Your Vote: The Spinning Jenny

NARESH gupta, Grey Worldwide
Handled India Shining, in race for BJP account. ‘The one-man focus from ’99 will still remain.’

Dilip Cherian, Perfect Relations
The Congress’ communications strategist. Came up with a list of ripostes on the ‘foreigner’ taunt.

Rajiv Desai, IPAN
The veteran Congress media advisor feels ‘branding’ trivialises politics; it’s all about leadership.

Suresh, Rama Naidu Studios
Is part of Chandrababu Naidu’s publicity wing. Feels campaign must be for "classes and masses".

Positioning, segmentation, psychographics, brand identity, unaided recall, targeted rollout...no, this is no backroom brainstormer for a new detergent launch from Hindustan Lever. It’s Elections 2004.

As India gears up for the biggest exercise in democracy in the history of the planet, marketing and advertising jargon is as much part of politician-lingo as swing factor, caste break-up, and voting percentage. Spin doctors, image consultants, advertising copywriters, even film producers—they’re all as important as party functionaries now. Whatever the contours of India’s next government, it’s already clear that Elections 2004 will witness the biggest marketing and media blitzkrieg the country has ever seen. Plotted by men in suits, played out on laptop screens, programmed through management textbook tools. "The way political parties are operating, they would put any MNC to shame," says a senior marketing professional.

In this election mart, super brand Atal Behari Vajpayee competes with challenger brand Sonia Gandhi, ‘feelgood’ and ‘India Shining’ with ‘foolgood’ and ‘India Cheated’, and hi-tech messages with grassroots issues. Just look at some of the other BJP products on display: Sushma Swaraj as the ‘adarsh Bharatiya nari’ (ideal Indian woman), Vasundhararaje as the ‘rani’ and Pramod Mahajan, the ‘smart and aggressive’ one. Says key BJP strategist Sudhanshu Mittal: "We have positioned our leaders according to their usps." On the Congress side, Sonia is the only brand but with the MNC (Italian) tag changed to a desi one.

The Congress has hired ad agency Orchard (a Leo Burnett subsidiary) and PR firm Perfect Relations to formulate its communications strategy. The BJP has decided to handle the media and image-building from its internal war-room headquartered in Mahajan’s house and manned by a trio comprising him, commerce minister Arun Jaitley and party president Venkaiah Naidu. Still, at least half-a-dozen ad agencies, including Grey, Percept and TBWA Anthem, are in the race to bag its account.

In the run-up to the elections, the BJP is expected to spend nearly Rs 30 crore on advertising and below-the-line publicity (meaning posters, handouts and the like), and the Congress about Rs 15 crore. The monies would have been much higher, but for the Election Commission ban on TV advertising. In fact, the BJP had even booked ad slots during the forthcoming Indo-Pak cricket matches. But now there is little it can do except to cash in on a possible Indian victory.

Finally, it’s all about the right packaging of the leaders. For the BJP, Vajpayee equals the party and, therefore, he must be the newsmaker of the day, day after day. Says Naresh Gupta, national head (account planning), Grey Worldwide, which handled the ‘Indian Shining’ campaign and is in the race for the BJP advertising account, "In the 1999 elections, we projected Vajpayee as the man to trust in war and peace. The ‘one man’ focus will still remain." Another agency head, who is also vying for the BJP account, admits no one will mess with the motherbrand, Vajpayee. But he feels that ads featuring the saas and bahus who have recently joined the BJP as well as taking digs at the Congress’ "aam aadmi" (common man) campaign might also be a part of the party’s communications strategy.

Sonia Gandhi, on the other hand, has to be repackaged since her Italian connection forms an integral part of the BJP’s attack on the Congress.To keep the jaded issue alive, BJP leaders have been advised to launch oblique attacks: get people from diverse areas like sports, films and media to issue statements against her antecedents. To counter it, Perfect Relations chief Dilip Cherian has prepared a list of possible answers that should be parroted each time the foreigner issue pops up. One of them is that no one can choose their place of birth, but they sure can choose where they want to live. And Sonia has decided to make India her home, thereby displaying her commitment to the country.

