The Selling Of The Politicians

Advertising agencies have been a standard feature of Indian elections since 1989. This year, the Congress has divided its campaign into two parts—a positive one (by Maadhyam Advertising) on what the party can do for the people, and a negative one on what other parties cannot (Sista’s Saatchi & Saatchi). The BJP, on the other hand, has chosen the little-known Rashtriya as its lead agency. The apparent reason: Rashtriya has no transnational ties, and the name goes very nicely with the nationalistic image the BJP aims to portray.

What’s the sort of money at stake? No one gives figures, except Maadhyam, which says it will handle Rs 5 crore of Congress advertising. But some estimates put the total amount that will be spent on marketing parties and candidates to the electorate—press ads, video vans, audio cassettes posters and so on—at around Rs 200 crore. Out of that, up to Rs 120 crore may go through the agencies.

The Congress has targeted its fully vernacular campaign at the undecided voter rather than the total electorate, and at smaller towns and rural areas. "We have two points: stability, which no one else can give the country, and our achievements since the last elections," says former Congress MP Vishwajit Prithvijit Singh, who is coordinating the party’s advertising.

Last July, the Congress asked Sista’s Saatchi & Saatchi to suggest ways to refurbish the party’s image. Among Sista’s recommendations: Rao should drop all ministers with a tainted image; the party should not give tickets to people with tainted images or criminal records; all Congress candidates should declare their assets before and after the polls; and the party should formulate a code of conduct for its members. The Sista’s campaign, initially planned as four ads on stability, development, a performing government and employment, has now been scaled down to a single-ad campaign covering all four issues. According to Sista’s senior vice-president J. Kapri, the entire Rediffusion team that masterminded the 1989 Congress campaign is with Sista’s now.

Interestingly, Mathur, who is in charge of Rashtriya’s BJP campaign, was in the R.K. Swamy team that handled the account in 1991. Says Dinesh Gupta, managing director, Rashtriya: "The campaign has been built around the BJP’s poll plank—parivartan or change." And the innovation comes in the form of Chetna Dhwani (the Sound of Consciousness), an idea borrowed from American phone-ins. Dial 6462352 in Delhi, and you are greeted with "Jai Shri Ram". Then follow recorded messages from A.B. Vajpayee and south Delhi candidate Sushma Swaraj.

Says Michael Menezes, managing director, Maadhyam: "This is far more satisfying than a product campaign since you are advertising a service that will ultimately run the nation." But while the agencies work round-the-clock, the feeling remains that in what is possibly the most ideologically barren election since Independence, there are only issues to be marketed, not principles and doctrines. But if the money is big, who really cares?