is this college humor of India, they can put out videos from anywhere, anytime. And the most amount of content on internet right now, I guess is of pocket cases. Every time I open up something, there's a new content piece out there and they're doing it. Yeah, I mean, like, I would make this as Harish said that I would prefer the term content creator over influencer. In fact, my Instagram bio is like my mom says I'm a bad influence. So I'm not an influencer. I feel a good story always wins. And in fact, even if I even when I do content marketing, when I do a video with a brand, there's a thumb rule that I apply every time I try to write a script for a brand. Okay, then I take out the brand from the script. And then I look at the script and I ask myself, is this video something that I'll put out irrespective of the brand or not. The answer is yes, I put it out. I don't. That way, what happens in my entire like five or six years of my life, I've never got a comment saying that you are you know, you are a sellout or something because it's, it's a story, it's fitting well with the brand. Without the brand, it's still funny, like because I make comedy. Without the brand, it's still funny. That means it's a funny piece, which is going really well with the brand. And that's, that's what has something that helped me like, all this while ongoing on the market. I think it's important that even brands look at it the same way, because you're going to influencer, if you wanted to do brand content, you put like, you get the agency to put a creator and put it on your handle and promote it. The reason you go with your influencer is because you want the influencer point of influencers voice to come into your content. So I think what you said, if the brands also look at it the same way, that's the sweet spot for both the brand and the content comes. Exactly. And thankfully, like, you know, I'm right now, I'm in the position to pick a brand and tell them that, you know, this is what I feel is right. And this is what I feel would go for both of us. Like, you know, if I'm just comfortable, it's not helping you or me, might as well do like a ad on TV, which is not going to help you or me because I'm not doing advertising, just content marketing. And I've seen this, you know, in fact, that I've worked with right now. So, you know, we have a good repo that sometimes I make a video for a brand without even a breeze. And I tell them, you know, this is something that I've shot. If you think it's good, I'll put it up. If you think it's not good, I'll just take out the brand, but I'll still put it up. And to be very honest, I've never got a time where they say that it's not good. So I've built that repo in the past six years. And I've seen it changed right now because I remember the first one or two year, like, you know, in the second year or something when content marketing actually started, you know, I started making YouTube videos when YouTube videos was not a thing like in India. So I remember YouTube used to take us to this thing called street dating where we used to, in fact, cockroaches were also there at that time. In fact, so what happened? What used to happen is we used to stick with brands for like, it was like exact date. We used to stick with brands for like 15, 20 minutes each and explain them what is content marketing, what do you think, why do you come in this unconventional way and not do that? I've seen that phase to this phase now where, in fact, like, you know, everybody is trying to get into it. Awesome. So, you know, kind of moving on to Lakshmi, can you hear me now? I just want to check if you can hear me now. I can hear, can hear. Do you want to? Okay. Cool. Yeah. May I, if you're not spending too much time, I'll just take a couple of minutes. Thanks, Nick, for stepping in when my network was so crap. So, yeah, just a couple of things first about the talent in particular. So we've seen in this, the lockdown phase that, you know, the demand for influencer content has gone up many fold. We've been able to cater to it quite well. And we're really enjoying making some of the content. A lot of it is about, you know, the lockdown, the campaigns are about the lockdown. But similarly, there are some that want us to stay completely away from the lockdown content completely. On the pocket cases front in general, we've continued to make content on filter copies been making videos every couple of new fresh videos every week. These are without anybody meeting up. So we set up a new system. You know, the crew size may be same, but we've identified creators who can make this shoot this on their own, and be able to put it out for us while the editing, etc. is done by, by pocket cases itself. But we've really relied on creators to help us shoot what we're putting out on on dice. We've created a series in lockdown with Bumble and Cadbury. It just went out. It's a 24 part series on Instagram. So that that released from, I think it was the third week that we were into lockdown that we started releasing one episode every week. Yeah, so, so we've not stopped innovating, we're creating new stuff all the time. None of that has stopped. And hopefully we'll keep coming up with newer methods and entertaining everybody who's watching us. Food and drink on Bobble with you guys. Yes. Right. You know, kind of leading on to the next question in the same that right. So are we all I mean, it's a lot of brands still doing a lot of lockdown communication. We noticed starting in March, April, a lot of the content was about hand wash challenge yourself. So, or you know, work from home, go to home, take a look from home and so on and so forth. So has that kind of changed now? Are we is the products? I mean, as the messaging is starting to become a product driven and brand driven. So how has it been? You know, how is that a transition at all right now? Yeah, for us, I'd say that, you know, the lockdown, the couple of the situation kind of like the reality that kind of came