Then there are different strategies to position the regional superbrands, the Nirmas along with the Surfs. Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu has roped in half-a-dozen Telugu film directors and producers to take care of publicity. Says Suresh of Rama Naidu Studios and Suresh Productions, who is part of the group, "You must understand that an India Shining kind of campaign won’t go down well with the masses. For every Surf Excel, you need a Ghari detergent. We, as filmmakers, understand both the classes and the masses." The tdp is planning live TV shows featuring Naidu and a website (www.ilovemyAP.com) that will mobilise voters through interactive sessions and motivate them to come to the polling booths.

But, apart from the macro-strategy to position leaders and parties, image-makers are also involved in the nitty-gritty. Manipulating or managing TV channels on a daily basis has become a must. Explains a senior BJP politician, "The illiterate population, that huge votebank, can’t read or write but can see and hear." So you have PR executives calling up anchors cajoling them to ask their politician clients specific questions! Or not to ask sensitive ones. Prominent TV anchors have been enlisted to provide media coaching to party spokespersons and important leaders. In addition, political parties have prepared a list of "hostile TV media" who need to be tackled on a one-to-one basis.

Technology tools to sell the politician are the flavour this time. sms and phone messages have caught the political imagination, especially after the BJP used it successfully during the state elections. So don’t be surprised if you get a call from a "private number" on your mobile that plays a recorded message: "Mein Atal Behari Vajpayee bol raha hoon" (This is Atal Behari Vajpayee speaking). And goes on to talk about the nda government’s achievements. But, warns ad man Suhel Seth, an advisor to Delhi CM Sheila Dixit, "Don’t tom-tom technology too much. It must not be seen as intrusive. An sms campaign will not win elections. It is the hawa (wind) which will."

That’s why Cherian is involved with the "micro-management of image". What he means is that he is looking into every detail, which includes what the politicians should wear, what they should say or avoid. Even the role of spouses is being well-defined. For example, a female partner should identify with women’s issues and a male counterpart should come across as supportive of his wife. But despite such precision management, there are goof-ups—major minefields for the spin doctors. And such crises have to be controlled on an ‘instant’ basis.

For example, at the press conference announcing industrialist Naveen Jindal’s joining the Congress, he kept praising Vajpayee till the audience got confused on which party he was actually joining. The PR pundits stepped in and Jindal was immediately presented at various TV studios with a brief that while he respected Vajpayee, the BJP was pinning its hopes on an old man whom the party itself had once called a mukhota (mask). In the case of the BJP, the D.P. Yadav episode was the big gaffe since the media saw it as a criminal joining the party. The damage control exercise ended with the BJP backing out. "We decided to say sorry. When you do that, people say yeh bhale log hain (these are decent people)," says a member of the BJP war room.

But the 542-seat question is: does PR really influence election results? The one man who feels this entire branding exercise is stupid is Rajiv Desai, president of PR firm IPAN, and a member of the Congress’ media advisory board for years. "Politics is not about brands but about leadership," he says. "When you start to analyse politics in terms of brands and advertising, you trivialise it."

Sam Balsara, CMD, Madison, an advertising and communications firm that pitched for the Congress ad campaign, feels that elections are about attaining short-term goals, as the single-point agenda of any candidate is to win. "We are not required to build any long-term strategy like we do for corporates. Everything starts and ends with the elections," says this veteran who has personally worked with Maharashtra politician Murli Deora. Obviously, there’s a lot of "cut ’n paste" activity. And quick reactions are critical. But branding/image-building mostly appeals to middle-class, urban voters.

The BJP set the agenda with the government’s feelgood campaign. Now its biggest challenge, according to Mittal, is to convert this into votes. "The perception is that we are winning. We have to make sure this perception stays alive till the polls." For the Congress, says Desai, the challenge is not only to counter the BJP but to come up with its own winning formula."The Congress has a tremendous case but there is a communication problem somewhere," he adds. To end, some trivia. In a reversal of roles, some corporates are using elections as a marketing tool. A chain of weight-loss and beauty clinics plans to set up Nail Spas where customers get nail tattoos bearing the poll symbols of various parties. So, apart from wearing ideology on your sleeves, care to wear it on your fingers?