Relating to the Consumer at the Right Data Point with Amitesh Rao
The future of advertising hinges on data and creativity
In this edition of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj is joined by Amitesh Rao, CEO at Leo Burnett South Asia. They discuss the current state of advertising - how data affects creativity and ideation, the limitations of influencer marketing, premiumisation in India and how that affects the approach to ad campaigns, how story and myth still play a part in communication, the demands of India's growing affluent class and much more.
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
—
Govindraj Ethiraj: Hi and welcome to the CoreReports special series. My guest for today is Amitesh Rao, CEO of Leobanet South Asia and we are having this conversation in Mumbai. Amitesh, thank you so much for joining me.
My pleasure to be here. So before we start, let me ask you, why did you get into advertising?
Amitesh Rao: I think this is an industry of misfits who stumbled into it, much like I did. So there was no great pre-ordained or pre-thought through motive behind it. I was an idealistic young man who walked out of a fancy MBA school and figured out that corporate life wasn't working and sat at home for a while figuring out what I want to do and one day I found myself in an advertising company.
I quite liked it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And which sort of brings me to my second question. So what made you stay in advertising for all these years?
Amitesh Rao: The truth is I haven't stayed in advertising all these years. Only half my years have been in advertising. I've done two software startups, you know, I've been on the marketing side.
So it's been in and out. But I did come back to advertising a few years back after a fairly long hiatus. And when I came back, it was out of choice.
I didn't stumble into it. I came back because I felt a deep yearning to come back. I felt, I've always had a very deep connection with creativity at a human level, at a personal level.
You know, my father was an artist masquerading as a finance guy. You know, I've always had creative people and process and thinking as part of my life. And I was missing that.
And I chose to come back to advertising and I think, great. I don't think I'm going away again.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And why did you feel advertising was the vehicle to express your creativity?
Amitesh Rao: See, in business, it is a powerful medium of creativity. In life, there are many other ways to express creativity. But I am, I do a job as well, right?
I mean, I have a profession. And in that profession, I did find avenues to express creativity greatly, even in a gaming startup that I was running, right? So it's not that there aren't, but advertising is at the heart of this business is creative thinking.
And the ability to leverage creative thinking to drive transformation, not just for a brand or a business, but for people. That power lies with advertising people. We don't always recognise it in the daily pressure of our life.
But I think we have that ability to influence, through creativity, influence a lot of things.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So let's talk about, since we're talking about creativity, and let's talk about the year that went past and then we'll come to the year ahead. And we were just talking earlier that there is no hard stop on 31st and fresh start on 31st. But it's a continuum.
Of course it is. But there are some things where you want to take stock and then you also want to look ahead. So let's talk about creativity and what to you were the creative highlights of the last year in two or three ways.
I think one is the kind of campaigns, let's say you created, maybe what your clients wanted or the products that they represent wanted, right? And how that was eventually communicated to customers or users and which led to some form of success, at least to your satisfaction?
Amitesh Rao: I think two or three things stand out for me, right? One is a no-brainer, it is the way creative thinking and creative processes are adopting technology and I think we're getting better at it. We are quickly losing our fascination for technology as an end in itself, as a shiny gadget to play with, but as something that actually helps make a difference through creative thinking.
And I think there have been pieces of work this year that not just we've done, but we've seen them across the world as well. Can was an eye-opener in many ways because we really saw that fascination dying out. So I think the ability to harness what technology is bringing to the table as a component of creative thinking is a big highlight of the year for me.
We did, one of the really nice pieces of work we did as Leobanet was this programme for Gatorade. Which comes from a very basic human problem in India, right? Country of 1.4 billion people, 2% of people play sports. Big reason for that, you just don't have sporting infrastructure, subset of that in urban centres you don't have space. How can you solve, how can you start solving that, right? And the whole idea with the Gatorade work was, it's called the Turf Finder Programme.
The idea was simple, use technology, and in this case it was Google Maps data, to understand spaces in urban centres get freed up at certain times of the day, they're not always free. So parking lot is free at 8 p.m. in the night typically. I know that from 10 years of maps data.
That street tends to be a little empty at this time of the day. Drop a turf, for one hour, make it a playground. It sounds very simple, but it's extremely powerful, and we're now running a lot of such turfs across urban centres in India.
Started with Mumbai. But to me, great, a lovely creative idea, but you can't do anything if you didn't have the tech empowering, the ability to take it to market. There's other pieces of work as well.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And this is not advertising the way I would think of advertising, because I'm not seeing a messaging, or I'm sure there is messaging, but it's not messaging, it's more the putting together of this whole concept and actually executing something physically.