out was state those connection between the, for example, workout from home became one of the things that people started doing and as a sports brand. And the other thing was about Zoom parties that was this other conversation that was going on. And again, as a sports brand, which has a very strong style element, we had a play there. So for us, it wasn't, I mean, hygiene conversations are coming in when the business was going to say that, what are the measures you're taking at all or be it in the supply chain doing to happen. But that's more likely to talk about the content and the storytelling. We really tend to relate to what a consumer is feeling and the lifestyle that he or she is having to lead. And where does a brand like Puma fit in that universe? You know, that's where we sort of try to get, for example, workout from home, while initially we would as a footwear first brand, we would we started talking more about our apparel because people wanted to wear something interesting at home and work out. Similarly, loungewear, something that they want to wear if they're doing a work from home call, video call or catch up with their friends. You know, how could you style these are the kind of conversation we as a brand we could very seamless be a part of. And that's where we that's how we are. Staying away from a direct conversation on hygiene and that's more informative that we would do once. Why don't so you know, since there was a lot of these audience are also talking about how they like your band and they notice influences. So do you think COVID situation or people I realize that people have a special connect with you? So you think a lot of brands and you guys as well, we'll start looking at more associations and associations more than brand endorsements, a large set of customers per se. I think for us, any which ways we were whoever creators we were working with, we were actually working with them on on very continuous and long term basis. We haven't like structured it into contract we work with. There are there are at least if we talk about, for example, YouTube, there are more than 50 creators who we have been working with over the last 18 months plus with the continuity of probably every month, right? On Instagram, there are month on month for more than two years. Because for us, this is, this is ambassadorship. This is a partnership. This is not a campaign, which comes and goes out. This is, this is the media that we believe, you know, exists for us are the best place to tell our stories, because they are nowadays creators like Nick was in, they will not just go with any brand, which is just paying the money. They will evaluate, they will look at what the ethos are and hence sort of associate. So for us, these any which ways have been longer form associations. We are actually now getting brands that wanted to come into this space. So we would, we would be structuring into actually more longer term six months, 12 months associations as well now with our top creators. And I think the entire space is a lot of brands are every quarter realizing the importance of this space and joining the wagon. But the good thing is there are a lot of new creators are also, you know, coming up. And at some level, India's creation space is still way more, you know, it's it's still not as niche in terms of content spaces as you would find China or a US. So I think as more brands also keep coming in, the number of creators and the number of spaces that they specifically specialize in is also going to be in keep increasing. So there'll be supply as well as when we'll continue to grow extensible. Nice. Harish, what about you? So you I think that has always had a fair, I'd say a good mix of celib endorsements plus influencer kind of partnerships. So do you see the percentage kind of increasing or tilting more towards the you know, digital endorsements slash longer term associations with influencers, you know, going forward. The luxury, I think the both are important. One is important for mass awareness and reach. And the other is important for storytelling and influencing at scale, right? So we don't see either of them being less important in the coming years, especially after we come back with our plans post COVID. And now that we have reopened, so both will continue to be important. The way I would say, I wouldn't talk in terms of percentages of proportions, I would talk in terms of strategies. So our content marketing and fashion advice, let me call it that, right? Fashion and beauty advice and also expertise is more driven by influencers. So whether you take the three things that I spoke about earlier, right? Mintra fashion superstar season two. Again, it will be about influencers and how fashion ecosystem can benefit from growing this this part of the influence ecosystem. Second will be Mintra Studio, which will continue to grow in a big way. We have just started, it's a few weeks to a month old. We are very, very excited about how big this can become in the future. Third for our sale and also for our brand communications, how influences become a bigger and bigger part of this. And for different use cases, right? A family use case is different from a trendy young girl in a metro use case, which is different from a tier two boy who's very different from an office going professional in a metro. So and different from parents, for example. So for these different use cases, we are very actively exploring how we can talk to these consumers through creators who are more aligned to those types of personas. So we definitely see it playing a more important strategic role as we have always been very close to this. The numbers will depend on what gives us better ROI, what gives us more a bang for the buck in the long term. So that's how I would look at. Since you mentioned ROI, so with a lot of sales, the economy, having it drop them sales going down, you know, a lot of these stances like one quarter is almost lost for a lot of people, right? So with the