Pakistan's hologram industry is eight months of demos and no takers

[Music] [Applause] [Music] uh i have started be very confusing term okay about stanford graduate cares and contact cardiff and i will be startups successful businesses that are revenue positive and that are working for very very big averages working with organization big companies um and i want to deconstruct you know what they're doing how they're doing it and they're very innovative they're very exciting uh who's the ceo of aztec marketing uh and yavar khan who's the cto of the company you guys are both co-founders as well yep zabarthus thank you so much for coming to the show thank you thank you very much for conversation today to to sort of understand and before before we dive deeper into this um very exciting it's very futuristic it's very new age uh because that's something pakistan generally i wouldn't have expected yeah and to see such young people uh i i i got fascinated how did you get into this particular space sure so uh in terms of a background obviously the i'm a business graduate right from cbn right karachi and then i sort of landed up in a software company okay uh that was at that time the biggest software company was exporting software to the us um and i sort of grew you and i became the business unit cell right um so they were back in the early 2000s and they were working on software back then when people didn't even know okay facebook pages what they end right and they were charging five thousand dollars just to create a page at that time yeah yeah so anyway so i got exposed to that um and i sort of worked my way up to become the business unit head for the department right um so they were sort of making applications selling it abroad and on a daily basis we were being exposed to ideas from the u.s you know what they were all doing and i was also getting exposure of the production department as to how software was working where it was evolving and what not and that sort of intrigued me a lot right but what was missing in that whole experience was that one-on-one connection with the clients and sort of understanding why they're doing it because we have a very different environment in pakistan and they were sort of getting apps developed that would completely uh sort of for them right um so so that didn't work out i had a very small startup after that uh yeah i saw when did you join this particular company uh this was 2012 2012. yes 2012 undergraduate campaign you joined yes yes and then uh you worked there for how long i think about four four years and then after that you just sort of jumped into a startup no no that's not it so we sort of had a very small startup at that time you were just trying to sort of uh move products from um china to the us uh working on very technical sort of servers and switches and whatnot so was it like uh uh drop shipping or was it something okay it's drop shipping right um it was sort of a very interesting thing we were very profitable on paper um so that didn't work i was an amazing experience yeah um and then i came back to this was in lahore by the way i got i moved to lahore then started a business and then i went back to karachi and then sort of my friend who advised me to join a company that was also sort of working the digital transformation uh but they were working on digital signage in pakistan uh the company's name is red tape and and oh yeah so so retire had presence and 950. right so um i joined there that time they were just starting out they had just 17 screens so now i think they've got around 500. right so um i became the general manager for that company and i was it was really exciting to sort of see uh the digital transformation um but also limited in terms of scope and i i want to do something more that was more evolving and i think that that pace was a little slow as to what was required in the industry right um so that's when i decided that you know we need to do something and the technology that we're exciting were ar vr um and then that technology end that i had experience in cell so that was kicking in right so um that's how we sort of ended up with this 2019 we started may 2019. um and and how did you guys meet the mirror background basically technically i'm in a bs kia in software engineering and then i did my master's in software project management or oscillators from uh ku and then uh masters from uh uh two months into it dr farhook i think got murdered in the in london and then this is i'm in islamabad right i usually live right so i was like into programming and developing softwares and all you just keep on my game development like that was like something that like really like you know caught my attention right interesting about the game development started then i joined cell soft star so that was like before him when he's joined uh uh game development i was the game architect there oh very cool game 360 degrees [Music] together we were dealing uh with each other very interesting supply chain would outsource for you you would outsource i know it's a small small field and then they were very good so you know very cool very good yeah and uh who's time keeper like scale software what sort of products were you working on so we're working mainly uh we're gonna industry i'm not asking a specific major sure so there was a whole variation of product just gonna games with you like you said there were enterprise products as well and then we're working for even individuals would just come in with a business idea and to sort of have an app like uh you know kareem right so it wasn't sort of like an over 60 degree 360 degrees absolutely right right so uh 2009 then he convinced me to like join uh red tape that's uh so i just how do you how do you measure the audiences are there like do you use cameras do you use okay so um the beauty of it was i've been in this