It's the advertising, stupid! That's the ruling dictum as both the bjp-led National Democratic Alliance (nda) and the Congress hunker down over their drawing boards for the coming Lok Sabha elections. And don't be surprised if the conversation in the coming weeks at the bjp and the Congress poll headquarters begin to resemble boardroom strategy sessions in consumer goods manufacturing corporates. Positioning, segmentation, brand image, core benefit: expect to hear these terms if you plan to eavesdrop.
Ever since Rajiv Gandhi surprised the political establishment by getting Rediffusion (now Rediffusion-Dentsu Young & Rubicam), run by his friend Diwan Arun Nanda, to design election ads for the Congress for the '89 elections, the times have changed so much that now it's almost de rigueur for political parties to get professional help from outside to mould public perception at election time. Both the bjp and the Congress have some big names advising them. Right now, though, the bjp brigade has better curricula vitae.
Take a gander. There's Siddhartha (Shunu) Sen, former marketing chief of Hindustan Lever and usually referred to as 'marketing legend/ guru'. There's Tara Sinha, another legend in her own right, this time from advertising. She, apart from having headed the agency Clarion (now Bates Clarion) and then set up her own national agency Tara Sinha Associates, is also a close associate of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Then there's Suhel Seth, Sen's partner in management consultancy Quadra, and ceo of Equus Advertising. And creative hotshop Dhar & Hoon, veterans of many mega ad campaigns including bpl's Amitabh Bachchan splurge. Plus theatre man Amir Raza Hussain for the electronic media.
Ranged against them are Rajeev Desai, friend of the Gandhi family and ceo of public relations agency ipan, and Madison dmbb, the Mumbai-based agency led by old advertising hand Sam Balsara.
Abhinav Dhar and Ajit Hoon will work in consultation with Sinha, and this troika in tandem with the Task Force, a special unit of the bjp that handled previous party campaigns (on the lines of Able Leader, Stable Government) and has on its rolls people like Sushil Pandit, media chief of Contract Advertising, Delhi, and R.P. Singh of The Indian Express. Sen will provide overall guidance while the party's electronic media campaign will be handled by Amir Raza Hussain. Supervising the entire operation estimated to be in the region of Rs 15 crore will be information and broadcasting minister Pramod Mahajan and noted advocate and bjp spokesman Arun Jetley.
Initially in the fray were also agencies like Joint, FS Advertising, Crayons and Chaitra Leo Burnett. Interestingly, Chaitraówhich had, for the '96 elections, fashioned a pro-reforms campaign for the Congress, which did not finally use itóhad at that time categorically stated it would not pitch for any political accounts, ostensibly because some of the payment has to be accepted in cash.
'This is not just another account for us. This is something that gives us a tremendous nationalist feeling. I have watched the election process in the United States and Great Britain but in India, it is a completely different ball game,' Tara Sinha told Outlook. 'But like any agency which is dictated by the demands of its client, we are governed by the bjp and its needs,' she added.
bjp insiders claim that for a change, this time, the party willó more or lessódeviate from the usual hype of swadeshi and hindutva, the two major planks which the bjp has used for issues ranging from politics to diplomacy to business. 'I think the people of this country are aware of our main plank. As a result, we need not harp on that. The central theme would now revolve around the issue of what we are calling the ëcomfort factor', that is, the nation's comfort level with the bjp,' says a senior member of the party's media cell. The member, who spoke on conditions of anonymity, further said the party's main election plank would revolve around four main issues which it feels are critical to the nation's development.
'Our main knocking factors this time would revolve around one, a leader of the stature of Vajpayee; two, the comfort factor of the people with the party; three, the economic boom coupled with excellent foreign reserves; and four, good stock of foodgrains,' the media cell member told Outlook. 'Kargil has added a new dimension of patriotism among the nation's populace. The people have witnessed that we can handle a crisis of this nature and that we have crushed Pakistan both militarily and diplomatically. The party will ride on this wave,' he added.
There would be other issues as well. For example, the party is also working on what it calls informing the electorate about the alternative scenario to a bjp government. Says the media cell member: 'We will ask the voters to imagine a situation where Sonia Gandhi, who has no political background and only reads out speeches written by her lackeys, will be the prime minister, Jayalalitha the home minister and Laloo Prasad Yadav the defence minister... isn't that shocking enough for the nation? Sonia Gandhi's remarks about Kargil and other issues are anyway seen as pinpricking the nation's effort to emerge as a strong power. And as far as the foreigner issue is concerned, we need not even mention it because there are enough people in her own party who have started talking about it.'
