Election campaigns

Political pundits talk about caste factor, anti-incumbency, development, corruption and so on to explain Tuesday’s assembly election results, but some advertising experts give a completely different explanation — negative advertising failed and positive campaigning clicked. It’s open to debate if people vote on the basis of advertisements or not, but look at some of the campaigns: “Utho, jaago aur badlo” (Rise, awaken and change) and “Jawab hum denge” (We will give a befitting reply) — the taglines used by the Congress to woo voters in Uttar Pradesh flopped. Jeeta and Jaggi — the toon characters used by the Congress to connect with people in Punjab by poking fun at the Badal government — too failed. “Na hatya, na phiroti, na balatkaar, hum denge saaf suthri sarkaar” (No murder, extortion or rape, we would give you a clean government) — the BJP’s election plank in UP didn’t revive the fortunes of the party. Look at what worked: “Umeed ki cycle” (Bicycle of hope), the tagline of SP’s campaign in UP. “While Mayawati’s BSP and Rahul Gandhi-led Congress were busy fighting each other, SP talked about problems faced by the aam aadmi,” says adman KV Sridhar. “That’s why their campaign clicked; it didn’t take a potshot or dig at their rival parties,” adds the national creative director of Leo Burnett. One of the TV commercials made by Arkash Entertainment — the Mumbai-based production house in charge of Samajwadi Party’s campaign — shows a cycle racing past an elephant. “We wanted to say something without saying anything,” says Arjun Sablok, the creative head of Arkash Entertainment, who made his debut in political advertising with this campaign. “Our campaign focused on positives and avoided mudslinging,” adds the 45-year-old adman and filmmaker who first met Akhilesh Yadav three years ago in one of the villages of UP. Saurabh Uboweja, director of brand consulting firm Brands of Desire, says this approach worked because the voter is not in a negative mindset. “Voters have seen growth recently as a general positive economic environment reverberates in the nation. When one has a positive mindset in general, positive campaigning linked to higher growth will tend to prove more beneficial than dragging voters into the past,” he says. Sablok says he started preparations for his first political campaign a good nine months before the elections. An outsider in Uttar Pradesh, he travelled extensively to know about the ground realities there. And he used real-life situations and people. In one of the television commercials, for example, Raju, a rickshaw puller, talks about his problem of working everyday to pay back the loan and then a voiceover says Samajwadi Party will implement an insurance programme for rickshaw pullers. Other such characters used in the campaign include Buddhiram, a farmer lamenting about lack of electricity, and Neetu, a housewife whose husband works in another state because of lack of jobs in UP. Sridhar of Leo Burnett says this smart and straightforward campaign worked at a time when Mayawati and Rahul Gandhi were busy blaming each other. So, in his mind, Rahul Gandhi’s relentless campaigning failed to revive the Congress in the most populous state in the country partly because the party’s advertisements failed to connect with people. The Congress campaign in UP, created by Percept/H, talked about the misrule of the Mayawati government and asked people to give Congress a chance. “The campaign had no insight into the people’s life,” says Sridhar. Negative campaigning proved disastrous for the Congress in Punjab, a state that had never before voted the ruling party back to power. The opposition party’s campaign, created by Delhi-based advertising agency Crayons, featured toon characters Jeeta and Jaggi who talked about corruption and other problems under the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government.