Amitesh Rao: I'm glad you say that, because I don't think advertising is what it used to be. And the sooner we realise that, the better it is. Advertising always has been creativity, but increasingly the ability to manifest that creativity in real life has become a lot more than it used to be, because the mediums have changed.
There was a time when the only way I had to express that creativity was a print ad or a television commercial. That changed 10 years ago. And it's changing even more rapidly now, because of both the input, which comes from data and tech, and the ability to output that in many different ways.
So our business is not, at Burnet we don't look at ourselves as an advertising business. We're a creative company. And creativity in the service of transforming something for brands, by working for people.
And the beauty of the world today is that you're able to do that, and Gatorade is one example, there are many others such, where you can actually make a difference with human imagination. You see, what's happened is, I think, there was a time when craft and creativity were tightly interlinked. If you did not have craft, you could not express creativity.
You have to be a great writer or a lovely artist, you know. Now, tech is doing a lot of that. And therefore, as long as you have a creative mind, if you have imagination, the ability to take that out, that burden has been lifted off, you know, craft.
So it's what some people call democratisation of creativity. Therefore, we can take it out to the market in so many different ways.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So if I were to stay on that Gatorade example, in this case, Gatorade is not asking you to create, let's say, a campaign that reaches millions of young people who are also sporting enthusiasts, or want to be sporting enthusiasts. What it's saying, I think, is that I wanted to create some sort of brand connect, which is also physical, and that maybe spreads the word, and so on. All brands may or may not have that same ask.
So how are you seeing that?
Amitesh Rao: Yeah, of course, every brand is at different life stages, different journeys, and have different asks. But the... In the context of communication, and...
Sure, sure, sure, yeah, yeah. But the principle of what I'm saying doesn't change. The way you apply it might, right?
Another brand, so let's take... Let's take Whisper as an example, right? And this is not necessarily a tech example, but it still underlines the point how, of creative thinking changing something, right?
Whisper is a very different life stage from Gatorade, very different marketing challenge, very different business problem. When we figured out, we figured out a very simple thing. In India, we've known for many years, Whisper has been working with the fact that periods are a taboo, particularly in upcountry India.
There's a lot of superstition, and that causes a lot of disruption in young girls' lives. There's a simple data point. The average age for periods was 12, 13.
It's come down dramatically. Girls now get their periods at 8. It's not something people talk a lot about.
Certainly brands have not acknowledged and recognised that. When Whisper figured that out, we said, hey, hang on, we have a programme called Keep Girls in School. We need to educate girls about period and period science and the fact that it's a very normal biological process, but we have to educate younger girls, and the mothers of younger girls and the teachers of younger girls.
That changes the way you take a creative idea to market, right? And therefore, we use what's called a period song. And we did television commercials, and we did a song collaborated with, you know, great artists and put it out there on YouTube and Instagram, and we used all the conventional mediums.
But the idea is not that. The idea is, I have to talk to a younger girl. What's the easiest way to communicate this to her?
Let's do it through music. So you couldn't have done this, if you did this 15 years back, you'd be making a song, but then you'd be relying on MTV or All India Radio to put it out there. I don't have to do that anymore.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So one powerful input in this equation clearly is the data point itself, saying that younger girls today may need sanitary napkins. Now, is this, are you, so first of all, did you find the data point or did you, I mean, how did you chance across that data point?
Amitesh Rao: It's collaborative. There's a lot of data, you know, available out there in the public domain as well. The client has a lot of data.
We have an innovation lab that also looks at all of that data and someone pulled this out over a conversation and said, this is what is happening. It changed everything.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So let's say if you were to take another brand and, or any other brand, and how would you in your process go about, let's say, looking for things like this, which in turn allow you to build something which is distinctive?
Amitesh Rao: I'll be very honest about this. There is no patented process yet, right? We are all experimenting and trying with it.
The thing is that data is as good as your ability to ask the right question of it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Yeah, which I was coming to, yeah.
Amitesh Rao: And that asking the right question, there are two components to that. One is to understand from a technical perspective, how do I input that question into this mass of data, which we've known, which business knows how to do. It's a fairly well advanced science.
The other part of it, which is imagining the question itself, the right question, and then finding a way to input it into the data structure, is not that advanced. And I think that's what we're trying to do at Boneta a lot now. The question I used to ask from a consumer when I was using conventional market research is very different from the question I can ask now.
