Political Advertising in India: A Tale of Communication, Competition & Coercion

What used to be a simple form of one-to-one communication where politicians visited each voter’s house, to now a technology-driven strategic decision, Political Advertising has definitely come a long way.

For most Indians, politics in our country is synonymous with the eternal rivalry between Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party, with of course, other parties being the small fish in the pond. In the race to become a household name and also to wield the scepter, these parties constantly aim toward yielding as much limelight as possible.

For this, they seldom break into controversies. Or if that doesn’t work, they just put up a smiling politician’s banners, assuring you a better future. Isn’t it fascinating (sometimes funny) to watch them self-praise? Their attempts to woo the public with unique propositions and campaigns have now become a regular thing. You switch on to the radio and you are likely to listen to a political party’s jingle, or you switch on the TV, and you see oppositions debating about their mission on bettering India. Well, this loop has been continuing for years now.

For a person like me, who gives a wide berth to politics, it was just another topic that the adults enjoyed, until I began pondering about the ‘Political Advertising’ scenario in our country. The moment I began researching about it, I was amazed to see its evolution to this new age of sleek political advertising- creative, engaging and powerful. It is as captivating as any other popular brand promoting itself in the market. The paradigm shift from traditional methods to now a prodigal activity is worth discussing.

So, here is this study, where I talk with some of the pertinent people to have a common understanding of the Political Advertising scenario in India better.

Inception of Political Advertising and its Growth Today

Political communication is an integral part of our democratic system and political campaigning is its most widely experienced form. It involves use of various media to reach out to its voters as well as create a favorable voting behavior. Due to the fundamental shift in the balance of political communication from news to advertising, public is now exposed to greater amounts of these campaigns during each election cycle. Thus, the use of media forms like television, radio, newspapers, etc. has evidently increased.

Sharing his views on the same, Sharique Khan, Anchor at NDTV, says, “Earlier, parties generally came out to the public during the last few months before the elections. They mostly talked about their work and propaganda. In today’s scenario, politicians and parties tend to add that extra spice and often present more than what they do. The news on different media follows a tap system, where these political ads are running throughout the year. There is too much bombarding for the audience”.

Ghanshyam Tiwari, Spokesperson of Samajwadi Party, feels that advertising is definitely helping the parties gain popularity but at the same time, also drawing the attention away from issues of social wefare. He explains, “Political Advertising as a phrase is unfair to democracy. This is because politics in an ideal setup is about having views which solve a particular issue or relate to transformation of a certain constituency/ people. You look at media as a fourth pillar of democracy. You find ways to communicate those views and build momentum to solve those issues. 

In an advertising world, you may have a brand ambassadors who may have very little to do with the product or you may have a catchy slogan who has very little to do with the eventual product or you may have a nice commercial. When one applies all that, it somewhere takes away the gravity of politics. That said, there is a lot of advertising that has come into politics. It borrows the idea that you need to reach out to a lot of people”.

What Led to its Growth?

What used to be a simple form of one-to-one communication where politicians visited each voter’s house, to now a technology-driven strategic decision, it has definitely come a long way.

We see a significant growth in the Political Advertising scenario in India, especially in the past few years. For me, the three driving forces that lead to its expansion include:

• Enlargement of voters’ size
• Technological Advancements and their opportunities
• Rising competition in the Indian politics

There may not have been a huge difference in the content of the communication, but there is certainly a shift to experiment with the technological paradise. The new advancements are compelling enough to utilize them.

We spoke to Sattvik Mishra, Co-Founder & CEO of ScoopWhoop. He says, “I don’t think content has changed fundamentally. It is still mostly about creating awareness about government programmes, targeting opposition by listing their failures and contrasting the achievements. The evolution has been mostly dictated by the change in media – from large size public hoardings and mobile loudspeakers to full-fledged IT Cell on Internet enabled services like Twitter and WhatsApp. The focus still remains on reaching a wider audience but with the help of technology the parties can target demographics with personalized ads”.

Media’s Role in Altering Perceptions & Voting Behavior

As per The Oxford Dictionary, perception is the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses. In context of politics, politicians strive to understand a voter’s perception, in order to be aware of his thought process.

These perceptions are generally formed and altered by experiences, learnings or social connections. However, we see a fast-changing trend in the past few years. Reliance on formal information sources like TV, radio and other forms of media is impactful enough to alter a voter’s activity and decision. A classic example of this is when Indira Gandhi broadcasted the then blockbuster ‘Bobby’ on Doordarshan to refrain people from going to the rally called by a unified opposition.