focus now start being more on influencer marketing is typically always been about brand awareness, branded content more, you know, in that space. So with the general conversation start, you know, moving more towards performance marketing or trying to try sales. You think that we are shift like that that could possibly, you know, happen? In the short term, yes. Given all the the unprecedented situation that we are all in. But in the long term, I think brand building is as important to us as it is for any single brand in the country. I would separate your question into two parts, right? One, is ROI important as performance marketing more important? ROI has always been important. Right? And second part of the question is how does influencer marketing fit into that? So we take a very ROI driven approach even to even to influencer market. So it's not that we see branded content as a different pie, which is not set to the same stringent requirements of all the other channels that we have. We see it as one more channel. And we see the mix of channels as a spectrum of ROI numbers. And this is also one of the channels that will contribute to ROI in a big way. Now ROI can be calculated purely based on the same or it can be a upper part of the funnel which eventually converts to the same. But either way, it has to contribute in a significant way to ROI. And that's how we look at it. Interesting. What about you, Kuchgu? So do you have a point of view on whether influencer marketing has been more performance driven or has it been more for brand building for you? And do you see that likely to change in the coming months? So we have a category which does not sell online. So when you say performance marketing, the traditional way of performance marketing would happen. I wish right now it was. I wish right now it was. It's still not online sales. Yeah, not something you can try, yeah. So it's still not available on Amazon and Silicon. So I think for us, when we look at performance, I think it's a slightly different API to what everybody else would talk here. I think the key reason that we engage with influencers would be to drive fame. And when like Hari said, when it comes to a certain set of brands, it would be for fame plus mass appeal, whereas a certain set of brands, it would be fame plus storytelling. I think what personally I feel is the most important capability that I look at is the engagement score. So if I create a piece of content on the brand handle versus something that I've created with an influencer and is resting on the influencer handle, there should be a significant data as far as the engagement is concerned on the influencer handle for the content to have really to me, we consider that something which has given me a worldwide investment. I think it's because of the category, it's a slightly different response to what everybody else would give. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, in fact, we honestly kind of believe that there's a lot more that can be done with influencer marketing. A lot of times influencer content, like content creators get, especially for a category like fashion and all of that, these how-to's and reviews, most of the time are created, they stay on their channel, they have a certain, they stay there forever, but they're viewed for a certain period of time and they kind of lose their significance. Whereas reviews and how-to's and tutorials are actually valid for life. So long as the product exists, those videos will have value. So now COVID is kind of pushing a lot of people to use these. We've also kind of built a tool that will kind of bring all these to the product page and kind of increase shelf life, increase conversions and things like that. What's going to be important going forward is going to be how you convert your influencers and creators into your brand advocates. I think and a lot of that journey is not necessarily a journey of how much you're paying and whether you're getting into endorsement contracts with them or not, but it's going to be a combination of that plus how you're really engaging with them, kind of experiences that you're offering to them, the kind of conversations you as a brand are having with them. I think it's going to be a mix of that. I mean, and I think getting a influencer to advocate is what also I would, I mean, I'm just saying that, but it's a great term, KPI to evaluate your relationship by. Yeah, absolutely. Julie, have you, you know, pocket cases done some kind of a, you know, any interesting kind of deal where maybe it's like to performance have like, how is it, is there any interesting ways in which you have structured your partnership with brands? Just hold on. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I think that the series on Instagram would be a great example for this. It was done with Bumble and Cadbury. It is 24 episodes of one minute, you know, content on Instagram. And for every four episodes are stitched together for YouTube. They've been their production quality is great. It doesn't look like it is a two people on set kind of job. Of course, there's a large team working behind the scenes, you know, and putting a lot of the technical requirements together. But I mean, I think that quality, et cetera, has not been compromised on that yet keeping in mind that nobody meant to do that. We identified actors that, you know, could pull this off together. One of the actors directed this, the whole series. And they were given very strong aspects to kind of follow to make it very similarly, even influencer content or things made by creators right now is it's easy to do for a brand because the quality hasn't changed pre or post, right? We're still reaching out with the same like you're engaging with your audience, your it's a smaller ticket size. So, all those kept in mind, we're creating campaigns and I do think that influencer marketing is kind of, there's going to be a blur between, you know, like a TVC production and influencer, what an