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India polls: The mass media advertisement blitzkrieg

The Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are said to be spending over Rs4,000 million each on their advertising campaigns.

It can never be too loud or in-the-face for election campaign in India. This year it has reached fever pitch. Be it the high-voltage blare of roving loudspeakers atop wobbly auto-rickshaws, the seedy jokes and spoofs infesting the social media, the overdose of inane jingles on radio and TV or the glare of big brother posters overlooking perilously meandering traffic, there is no escaping the full throttle of the general election medley.

All political parties are on record claiming that they do not need media blitz to communicate their messages as they are well-liked and deeply trusted by the electorate. And yet almost all parties have unabashedly allocated millions to their advertising binge. Thus, the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) are said to be spending over Rs4,000 million each on their advertising campaigns. The figure is mindboggling as in the last general elections the total money spent during elections was estimated at Rs5,000 million.

Thus to effect an image makeover for its leader Rahul Gandhi, the Congress party is said to have roped in Japanese ad agency Dentsu, along with Taproot and JWT India.

Meanwhile, the party’s public relations are being handled by Genesis Burston-Marsteller. The ruling party’s ad campaigns feature slogans like Har Haath Shakti and Har Haath Tarakki (which translates as ‘power to every hand, progress to every hand’). It is to be noted that ‘the Hand’ is the election symbol of the Congress. A parody of the advert, which has gone viral, states: Har Haath Lollipop! Har Haath Revadi! (an Indian sweatmeat) — thereby implying that the party is offering sops not substance to the electorate.

Earlier, the Congress slogan Main Naheen Hum ran into controversy when the BJP claimed it was plagiarized.

For its part, the BJP is promoting the slogans Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar (which translates as ‘This time, the Modi government’) and Nayi Soch, Nayi Ummeed (New Thinking, New Hope). According to analysts these punch-lines are directed not only against the Congress party but draw attention to the change of guard within the BJP by projecting Narendra Modi above the old leaders of the party. The noted advertisement guru and Bollywood lyricist Prasoon Joshi and media planner Sam Balsara are said to be masterminding the BJP advertisement campaign.

Earlier, the BJP party officials had to dissociate themselves from a popular slogan Har Har Modi, Ghar Ghar Modi, when the eminent Hindu seer, the Sankaracharya of Dwarka, had objected to it as sacrilegious.

Amid the cacophony of these advertisements, the cash-strapped Aam Admi Party (AAP) is relying largely on social media campaigns (including Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, GooglePlus, YuTube and Instagram), along with street plays called Nukkad Nataks and other low-cost innovative mediums to spread their message. It is also claimed that by challenging big leaders, making bold disclosures and positioning stories, AAP is employing a clever public relations campaign to make itself popular.

In sum, most political parties are becoming more adept at exploiting the digital media in these elections and compared to 2009 elections the advertising cake is proportionately becoming smaller for print media. — news@khaleejtimes.com