As per the Hypodermic Needle Theory, mass media has a direct, immediate and powerful impact on its audience. These politicians work towards changing the source of politician information and adopt effective practices to influence a voter. Many a times, Facebook has been accused of designing political communication strategies for clients to influence the voters’ choice based on these trends. Recently, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook has announced to verify the political ads. It has announced that Indian advertisers who wish to run political ads on Facebook for the 2019 General Elections, will have to conform to certain rules. The advertisers must confirm their identity and location to prevent abuse of the system and allow transparency.

Adding to this, Sharique says, “Media earlier was a watchdog of democracy. It built pressure on parties to work for the welfare of society. Now, basking all the money from these parties, the news channels manipulate the audiences’ thought process and takes you away from facts”.

Campaigns that Changed the Face of Political Advertising

There have been plenty of national and regional campaigns that are still remembered. While some brought hope, others were full of despair.

For me, India Shining by Pramod Mahajan in 2004 actually introduced a new era of political advertising in India. What began with relying merely on word-of-mouth or door-to-door visits, the India Shining campaign ignited a new phenomenon in the political advertising scenario. While no other campaign by the Vajpayee government has been so much talked about, it is also the most remembered in the history of Indian politics, despite it falling flat. Some estimates put the ad blitz’s worth around Rs. 150 crore. What didn’t work for the party was the inability to deliver what was promised. It focussed on the urban growth story, neglecting the backwardness of rural landscape.

It is assumed that different forms of media are a great tool to divert the public from some core issues. They entangle you in unproductive issues so that their position is safeguarded. But the parties need to understand that this trick is transient in nature. The public needs real results. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that India Shining was a hit advertising campaign that didn’t have a product to sell.

Sharique on this adds, “Everyone has the right to market himself. It is a race of the survival of the fittest and there is no harm in advertising oneself. Social media or news channels don’t make a party win an election. Say during 2004 elections, the Vajpayee lost miserably despite garnering substantial popularity through his ‘India Shining’ campaign. While the exit and opinion polls conveyed a positive wave, it didn’t reflect in reality. It was such an unexpected result.

The media does give an edge but it is not a decider. For me, the final result is cumulative of all your party people, manifestos, campaigns and on-ground event. It is the sum total that matters”.

Refusing to campaign on India Shining, Congress projected itself as the party of the poor. It put forward beliefs such as- strength of legislation, Right to Information and so on. It is assumed that presenting itself as a party of the common man, Congress’ win was decided.

All Hail Modi’s 2014 Campaign

Talking about the politically successful campaigns, BJPs smartest next generation leader, Narendra Modi, experienced a landslide victory with his 2014 election campaign. He redefined the idea of election rallies by integrating marketing gurus, event management campaigns and technological background, to garner maximum impact. His rallies were no less than corporate events. From 3D rallies to events to Chai Pe Charcha to interviews to state visits, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that Modi’s 2014 campaign is one of the biggest mass mobilisation exercise seen anywhere in the history of electioneering

Modi’s attempt to project himself as a national regional brand name, clean up a tainted past and connect with urban youth reached every nook and corner of the country. He created an identity that resonated with more people and deeper than that of BJP. His discourse on economic development and prosperity intersected at the surface level of consciousness. Any campaign that prompts the citizens to take ownership and demonstrate greater stake in politics and the way a state is governed, makes for a great campaign”.

As per the Election Commission, a total of Rs 714.28 crores ($115 million) were spent on 2014 elections by BJP alone. This is about Rs 200 crores ($32 million) more than Congress’ expenditure during 2014 polls. It was obviously an expensive campaign but at the same time, it did achieve its desired targets.

If we look at the other side of the coin, these political ads seldom bring along a lot of annoyance. BJP did manage to strike the right chord may also be seen as an example of over advertising. On this, Ghanshyam adds, ‘It is one thing to aspire to reach people but beyond that, you have to lead people. Over emphasis of a campaign results in eventual misleading of people. A government that works less but shows more has an intent to mislead, to not do what is required, and yet state it.

That is how I see overdose of advertising that comes from the current government. Most places today will have ads or quotes by our Prime Minister. But if you ask a commoner about some of his quotes, most people will have a non-uniform response, which in terms of advertising is that the product hasn’t communicated its USP.

The objective to remain connected is definitely there but if the requirements are not met, advertising can also become counter-productive”.

Aam Aadmi Party Sweeping its Way

AAPs electoral debut in 2013 marked the emergence of another prominent leader in the political arena. Its symbol of a ‘broom’, one radio ad by Kejriwal himself, some on-ground campaigns and an aggressive social media activity bagged the party a considerable amount of popularity.