influencer can create. I think that Godridge, the Godridge campaign with Karan Johar is a good example of this. It's something that typically would have been done as a TVC. But in this time, they've explored it and done it as a campaign on Karan Johar's page. Also, we've seen that, you know, atypical brands that weren't advertising so much with influencers are doing it a lot more now. So, something like a good example would be SBI. They've created many campaigns with us. This one was created free, like a bunch of people met to make it. So, it was done free lockdown but it was a really interesting one on spreading a message on, you know, breast cancer. So, they've created, SBI created this little dot card with how you can, you know, self-examine for breast cancer. So, that was a really interesting campaign that we did recently with them. I think currently everybody's in this space where they're trying to innovate and come up with the best that they can to keep their audiences in. And we're doing exactly the same. Yeah, like you rightly said, you know, the lines are blurred between we've also mentioned that there are more content creators, right? So, it's not really so much influence as much as content creators. But the marketing is slowly a form of content marketing creating content content. I think that being able to function efficiently yet remotely is going to be the new normal. So, I think that everyone is going to have to figure out that then advertising is a large part of, you know, the marketing marketing trends in digital, a large part of it is, will have to be like refigured, I guess. Yeah, so, you know, the last thing we'll cover is, so, what is the general is it something that you're going to remember? Your influence on marketing is like the biggest conversation, like everyone said, it's the most sought after marketing right now. And it's been working out. Everybody's been trying out new things. You're doing a lot of things, you know, an avenue possible with a bunch of home and, you know, all kinds of, it is just a temporary kind of a thing until things become normal and it goes back to, you don't know when the normal is going to resume. But yeah, so when it does in a couple of months, hopefully, you think the kind of this trend might not sustain, might not continue, or do you think it's something that everyone's learned in this journey and, you know, we'll probably try exploring a little more of this along the way as we go. Varun, what's your, what's your So, I think for, I very strongly believe that even pre-COVID, there was a strong trend towards influencer marketing or content marketing, as you choose to call it. And I strongly believe this has just been a period where a lot of people who did not believe in it or were not experimenting with it have ended up doing that and whoever has done that will likely to be more likely to be continuing this even post that because it's really, it's a consumer insight. I mean, the generation that we are talking to believes in listening to stories from people rather than, you know, stories from branded production, you know, 60 seconders. So I think, hence, I believe that it'll, it has just accelerated the pace of adoption on influencer marketing. What do you, what do you think, Mintra is going to kind of continue after, you know, the whole COVID situation kind of? I would agree with what Varun was saying and I'll, I'll give you a different perspective on this. If you go back to first principles, there are two things that have changed. Actually, one that has not changed and one that has changed. So the principle that has not changed is if you take a pyramid of message believability, right? At the top being mass media brand telling you something, bottom being your friend telling you something, you would always tend to believe what your friend tells you. Influencers are somewhere close to that, right? They are trusted advisors in certain areas, especially when it comes to lifestyle, every day. So there is more believability at this end of the funnel. So there is no reason why we wouldn't do more of this. As a brand, we are very authentic and very empathetic. So our consumers actually believe us when we say something also, because we are very carefully, very choiceable about what we say. But using the content creator or influencer voice to amplify what we say will definitely continue to happen. The second thing from a first principle point of view, what has changed is the explosion of social media, especially in the last couple of years, looking at the way YouTube, Insta, TikTok, all have grown in this country, becoming a content creator has become that much more easy. So from a generation probably 20 years ago where there were 10 well-known names in the country, now there are 10,000 well-known names in the country, right? So when content creators have become more and more popular, when the audience is watching them, automatically brands like us will follow. So this is not a trend or a fad. This is a shift in the way content creation has become more democratic. And the same way storytelling will become more democratic. And brands like ourselves which pride in great storytelling will follow. Greatly put about how the whole system and the whole content storytelling has been evolving and changing. And I think we would kind of accelerated the process and forced everybody to kind of think along those lines in the last couple of months. Khushboo, what's your kind of thought on this? I agree with what the pardon and how I should say it. Just one little point. I think what is on the brand side is we've shared a perspective. But what has happened on the influencer and like there are like food bloggers who used to talk about places to go and eat. They are not talking about that. There should be fashion bloggers who is like, you know, outfit of the day. They are not talking about that. So not just on the brand side, but on the influencer and also they have been on the last two months have been