space for 10 years um and i'm the hierarchical computer science background i've been a data analyst before this as well the mera i i live and breathe data right data under underlying data fundamentals because it's right there in front of you what's happening right [Music] yes and because of that the money spent is unoptimized uh and and because of that industry right off here yes just because of the fact of poor decision business decisions by agents or by you know brand managers uh so the uh scope can there particularly happen integrate without obviously you when you're creating products up generally global best practices could be they created if we compare pakistan to let's say the international [Music] of age of 30 to 40 so based on your uh demographic swap go targeted right for your demographics so four years you were there and then that's the the next jump from that was to start this company yes what's the thought behind this so um like i said um i i feel that there's there's a huge gap how marketing is done and how it should be done like your space like the one that you're talking about influencer marketing i think you are in the realm in uh that has the most data compared to any other absolutely domain uh activation there's no data at all absolutely um so and and then people are not even exploring so what was scary for me when i was in red tape and i was talking to all of these that was my first exposure in pakistani market talking to big brands and sort of ceos and marketing heads and i was like you know they've got no idea and they're not even thinking some of them are not even thinking in the lines that you know this needs to evolve and then i thought you know somebody needs to do it and um that has to be us because we understand what the technology is we understand where the gap exists and we need to sort of full fill that gap um so even if you look at activations jo abihori orbi they're the same conventional activation that are going on and we know for a fact technologies like ar and vr can have meaningful uh sort of connections with their consumers right and the sort of impact that they can create uh they're missing out the technology exists uh the need exists but they're sort of missing out right and that's when we thought that you know this this needs to happen this needs to evolve uh the previous company was sort of headed in a direction that wanted to take digital signage to a next level and we sort of wanted to sort of get in deeper and sort of try to disrupt different verticals including social hopefully later on social media hopefully later but but that's the thought behind it and then we sort of selected the most uh neglected industry at uh in the whole country and that's the autofoam industry right uh because the thing that we're seeing you know especially in karachi um the outer form is just sort of wall pasting because billboards are banned now um and it's already a billboard yeah billboard's a structure the supreme court order came in uh there was this incident of the billboard falling on after that it's completely banned so um and it's a very rap existence uh in karachi and i think out of form is one of the major communication as soon as a consumer steps out of their home the major communication going on is brand strategy trying to speak to their consumers right um and i feel that you know that communication needs to be uplifted uh that communication needs to be interesting or maybe even inspiring uh for for a nation that we are um and there's a huge room in that um and and that's uh why we sort of picked up our form and that's the most challenging industry by far i feel um and we sort of thought we should try to disrupt this um and and then we sort of barely working on different technologies in our activations and retail so these are the three domain that we've selected first and we're trying to sort of disrupt this so so you're talking about out of home and then relations activations how would you differentiate your theories sure so out of home is uh anything as soon as you step out right uh the billboards that you see um or or you know um they're cars that are branded uh they're floats that are there so anything that that is uh in an open space out of your home yeah so just keeping the definition really simple right um activation is when there is one-on-one engagement with a consumer so let's say okay touch screen type yeah more like sort of experience right so it's a touchscreen behavior human interaction be here uh so i would categorize that as uh as activation as opposed to a great screen like even you're interacting yourself i would categorize that as outer form okay yes so activation one on one uh interaction so oscar koi just a stall lag there's some brand ambassador trying to brief you on a product give you an experience important that's the activation segment the retail is is uh your stores your mtr's your hyperstars and even the the small uh purchase at your in the close to your place right so that's the whole space now in all of these three domains there's massive room from improvement like in the outer form you can have experiential marketing you've got like holograms the campaign that we're working on like projection like interactive projections like sort of making digital signage interactive through your phone and whatnot so there's massive room that way and and people now in in these days are sort of technology savvy uh they've been using snapchat they know what ar is major league you know yeah scc a and b would would be aware so it's it's uh it's important for us to sort of have them engage with the brands that way so that's the out of home arena in the activations like i said ar and vr even interactive touch based experiences and i think that sort of drives um communication to the next level for brands uh so so that's the second segment we're trying