I can ask a much more fundamental question. Give us an example of that. Whisper.
I think that's just the best example. So the ability to ask the right question is what we are also learning. I'm not going to pretend that we know it.
But we recognise that that is a big unlock.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So you talked about the intertwining of tech and creativity. And what else illustrates that point, even as we now look ahead? And how are the two worlds balancing each other out?
And we'll come to that dreaded word called AI, or not so dreaded, perhaps, in a bit.
Amitesh Rao: I think most fundamentally, and I'll just go back to reiterate a point I made a couple of minutes back. I think tech is liberating us from craft. And I use those words very carefully.
I'm not an enemy of craft. I'm a lover of craft and creativity. But when it comes to business, the ability to just to leverage pure human imagination and let something drive the craft is a beautiful ability.
Because it gives us skill, it gives us momentum, it gives us agility. And then, therefore, all these fancy words that, you know, personalisation, hyper-personalisation, localisation, AI, they're all offshoots of that, really. So I think that's the most fundamental way in which tech and creativity are intersecting.
Which is why I think the creative company of the future is not a personality-led creative company. You look at historically, over the last 50, 60, 70, 80 years, the most successful advertising companies have been very heavily influenced by a personality. It's not going to be like that, simply because of this one reason.
I think the modern-day creative company and the creative company of the future is going to be more influenced by a culture than a personality. Because the tech is taking over a lot of that stuff.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So when you look at it from the other side, so we've talked about, let's say, from the supply side. If you were to look at it from the demand side, which is consumers. So today, consumers, as we all know, are, let's say, inundated with a lot of media, which they're consuming from early morning onwards, including people like us.
And thankfully, we are consumed at maybe 6 a.m. in the morning, mostly. And then onwards, right? It's an entire day full of...
So my question is, one is, how do you penetrate in a market like that? I mean, broad principles, which also I'm sure are shifting. The other is, let's say, you have marquee events, you have an IPL, where in some ways you have captive audience.
But in that, then, how do you make a mark? And whether that's changing, too?
Amitesh Rao: Yeah. Interesting. And we talk so much about how the world and society has become literally ADD, right?
Attention span of a goldfish. And the intellectual and sort of worldview of never before, because of the amount of data we consume. But we have no attention.
But I think, you know, and we were, there were some young people in my company who unlocked this for me. The question is not how do I, how do I grab attention in an attention deficit society? The question is, am I saying something that's attention worthy?
This same society, the same Gen Z, whom we say are these guys, they don't listen to anything for more than six seconds, right? They spend three hours at a concert. They spend eight hours binge watching a Netflix series, right?
They listen to podcasts which are an hour long. They do. We all do.
The question is, are we, as brands, are we worthy of that attention? The kind of attention brands used to get, because they were entertaining, because they were culturally relevant, came from a medium which was led by television. That's gone.
It's history. It's past. We have to find a different way to tell stories so that we are worthy of that attention.
And then, if you look at it through that lens, then, you know, IPL or podcasts, they are secondary. The best, the most successful advertising today is advertising that is worthy of attention, not advertising that is trying to grab attention in an ADD economy. That lens to me is an important, important one.
I also feel we are learning to do this because, you see, storytelling, the art of storytelling in a disaggregated environment is being learned. You don't necessarily have a window to tell a story. You have to tell a story over 10,000 windows.
We're learning how to do that.
Govindraj Ethiraj: What does that mean? Can you illustrate that a little bit?
Amitesh Rao: Okay, so, in a more technical marketing sense, the only marketing that's working is full funnel marketing. Marketing that exists across every stage of the funnel is what is really making a difference. How do I tell a story?
The story has to be one because people still buy myth and story and belief. That has not changed, but they're consuming it across so many different stages of this funnel, across so many different mediums, in so many different formats. How do I tell that one story?
I don't think we know this yet, by the way. Again, I'm not going to pretend that someone has cracked this.
Govindraj Ethiraj: But what's a brand or campaign that you worked on which comes close to this structure or this model that you're talking about? In its width? And I'm guessing there's a lot of width in this and depth at the same time.
Amitesh Rao: I think there are PepsiCo brands that are starting to tell this story in the full funnel way really well. Lays is a good example. Gatorade is another good example.
Modelase has done this well with Oreo. The entire work we did with Civo is an example of one story, but being told across so many different formats.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Do you mean like, for example, Oreo also available as chocolates, Oreo available as something else and all of that?