a bit of an unknown journey for influencers that they because of the challenges they have had to reinvent their content narrative, you know, how they want to, you know, grow. And I think somewhere in this there is a opportunity for brands to work better with influencers in a very authentic way because things are changing. And honestly, I don't think we're going to come back to normal in two months. It might be slightly longer than that. It's about adapting learning both ways. So I mean, I'm amazed at how interesting some of the influencer content has become compared to earlier people just posting great looking pictures. So I think it's going to be very interesting going forward. Absolutely. So what would you do with us? So are you going to actually cancel that shoot you had planned and make it a shuttered? Well, no, I think I agree with everyone who just spoke Varun Harish because for us, collaborations, working with content creators influences was very much part of our overall marketing strategy. What has changed though is how we engage with them, how far we spread it, what is the balance between the big, big budget shoot and the smaller pieces. How do we tell the story? Storytelling has been very much a part of how we as a brand have evolved. And we will continue to do so. And the content creators and our influencer advocates have been a very, very strong pillar to make that happen. It just be constantly evolving in the more, what are the newer ways to do it? What are the most fresh take on a certain story and how better can we tell it? And in within the constraints that have been, which has been more environmental, but the whole aspect of storytelling still is critical. The aspect of having the influences be the voice of your brand and say it in the way which is relatable to your consumers still exists. So all of that exists. It's just finding out newer ways. And I think in this situation, like people say, right, like necessity is the mother of all invention. I think this is the time we'll see some of the most exciting marketing coming out in the way people do marketing. So yeah, I think this is it to stay and newer learnings to come out of it. So Nik, why don't you share some, you know, your thoughts on this and we could trap that up with your closing lines. I mean, like, I would like to say what I would agree with what Harish said here. Like, you know, the top being your panel being your actors and stuff and the bottom is your friend telling you. In fact, I would say like, you know, as I said, I'm not an influencer, I'm a storyteller. The biggest influencer for me is a guy in the store, I guess. Because I still remember the, you know, my first most expensive shoe that I bought when I just started learning was Puma. And when I went to buy it, there was a girl who told me, you know, I was just checking it and I was like, just checking it. And I was like, it's so decent. I'm like, what's the different mirrory, you know, anywhere. I don't know why, but when I saw that mirror, I loved it and I bought it. I don't know what she did. I don't know what's there in that mirror. But that's what I feel like. These are the people who are influencers. And apart from that, I feel storytelling, but still be the same. You are at your home. The best you can do is like, you know, collaborate with a lot of people, collaboration is the way to go about it. I still remember the video that we did for a band. And, you know, there was this app that we promoted and the app was trending on iOS for number one, like for the next one. So I don't think any amount of money or any amount of, you know, any amount of money can give you that source or like, you know, even if you get that, it will require like a immense amount of money to put in. People would still believe people that you are every day, you know, best being the blogger, you know, I would have probably have a lesser reason than someone who blogs every day because he's given his life out. He's telling people what he's been through. He will believe him in more than, rather than, you know, me being a content creator and putting my life out on Instagram. You know, I make comedy videos, but that's how it is. I guess it's not going to change. It has been in this increasing format in the past five, six years. And I don't see it going down any time soon. In fact, if you see right now in the curve of people making content, you would have your actors getting like millions of followers, probably say like 20, 30 million followers and like an influencer with like a content creator with probably like a million followers is much more, you can see it number wise too. If you can take the comments on the content creator who's got a million followers or like the amount of likes or the amount of ads that he gets to someone who's a follower creator who's probably got like 15, 20 million followers, you'd always see more engaging is the one who's like creating content constantly. Yep, absolutely. So I think we've kind of done our time here. Thank you everyone. It was a great foundation, some really awesome insights. Glad to, glad that we could discuss on all that we did. So thank you, Lamsha, for moderating the session and thank you to all our panelists. Thank you for being here and discussing. Thank you. I can see a lot of people in the chats have enjoyed the conversation. We will continue this conversation offline as well. If you have any questions, you can tweet to us using our hashtag E4M webinar and E4M content jam. Our speakers are also will be around for you to just tag them, maybe ask them a personal question. Nick, I'm sure you're going to get a lot of questions about content creation from now on, but because a lot of people are also asking where vernacular influences is that going to be the next big trend? So yes, I would request everybody to join us in this conversation on Twitter while we move on to our next panel. Once again, thank you very much to all our speakers and Lamsha. Thank you very much. Thank you.