It intended on using its in-house team to craft all his strategies and not rely on advertising agencies or any other form of communication agency. Door-to-door campaigning and digital marketing became the main thrust of the campaign. The party continued with the same theory for all further polls as well. Here are some of its brilliant strategies:

1. The party made use of separate Facebook pages to lend an ear to the grievances
2. It replicated the ‘Citizen Call Campaign’
3. AAP invented the concept of ‘Gully Prabhari’, where a person is in charge of campaigning on his street
4. It placed posters on Delhi autos which was a runaway success. The autowalas became the backbone of this campaign.
5. With ban on distributing pamphlets, AAP came out with a brilliant idea of distributing visiting cards.
6. They also conducted flash mobs at various places.

With such creative yet low-cost ideas on the plate, they were successful in convincing everyone of their agendas.

Congress’ Political Advertising

During the 2014 polls, INC hired Burson-Marsteller, JWT and Dentsu for an image makeover of the party and their leader Rahul Gandhi. While criticizing their then opponent, Narendra Modi, the party promised issues like “Right to Health”, “Right to homestead”, “Right to social security” and “Right to pension”.

INC created a separate Election control room to keep track of all their events and campaigns. The party gave focus on the new middle class. INC initiated a social media platform called Khidki.com to counter Modi’s Chai pe Charcha. Here, he interacted with party workers, block, district and Pradesh Congress Committee presidents on Google Hangout for first hour and then with the general public.

The party launched its new advertisement titled- Main Nahi Hum, featuring Rahul Gandhi and nine other people from different communities. Its slogan (Har Hath Shakti, Har Hath Tarakki) helped portray Rahul as a young and vibrant leader who will fulfil all the expectations of the common man.

Another ad saying “Face of the Congress – Kattar Sooch Nahi, Yuva Josh” was aired on all media. It talked about party’s approach towards youngsters and also its vision of a corruption-free country. Several other commercials ran under the ‘Bharat Nirman’ campaign which is a 100 crore initiative of Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Despite campaigning aggressively throughout the country, INC observed one of their worst defeats during this time.

Did We Talk About Political Funding?

This is one question that makes each one of us inquisitive. To clear the cloud, a political party receives contributions from:

• Party members and individual supporters
• Organizations that share political views (trade unions, corporate donations)
• Taxpayers or the general revenue fund
• Since 1960s, additional sources include political revenue and public subsidies

In Narendra Modi’s speech in 2017, post demonetization, he addressed the issue of political funding being more transparent and introduction of new reforms. Since then, we observe 3 major changes in the mechanics of political funding:

1. Political parties can now accept foreign funds
2. Any company can donate any amount of money
3. Any individual or group of people can donate money anonymously

Here’s a quick glimpse of the total income of the seven national parties in India by ADR. BJP clearly is the richest of all in the FY17. The party has so far spent Rs. 4,343.26 crore for advertisements and publicity through different media (disclosed after an RTI). The seven parties declared a total income of Rs. 15.59 billion. The total expenditure of the seven national parties was Rs 12.28 billion.

It is natural that parties intend to market themselves more than their competitors. One fundamental difference in case of politics is that it is aspires to reach out to the maximum audience. There is no specific audience that you target but you expect the audience to be a believer of your point of view and you expect that person to stand up during voting or when creating public pressure. For this, parties often intend to hide their agendas. In order to stay powerful, they come up with ideas to influence the public. 

Sharique here adds, “The budget now runs into thousands of crores. Everything is planned keeping in mind the different media that will be used. Say ‘Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana’ aims to achieve 24×7 power for all by 2019 by providing electricity connection to each household across the country. One must be lauding this great initiative by the government. But in reality, providing electricity is directly proportional to televisions at home, and hence, exposure to party’s propaganda”.

Parties Not Heavy on Political Advertising

At a state level, the imprint of CM & his vision has to translate into governance and the values that people hold dear, should also resonate in the government. We have several prominent and celebrated regional parties that are as much of people’s favorite. They hold a mutual adulation for each other and confide with each other. Some of my most fondly remembered campaigns that managed to make a mark include “Sonia nahi yeh aandhi hai, doosri Indira Gandhi hai”, “Jab tak rahega samose mein aloo, tab tak rahega Bihar mein Lalu” and “UP main dum hai, kyunki yaha jurm kam hai”.

That being said, these regional parties are often the ones who do not spend freely, yet manage to come out big.  

Ghanshaym says, “In Odisha, sub-nationalism has emerged as a strong value. With the legacy of Biju Patnaik and corruption-free presence of Naveen Patnaik, BJD is able to fully present that value of a corruption-free and clear-thinking sub-national leader who Odias can love. No other party has been successfully able to position itself in the same way.