Amitesh Rao: There is a rational side to the product and the innovations that Oreo brings to the table and that side of the story, but also what it means to me, the fact. For example, I want to say, hey, Oreo is a part of your taste culture, not just for kids, but across the spectrum of ages. And it's not a taste in itself, but it's also a great ingredient taste in so many other things.
Right? Now that's a story. But that story is different for different people.
How do I personalise it and say it in a way that using AI and tech, and that was the Civo programme. How do I say it in a 30 second TV series, a different programme? It's the same story.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Got it. So let me ask you another sort of demand comes supply question. What's your sense today and going into tomorrow about the trust that brands enjoy, even as you tell your stories and assuming that they are captivating stories, which people like to listen on absorb?
Amitesh Rao: Trust is harder to earn today than it ever has been, isn't it? Because the fact is, you know, the same ingredient of successful brand marketing, which is the ability to tell a story in a full funnel way, also means you can be seen as disaggregated and, and, and with a lack of integrity. So I think authenticity is just absolutely key, especially to the younger people today.
Their belief system is deeply rooted in authenticity, which is why we are seeing this, what I think is a little bit in temporal, but a current great in reliance on influencers, because what do they really bring? Authenticity. So the ability to be grounded and real and authentic is an important ability for a brand.
The ways in which it's being done, there are multiple ways. One is, of course, like the medium like influencers, but it's also in what brands do. It's not about what you say, it's also about what you do.
When a brand is doing something that makes a real difference. People take stock of that, they acknowledge it, and they're willing to pay a premium for it. Even in a market like India, which is behind the curve in, in terms of how much monetary value people attach to a purpose, even in this market, there is a value for it.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And when you say temporal, do you mean because, you know, influence, I mean, I look at an influencer who is maybe holding a certain product or talking about a certain service, and then I realised that they paid for it. So therefore, they're already diluting their authenticity. And therefore, the whole thing becomes temporal.
Is that what you're saying?
Amitesh Rao: Partly, partly. But I also mean, you see, there is a lot of fakeness in influencer marketing. There's a lot, the ROI is not, is not being understood properly.
Because there are a lot of fake influencers, there are influencer farms, right, follower farms. I, someone recently told me that 70% of followers of beauty influencers are men. Yeah, I mean, not surprising.
Okay. Now, I didn't think of it. But when, when that person told me this, I said, yeah, not surprising.
But that's where, as a marketer, I'm putting a lot of money, in fact, now a large chunk of my investment is in the beauty category is going behind influencers because they do bring the authenticity. But 70% of the people who are following them are never going to touch my product. So I think, when I say temporal, what I mean is that the, our ability to leverage this new medium of authenticity is, is emerging, we have a long way to go before, before we are able to scientifically use it in a way that, that gives us ROI.
It's a little bit right now fascinating.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Sure. And, and do you feel at this point, for instance, and yeah, as influencers or that category is on the ascendant, and therefore, there'll be all the mistakes that one makes with such category, high category, sort of upswings. Do you feel that traditional, let's say, print, television, digital itself is losing out is balancing out?
How are you seeing that?
Amitesh Rao: I don't see that at all. I mean, I don't think we're, you know, see in many markets in the world. But let's look, talk about more about India.
In our market, stature still is an important part of trust and belief. It is. And large format media does deliver stature.
This might sound too simplistic. Yeah, but I'm sure advertisers see ROI and therefore they, you see, when I see a brand on IPL, of course, it matters to me what the brand is saying and all of that. But just the fact that it's present there, this market views it as that's a brand which has stature.
So it gives, it drives consideration in my funnel, right? So the value of high ticket, expensive, large format mediums and properties is not going away. It's just that it's not the only thing.
It's not going to work in isolation anymore. Yeah. That's what we recognise.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Yeah. I mean, Byju's was a big IPL sponsor, for example. Okay.
So let me talk about categories. You know, in business, for example, there's a lot of discussion about disruption even right now. So, and let me pick one example, electric vehicles, right?
It's a category that's new. It's a category that's eating into the parent category, so to speak, because if people are buying electric, they're not buying internal combustion and so on. So how are you seeing your role in some of these areas and where there are either newer categories coming or newer, let's say products, but at scale, these are not small things, you know, which are doing small stuff.
Amitesh Rao: I think our role as a commerce company, as a creative company is the imagination of these businesses and these products. Much like this conversation around AI that you are going to, I'm sure, bring up at some point of time.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Very shortly.
Amitesh Rao: The thing is, EV is not an end in itself. And I think a lot of the category is selling EVs. Consumers are still buying mobility.
