July 10, 2011

Political Advertising

Political advertising came into focus as a major determinant in political campaigning ever since Rajiv Gandhi’s advertising campaign designed by one of India’s leading advertising agency Lintas Bombay. Some of the popular campaigns such as that of Samajwadi Party’s campaign featuring Amitabh Bachchan & ‘Shining India’ of NDA failed to see the party through in elections. Generally political players when in power project their achievements & opposition takes to criticizing their work and make new promises.

As a political marketing researcher, may I suggest you the following;

  1. One size do not fits all? Generally parties go for ‘one message’ for all the segments in the state. Please avoid this trap and carefully segment Punjab into rural or urban and other segmentation variables and have different suitable message for each segment. ‘India Shining’ campaign was good one but it was wrongly targeted at the unrelated segments. ‘Shining’ campaign was actually meant for urban audience but it was targeted on the rural population too with disastrous results.

  1. Good work leads to good results! Chander babu Naidu’s government had done good work & had very encouraging media feedback too on his work but he lost. NDA under Atal jee had also done good work but could not hold on to power. Well, the research reveals that advertisements focused more on achievements may not be a good strategy. Therefore please see the weakness of ‘achievement argument’ and go for a new suitable communication strategy. SAD may focus on new promises rather discussing about past achievements in advertising campaign.

  1. Winner’s curse: It’s better to start second to win the battle. Generally the incumbent party would begin the advertising campaign in right earnest before the challenger. Please wait for the challenger campaign to begin and then enter fray. Any student of psychographic profile of Punjabis would tell you that we have a serious issue of trust deficit. So when you claim success others immediately start searching for their share in the achievement & may develop a negative orientation. Therefore greater share of voice, without equivalent share of mind & heart may not lead to desired positive outcomes.

  1. Floating versus Core? It has been established beyond doubts that a political player would do well in elections if they focus more on the floating voters against narrow concerns of the core followers. 

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