A tense Satyakam Mukherjee stands in the corridors of a plush digital sound studio in south Delhi. He hums a jingle which Rajiv Gandhi launched as a part of his nationalistic media blitz some years ago. But with a difference: "Mile haath mera tumhara... to desh bane hamara." Not "Mile sur" etc.
It's part of advertising agency Maadhyam's package for the Congress for the forthcoming elections. The visuals are of scores of young children running against the backdrop of the sun rising in a vast open field, trying to grab a huge balloon which transforms into the hand symbol of the Congress.
As elections draw close, political parties are working day and night with a few hand-picked ad agencies to develop the right campaigns. Ideas are both wacky and serious. Like old favourite "Pardesion se na ankhiyaan milana" (Never fall in love with foreigners) which the BJP claims it is contemplating playing at the venue of rallies to be addressed by Sonia Gandhi, or a package formulated by actor Raj Babbar on communal harmony for the Samajwadi Party. "Able leader and stable government...our campaigns will revolve around these two factors. The Congress' dependence on a foreigner to win the elections has exposed its shortcomings which our campaigns will exploit," remarks BJP leader Pramod Mahajan.
But Jairam Ramesh, the Congress' newly appointed joint secretary, feels economic agenda and not Sonia will dominate the issues to be highlighted in the Congress campaign. "We are still working on the formula," says he, without elaborating. Insiders say the campaign could have a heavy dose of the liberalisation process. This, many hope, will work well should Sonia Gandhi get Kesri to agree to her demand that Dr Manmohan Singh be projected as the prime ministerial candidate. The campaign, besides highlighting the issue of "the oldest and longest-serving party in the country", will also work more or less on the lines of the ones designed by Chaitra Leo Burnett a few years ago for the party at the behest of the then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao.
The campaign, mostly print, will revolve around the importance of allowing foreign investment and its impact on the nation's increasing list of jobseekers. The Chaitra campaign, which apparently fell through because the agency refused payments in cash, talked of how multinationals are creating a large number of jobs. "Kick out Enron, but think of the hundreds of jobs which will be lost," said one ad.
But unlike the parties—which are relatively clear about their basic thrust—the agencies are extremely tightlipped about the final product. Neither Maadhyam and Akshara—which are pitching for the Congress account—nor Rashtriya Communications—the agency BJP has relied on in the last couple of years—are willing to speak. "There's nothing to say because everything is very fluid at this stage... things are happening at a very fast pace," says Michael Menezes of Maadhyam, which is a strong contender to pick up the print as well as the audiovisual campaign of the Congress. Repeated queries at Akshara and Rashtriya elicited no response.
Sources claim that big agencies like HTA, Ammirati Puris Lintas, Mudra, Ogilvy & Mather, R.K. Swamy/BBDO and Rediffusion DY&R have shied away from pitching for party accounts this year, ostensibly because of reasons ranging from delayed payment schedules to the huge drain on manpower resources of the agencies to tax-related troubles.
A few years ago, Calcutta-based Clarion drew flak from the taxman after it handled the Congress account.R.K. Swamy/BBDO, which handled the BJP account a few years ago, along with Rashtriya, is reportedly refusing this time round.
"Political campaigns are just a one-time business...we are into the business of building brands over the years. And unlike abroad, the Indian political system lacks parties with vision,"remarks Ajay Gupta of Sistas Saatchi & Saatchi, the Indian subsidiary of the London-based agency that did the campaigns for Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party.
Sums up a senior agency person: "In India, any political campaign is seen as a one-time affair and people expect immediate results.
The nation ridiculed Rediffusion DY&R for the snakes-and-scorpions campaign in 1989, but if Rajiv was alive, that campaign would have seen the Congress through today. After all, it perfectly fits into today's political scenario."