It's in a new form. But the codes of mobility aren't going anywhere, right? I still want to go from point A to point B in a comfortable, safe, convenient and inexpensive way.
It was the same with, you know, a car 30 years ago. It's the same with a car today. The way in which I'm delivering that is a revolutionary new technology that actually helps me to deliver all those things a lot better.
But I think if we, as marketers and as businesses, if we view our own products, the imagination of our own products is more coming from why does it exist for that person who's using it as opposed to what am I putting into it. It changes the frame a little bit. It's a natural course of any new category.
This is to mature into that. I think these categories also are maturing into that.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And you know, I mean, maybe this question could have applied at any point. So let's say you have a car company which is producing both now. And that is the case, except for, let's say, a Tesla or something.
But many car companies are selling both internal combustion as well as electric. So how do you then, let's say, nuance the messaging so as to ensure that you're actually grabbing both customers or you're appealing to both customers? And you could use this example from some other product category if you want.
I'm just curious.
Amitesh Rao: It's impossible to answer this question in a generalised way.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So you have to get specific.
Amitesh Rao: It is specific to X car company has this much market share in ICE, in internal combustion. And therefore, growth is all going to come from newer age energies, newer age technology, as opposed to Y company, which is dominant in that. So the story would be very different.
But I think the core of it would still be the same. You're a car company, man. You're a car company.
You're using tech a lot more to deliver the car than you did modern tech. But fundamentally, you're still delivering to a human need. And when you look at it through that lens, then you calibrate your pricing, your distribution, your product, your messaging, and all the components of your marketing mix with that.
It changes the way you look at your business a little bit. I think, so computers are like that, no? There was a, in the 80s, there was a fascination with just the fact that this is a computer and this is what it can do, the power of a computer.
That transformed into saying, here's what I can get out of a computer. Apple's success story is that, right? It is their ability to look beyond the fascination of what computing power is to say, here's what it means to me in terms of simplicity and design and ability to create and all of those things.
So what it means to me, as opposed to what this fancy new thing that it is.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So let's talk about AI. So there are some things maybe it's promised and not done, as is also evident. Because like Gen AI, for example, has not done everything that people thought it would, let's say, even six or seven months ago.
And there are some things it has. So what's your, as an advertising agency head, how are you seeing it?
Amitesh Rao: Well, first, so at Cannes this year, Publisys, the theme on AI was AI without the bullshit. It's just too much bullshit around this. And I honestly believe, even Sam Altman doesn't know where it's going.
Forget about me. So only a brave man predicts too much, or analyses too much. But some principles are clear, at least from a myopic advertising agency perspective.
We are already deploying AI very well and very successfully as a productivity enhancer. That, you know, and I think Bernard is well ahead of the curve on that as well. Our ability to speed up workflows, our ability to use AI to open new angles of thinking, right, what used to be a six hour brainstorm session between 15 people is now a lot more informed, a lot more structured and sharp and precise, because your starting points are coming, you know, from many different places, thank you, AI.
So from a productivity standpoint, we're getting it, we're getting it. We're also getting it from a, you know, how it helps you to take messaging out into the market, you know, the CEO, Oreo example, and there are many brands in the world that have done it. It's not just us, Cadbury has done some really good work this year.
So that part we are getting. I think the ability of artificial intelligence and forget Gen AI, but the real power of AI to unlock the question, go back to what we started talking about, what's the right question to ask? When we start figuring that out, then the business transforms even more dramatically.
So, it's still, it's still a bit of a fascination. And it's still a very early stage of adoption. So we're all, you know, experimenting and trying in some calibrated in different ways, some doing it better than others.
But the power of it is, is absolutely insane. And it's not just for a creative company, I think even what we do with brands, it just opens up a lot of possibilities for us. I mean, imagine my celebrity brand ambassador, being my customer service agent.
How fabulous is that? Right? Imagine me being able to talk to every one of my 33 million monthly active users individually.
This is what AI is doing, right? So does it change the way we market brands? Of course.
And is it changing it? Of course. We're discovering it as we go along the way.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And as you look ahead, and let's back to the consumer, I mean, what, what are the changes or shifts you're seeing, if so, in the way consumers are consuming across categories? I mean, I mean, I picked on cars, because it was fresh in my mind. But it could be, let's say, on retail, entertainment.
Amitesh Rao: No, I think this market is, you know, there's this, we've understood that premiumization is an important lever, right, for business in India. To me, that is symptomatic of how consumers are thinking. And I'll be a little more specific to our market right now, as opposed to big global trends.