to disrupt and the third is the retail the moment of truth uh that's so called that once a person gets to the store um how do you sort of convince them how do you sort of make an impact over there how do we let them communicate with the brand there and then right so that's the third domain that we're trying to do that's interesting and uh probably confusion with this menu you when you when you talked about um activation you're also talking about the human experience is that something that you're providing as well oh no no so you're very categorically targeting the digital uh digital first uh sort of experience yes the technology part of it so we encourage uh human interaction but we let the experts do that you know getting the people like activation agencies uh we on the back end would strategize for the brand we would design the whole campaign uh we would develop the technology would deploy the technical part of the uh technology and we would let the expert sort of manage the whole campaign uh that's the activation agency so if i for example understand happening by um what i understand from that is projected project and there is some sort of material where the projection is actually being uh i don't know displayed that gives you that sort of like uh yeah illusion illusion right so yes is that technology obviously there's there's a the graphics component to it um there is definitely the the component where uh illusion physics but then there is the actual material the technology the projectors all of those things are those were those readily available in pakistan or were these certain things that you had to so though a part of the question was were these things something that you had to import sure because remember and and that's a big question mark okay is that something happening yeah you do you just say yeah okay design and then we go to this renter get this product in sure and we'll do this for you uh and then this the the second question would probably be okay uh actually i just got lost that's just answer the first one so yes this is a capital intensive business that's the first part yeah um and to answer your second question no the equipment was not readily available right um the sort of equipment available in pakistan as a country um would be uh you know in a developed country that one city would have that equipment in total so um obviously that was a massive challenge that we had to face um so so we had something that we imported and then we found something that was uh available available mixed and matched and we mixed and matched so uh like you said you know as in a hologram when you're trying to create an illusion there's multiple projections from multiple angles and then they're sort of so creating an illusion in media um so the technology part as far as the material was concerned and how to set that uh is all ours uh and the projectors and everything else is something that we sort of rent out uh so how do you sort of deal with that we love these sort of clients you know if somebody is trying to challenge what we're doing and sort of want to take you to the next step you know let's work together um and we might take some time uh but but we would go head in that direction um so so i don't know if you want to discuss it but we sort of uh bootstrapping our business um so that's some critical part because we don't have readily funds available to sort of go invest in these millions of dollars so yeah um so we're going step by step right next up coffee high-end we sort of feel as if that was a benchmark projection uh that's happened in pakistan the next line wants sort of interactive projections which means that you know somebody passing by somebody uh sends out something or just sort of a sensor over here somebody walks by something happens on the projection right that's something exciting you know that that would be something that i would like to put my resources to to at least start exploring um and sort of start level wise um as to what we can achieve um and we've done that like so we've achieved interactive projections and we've achieved uh sort of in interconnected uh projections through your phone and all so those are all uh sort of uh driven by the clients and the requirements profitability [Music] reproduction of a particular product medical product medicine sure economically interactive is a product uh hologram is a product a reusability of a single particular product becomes very very difficult uh so or or not just difficult difficulty in terms of quantity quantity wise so then the model then essentially becomes consulting model sure right essentially come in as a consultant and you create a new thing all together and then consulting while a model globally the way that it works is kids it's very very expensive sure so then when it becomes very very expensive so then the clients in pakistan with their mentality how do you reconcile the economics of this entire thing sure so that's one of the major challenges that we face and and we knew that starting off because we had some experience dealing with pakistani clients so we knew okay budget is always going to remain a constraint and since we've taken this responsibility on our own it has to be close to their budgets what they're spending today even if we tell them that projection their holograms is something groundbreaking uh they would much rather sort of spend on billboard and that's exactly the question that we've heard so so to clarify we've got some of our own equipment as well some of our own projectors and then we sort of rent out the others so uh that is where we we sort of save something and plus we're trying to sort of go towards scaling we whenever we sort of discuss a business model we like what's the size of the pie what's the eventual business case can we scale this um and is that making business sense um so so lucky