Of course, like all parties which run the government at poll time, the bjp has a slight edge in getting its viewpoint across to the electorate. After all, there is the state-run Doordarshan which, despite the hype about its increasingly unbiased character, continues to be dominated by mandarins from the Prime Minister's Office (pmo) and the information and broadcasting ministry. Congress sources allege that the government has already begun subtly pressuring private channels like Star (read ndtv) and Zee, telling senior officials of these two channels to downplay news reports which could be construed as showing the government in a bad light.
A Congress politician claimed to Outlook that the government pressured ndtv chief Prannoy Roy into dropping interviews with Pakistan foreign minister Sartaj Aziz and Pakistan information minister Mushahid Hussain, which Roy had planned to carry on StarNews. Roy hotly denies this. But the Congressman further complains that a section of the government was using a big industrial house to regularly monitor StarNews and submit a daily report to the government on whether the channel carried any 'anti-establishment' report. Zee also, claims he, drew flak for some of its programmes which highlighted issues like the Staines murder in Orissa, controversy over death of tribals in Gujarat and serials like India's Most Wanted which repeatedly highlighted the criminal-politician nexus.
So, what is the Congress doing to stall the bjp blitzkrieg which will hit the media in right earnest within a few days of the Prime Minister addressing the nation from the Red Fort ramparts on August 15? Exactly a decade after Rediffusion's snakes-and-scorpions campaign, Congress has zeroed in on Madisson dmbb for the bulk of its advertising. Insiders revealed that Madisson head Balsara is in regular touch with the party and was in the Capital last week for some serious confabulations with the high command. Also, splitting the work will be Livewire from Hyderabad, Sony (a new agency which apparently specialises in Hindi and other regional languages) and old Congress favourite, the Delhi-based Maadhyam Advertising.
Congress campaign managers told Outlook that like the bjp, the Congress too was working on a four-pronged strategy. First, the party would tell the electorate that Kargil was not a victory and that the party in power needs to explain to the nation why such a thing ever happened in the first place. Secondly, it would talk of the leadership issue, that is, whether there is anyone of stature in the nda after Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani, as compared to a plethora of leaders with considerable experience of governance in the Congress camp. Thirdly, it will talk to voters about the tensions of a multi-party government, and finally, the party will highlight core issues like literacy where it feels the bjp has failed miserably.
At the same time, Congress insiders claim that the party high command is working on what it calls a rejuvenation process for party workers. They admit that the high command felt there was a widening gap between the senior functionaries and the grassroots-level workers. They cite the example of Sonia's recent visit to Uttar Pradesh and say that the tour was primarily intended to charge up the party workers and get them motivated for the big show. 'That was the reason she avoided those huge rallies which are synonymous with any party before the polls. We will go in for such rallies but first the entire machinery needs to be geared up,' they said. A bjp politician sneers at this argument, claiming that this is a post-facto rationalisation of what was actually poor attendance at her rallies.
The Congress campaign (which will be a 65:35 split between rural and urban voters) has Pranab Mukherjee, chairman of the party's media cell, at the helm, Manmohan Singh, ipan head Desai, Jairam Ramesh and Vishwajit Prithvijit Singh. 'The city voters need no education,' says a member of the party's media cell. 'A sizeable section of the country's populace has begun to understand the entire politics behind Kargil and the fact that it was not a victory in a true sense. But we also understand that in a nation like India, uneducated voters can easily get swayed by misinformation. Like V.P. Singh travelling from tehsil to tehsil and telling them stories of Rajiv Gandhi pocketing the Bofors payoff. Our video vans will highlight the real issues facing the country,' he explains.
There are other gimmicks planned as well. The Congress media cell member, who refused to reveal the budget for the whole advertising exercise, said the party would also adopt a strategy of distributing giveaways, especially for rural folk. Deviating from the standard practice of distributing caps, banners, plastic badges and paper flags during rallies and processions, this time the Congress is opting for articles which people will keep in their homes and use. The giveaways could range from a matchbox with the party logo and a message, to a small towel which villagers use while farming.
'It's now or never: this will be our message. We will ask the voters whether they want to vote bjp now and then again go for elections or elect the Congress to avoid another hung Parliament as the studies are predicting,' said a senior member of the Congress media cell. 'We will explain how difficult it is to distribute portfolios in the event of having an alliance and how difficult it is to govern a nation with parties which are more prone to demanding rather than delivering. The voters still remember the tantrums of a number of allies for plum ministerial berths,' he added. 'It will not work,' retorts a bjp campaign manager. 'Yes, we are a multi-party alliance, but with a single manifesto. Moreover, this time Jayalalitha, the main troublemaker over ministerial berths, is with the Congress.'
In the run-up to the elections, the accusations and counter-accusations will reach fever pitch. Whichever way the Indian voter finally swings, what can be predicted with dead certainty is that decibel levels in these Lok Sabha elections will be higher than ever before. So will be the marketing strategy inputs in this no-second-chance war to shape a nation's perceptions.