I think the, we've used these words for a long time. And sometimes they sound a little cliched. But in today's context, they're very real.
Value not price, I think is a very, very important lesson for all of us as marketers to practise much more than ever before, because we are seeing, see, we are seeing a very large affluent class now exploding in India. I think the last number I saw 100 million by 27, you know, nobody is growing more in terms of outbound international traffic than India, no other country, right? The discretionary spend in the next five years will triple.
So there is affluence. But that affluence is being used in a very value conscious way, we are still a value conscious market. But what we are asking for as consumers is, is becoming more and more interesting.
We're asking for experience, we're not asking for things. You know, the idea of materialism, I think is less important than the idea of experience for the more affluent class and we're seeing more and more of that happen. I mean, coldplay ticket prices, that's insane.
I know we are talking about a niche here, but it's a symptom of what we are seeing in the rest of the market at different levels. Why are we willing to pay that kind of money for a concert? Why are we willing, the entertainment, live entertainment business is going through the roof and I think therefore the whole story of premiumization has a big unlock in the way consumers are, what they expect out of brands and what they're willing to pay for.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So, which also, I mean, I'm trying to read between the lines here, but you also seem to be saying that we may have made some mistakes there, because assuming that people are willing to pay more and therefore we pitch something to them, thinking that they'll pay more, but actually they don't, despite the fact that they can afford it.
Amitesh Rao: Are you attention worthy or not? People will pay for you. You know, take the idea of, so one of the narratives we hear of a lot is that in India, nobody's willing to pay premium for eco-friendly, sustainable products, which is true, which is oftentimes true, but we are seeing an emerging segment, particularly amongst the younger people who are, they're very astute.
They're not going to be paying for brands that speak sustainability, but they are willing to pay more for brands that practise sustainability. And right now we're seeing a lot of emerging B2C brands, small, it's a small scale, right? The belly of the market is still not there, but it's getting there for sure.
And therefore the ability, their ability to command a premium is higher. It's the same even at a more transactional level, quick commerce, you know, we are paying for convenience. We don't recognise it.
The consumer at home, she doesn't get it, but she is willy-nilly willing to pay a lot more for convenience. There is 10-15% being added to monthly grocery bills for convenience, and we're willing to pay that. So it is, I won't classify it as mistakes, it's not necessarily mistakes, but we're learning that.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay, and as you look ahead, what's the sort of, the most, not the most maybe, what's an exciting project that you'd like to work on, or you look forward to, or you would look forward to, which would test many things at the same time, let's say the use of technology, the understanding of the consumer, data points that we've spoken of, the ability to relate to the consumer at that value point that is so critical, where could it all come together if there was some ideal thing that...
Amitesh Rao: All that, I mean, I'm not going to talk about specific projects, because you and I can spend the next three days and I will tell you 35 interesting projects that I would love to be, some I am in, and some more I would love to be in.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Or you could give me an example of something you've seen internationally where you said, oh, that's a fascinating thing.
Amitesh Rao: I just find it, you know, so I think the greatest work, the most exciting work, is something that makes a difference to people, and I mean human civilisation, at scale, and in doing so, makes a lot of money for a business. To do that, you need tech, you need insight, you need creative thinking, you need a lot of inputs into that. But that's, if you put that out into the market, then that's amazing.
And one of the loveliest pieces of work I saw was just so simple, yeah, I saw it at Cannes this year, it's called the move to minus 15, have you seen it? So do you know that globally, the shipping industry, the frozen foods shipped across the world, for the last century, have been shipped at minus 18 degrees, okay? The longevity of that frozen food, the freshness of it, is the same at minus 15.
It took some smart guy to find the data to figure this out, there is a different story behind why it was minus 18, it's more legacy reasons rather than scientific reasons, but someone figured this out, and they started a campaign to move to minus 15. Can you imagine the climate impact of that, if the shipping industry globally reduces its energy consumption by bringing the frozen temperature down from minus 18 to minus 15, massive, even more importantly, the companies are a lot more profitable, because they're spending less on their input cost. To me that's a gorgeous, beautiful piece of creative work, it's changing the world, it's making more money, and it's coming from, because you have the ability to mine data, and science, but the unlock is a simple creative, someone with imagination has unlocked this.
Govindraj Ethiraj: It's a good note to end on, Amitesh, we've run out of time, thank you so much for joining me here today. Lovely to be here. Thank you.
Amitesh Rao: Thanks Govind. Thank you.