for us because we're in pakistan we know that what things work globally what things work and we know the trends that are going to come in pakistan so we we've got complete faith in our technology and our vision in our direction um the the challenge we face is to sort of have the icebreaker uh so the first hologram that we did um i think we sort of pitched for a good eight months right and we even gave some demos to some clients um but you know they they they were not convinced either they were not convinced they were sort of wanted to be uh you know not the first ones they didn't want to take the risk so for eight months we were completely investing we were continuously investing giving demos and whatnot and now since we have delivered successful campaigns um things have changed so there's obviously a curve where you have to invest and sort of convince the industry once that's done then you can enjoy economies of scale and then you can scale up and then you can always always invest back in the business and sort of do that so that's very good [Music] but in terms of technology i mean generally future of marketing core imagine right so what sort of products can we imagine coming out of your company um hologram holograms what are we looking at or what is the possibility maybe something that you might not be working at but then again this this this definitely we're going to be exploring this in the future components from the calm career like everything is part of it so are you creating sort of like uh ecosystem keyboard then try it help me explain [Music] are you a digital marketing technology partner you're a technology partner okay a technology partner and you know to answer your question let me sort of paint a world for you as a consumer so so imagine use cases so imagine a world that you come out of your home uh as a consumer what the world we're trying to build is when you're passing by you see uh sort of digital assets that are smart that are connected uh and they can sort of maybe recognize who you are and then uh play a message over there that is social media connected which means that it is pulling live feeds it's showing live data over there that is pulling sort of stats from psl whatever's going on and sort of showing relevant content you go ahead and you see the you know product it's floating up in the air yeah um and that's one of the experiences um projections orient which are interactive that you can interact with that you can see what's going on the complete area is mapped and and so on and so forth and you already deployed sites being skipper be hum projection cave sort of bring them to life so that's one part of it and then let's assume you sort of walk into a mall when you walk into a mall there's a screen that say you come closer to the screen then you're immersed in a different world let's call that food panda world now you're no longer a part of the mall you see yourself in a different screen you can sort of interact with your gestures you can maybe uh sort of become a writer in that screen and sort of go and make deliveries let's per se okay so that's interesting basically you're not essentially a an advertising firm you're a marketing firm and you're also looking at experiences uh jokey consumer because your buying experience will be shared the other intuitive bananas which does not necessarily have to push you towards a particular product but you're able to make a better uh sort of buying decision right so can we look at something like that from you guys as well gives me screens just before that's a very interesting domain and we are already working on product image recognition right so let's take it further uh let's sort of have a space that has um that that has a space and that's called a screen as well so all you need to do is pick up any item and sort of go place it over there right and then it can do something that you're saying that sort of way it uh sort of tell you what the brand is all about it and so it populates the screen where it's put as to what exactly it consists of or you know whatever it's in its prices competitors what not uh and sort of makes that space interactive so wouldn't that sort of change a person's experience wouldn't that sort of make consumers uh sort of more excited about products and more informed as to what exactly they're trying so so yeah so that's 100 possible that's something you can definitely should expect from us sure i i know for a fact you're not following me on instagram uh sorry about that and then it's perfect you're not my target by the way i'm not on social media i'm just on twitter i don't i don't use it uh yes do you think we can we can how soon actually i know for a fact that we can have something like this in the future i know there are a couple of people working in uh germany and the us but pakistan can we look at this uh where'd it go where'd it go is it like social vr it's a virtual drive on yeah right so yes i'm going to expect maybe i don't have to buy a lot of real estate or rent a lot of real estate i have a very small space jumper items display me and then i can utilize these sort of screens so automatically the cost cutting the merry real estate services could justify getting yep so so uh an interesting point uh first of all i'm going to use this pitch this uh statement of yours in my pitch for outfitters like personalized suggestions as well okay okay past history purchasing and now you can like well based on your pers uh positive three or four further suggested speakers there are different products and likewise for uh virtual triumphs as well but yeah it will go through a phase right you know obviously brands are not ready and even their consumers are not ready at this point in time that they wouldn't want to phase out you know physical stores brick and mortar obviously covert has sort of accelerated this whole process um but it's going to take time for our infiltration you know somebody like you would be massively interested in yeah but the masters the consumers they're not too um they're not up for it at this point in time so but the reason why we're working on the fundamentals is because we believe that this is going to sort of uh work yeah like i i don't expect you to put all of your eggs in that basket but the idea essentially is then uh for something like this right just a nice to have yeah yeah it's a fancy product that maybe zara can afford because they're the biggest in the world but maybe not a lot of pakistani companies again economics modern economics so e-commerce because you buy 20 20 20 23 you would have seen this qr code that was formed with drones in china yes seen that i was just about to ask that as well so you wouldn't believe uh okay within that time since that went viral till today uh i think we've received some 15 16 calls whether or not we can do this what i was trying to explain to one person i was talking to and it's a big big company and i was like hey you know let's start small you know we based in pakistan they've china and us have got a learning curve let's start with 200 drones let's do that let's become the first ones in that and then sort of grow like that but everybody who's calling is like we we want 1500 drones and we want it like tomorrow and we want this to happen over there so it's hundred drones massive costs that foreign let's start off our digital journey we're not even starting that digital journey now if you want to jump to cuba now we want a floating sky exactly and why do you think that's so why do you think we haven't been able to explore a lot of that sort of like you are too much pakistan why hasn't it taken off yet it's so intuitive i've seen these phases coming in over the past two years those apparently with a crown so what's going to happen is in the next month everybody's going to stop talking about the qr code okay so so the brands the agencies um they need to understand that we need to sort of build uh technologies we need to look ahead we don't need to wait for what goes viral what works but not we need to be a little experimental at the same time right um so if if somebody's sort of designing a billboard they need to be experimental enough to put the qr code at least there um as opposed to you know even if their bosses want and it's been done like that for ages and that sort of does our work they should be experimenting and the very least have to have the model point towards the qr code yeah yeah and maybe leave whatever you're going to scan but you know entice let's see how that goes and if you're talking to some companies who are interested into doing it of that sort um like aztec as a company it should sort of uh create use cases uh prepare demos and convince clients so we take some responsibility for obviously we can't change the mindset of the whole industry right so we need to sort of put in more hours more efforts uh and sort of design the technology to a level where somebody who is sitting across the table can sort of imagine how it's going to turn out for their company right um so but that takes time um and that takes what's the cheapest digital experience that can be created for a brand so the cheapest experience um i would say is existing digital media billboard like allow people to connect through social media allow people to sort of uh you know use your hashtag and to post something within second the picture they message whatever it is comes the appears on that yeah or maybe they take their own picture they send it over there um and like i said before organic hashtag that's a there's a very interesting thing called the organic hashtag trending trending statement we're always trying we don't really look at the data uh we're not really interested in looking at the data qr code on a billboard will help the brand yes for forever they've got applications for particular campaigns the campaign's going to run for three months you download the application monetization either there's a game on it you can scan the product play a game compete with friends and we missed that board all our big companies were always afraid of either developing an app for a campaign promoting that because you need to spend extra money on promoting the application right and then sort of having that engagement so we also missed that board so we there are a lot of boards that we're missing uh just because we're not experimenting and just because you know we're trying to play safe and i think that happens everywhere we just sort of going through that learning curve somebody needs to come in break that and once that's broken i'm very hopeful that you know a lot of people are going to sort of move towards that makes a lot of sense yeah that was there with this sir thank you so much you guys for coming in these guys uh you know are here in islamabad i'm glad to hear that i'm not going to ask you how the food is because i know it is sucks but uh you know guys thank you so much for coming in and for so much insight on the ad tech industry i didn't know pakistan i'm surprised okay much less you know you guys are doing an amazing work i wish you all the absolute very best um and i'm super super excited particularly your facebook uh can i go from this experience to an avatar and going and talking to people right so uh so i'm glad that there are there are people in pakistan who are already working on that so that maybe we can just become part of that node rather than the right time yeah at the right time uh but yeah thank you so much thank you so much this is the first program and for all of you guys thank you so much for watching subscribe my channel and join that as well this is watching thought behind things thank you so much for watching i'll see you in the next one