BJP & Congress have been a little active in Odisha but they are unable to translate it into public sentiments because somewhere, there is a value mismatch. This a challenge for most national parties because their values don’t adapt to the values pertinent to a state”.

Sharique also recalls a number of regional campaigns that managed to persuade the public without being heavy on advertising. He believes that you cannot just survive on gimmicks for so long. You actually need to deliver results”. Here are some of his favorite leaders and governments who have done exceptionally well.

He says, “Naveen Patnaik’s government is Odisha is a classic example of spending money judiciously.

Another example is Chhattisgarh government’s initiative to distribute food grains at nominal rate of Rs 1/kg to 48 lakh poor families in the state through fair price shops.

Nitish Kumar has done some great work in all these years. It is worthy to note that he didn’t rely on advertising much, especially before 2015. The people of his state are his biggest admirers and it is the word-of-mouth that runs in his favor.

Mayawati, between 2007-2012, has worked meticulously to reduce crime in UP”.  

Is a Politician Equivalent to a Product Today?

This article has been particularly intriguing to me. I had a constant thought floating while I was writing it- Is it right to say that a politician today is no less than a product?

We live in a personality-based society and the prevalence of this ideology in politics has been from long, just that it is more prominent now. All the constructs (TV, radio, apps, newspapers, etc.) that exist in advertising world are being used to build brand or a person. It isn’t entirely political. It is brand building of a person or building a certain agenda. Hence, in that respect, it is leveraging whatever other advertising has encountered.

Sharique here adds, “Our best product is always presented on the table first. Narendra Modi (or popular as NaMo) is the perfect example of it. He is the most-selling face today. He is a brand in himself. Or talking about Sonia Gandhi, she has always been projected as the second Indira Gandhi. These politicians ought to be crowd-pullers. Hence, this isn’t a wrong practice”.

On the other hand, Ghanshyam believes that it is a strategy that certain parties are using to distract people because:

1.         They do not having a good pipeline of systematically producing good leaders in a democratic system.

2.         The issues, in the eyes of the parties, are less important than the branding and hyping of the politician or decision maker. And the eco system adopts it because this decision maker can easily oblige or gratify those who are hyping it. Then, it becomes a fairly win-win for both, the leader and advertising eco-system. But it is a lose piece situation for the voter.

There is another phenomena taking shape in politics. It is becoming B2C. This means it will be direct to the voter i.e. the voter wants to hear directly from the politician.

The role of media is particularly influenced in this situation. Most news channels run on an advertising-based model. A major chunk comes from the government, where they propagate the party’s ideas. If you bring the government in bad light, they wouldn’t pay you. Hence, the channels are under a constant pressure.

Sattvik here adds, “Political advertising has mostly affected media as any other advertising would (basically bring in revenues). A major difference is in maintaining the impartial image of the media while carrying political ads. This is especially true if you carry political news/editorial/opinion”.

Political Advertising in the Digital Age

The internet and especially the social media wave has hit the political environment pretty significantly. Particularly after Anna’s movement for Jan Lokpal, we see its popularity grow heaps and bounds. The digital platforms have now become a prominent source of information for all political parties, candidates and organizations. While past systems were not interactive, the new forms of media today tend to hold the politician more honest than the past systems.

This new face of political ads on digital platforms requires sophisticated use digital technology, characterized by higher levels of interactive information sharing, networking, collaborations, engagement, etc. Whether in the form of memes, GIFS or dedicated pages, the advertisers make sure to grab as many eyeballs as possible.

For Sharique, the new media forms have supplanted the traditional forms (word-of-mouth). And it is an easy way to manipulate, spread hatred and disseminate ideas like wildfire. They have an ideology of their own. People just share and retweet blindly. Re-checking the facts is important. 

All political parties now strategize a separate digital plan, to target the maximum audience. In the elections of 2019, social media platforms are expected to see a jump of 150%, as compared with the general elections of 2014.  The advertisers expect the social media to corner Rs. 12,000 crore in ad spends, with Facebook taking a major share of that. Some of the newly explored platforms include Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest and Vine.

Ghanshyam here is all praise for the new media. However, for him, it is important for parties to use these new forms judiciously and wisely. He explains, “It has more voices and stronger interactive ability. As a result, it can create powerful moments of holding people honest or it can also become a tool of unfair agenda or to shun somebody.

The fact that democracy may have the majority win but should also have the space for all voices to exist. Sometimes, new media can get misused in shunning some of these good voices. As a result, the leaders who emerge through this new media, the onus remain on them to guide conversations, to break conversations that turn into propaganda and to ensure that new media serves the core agenda of politics”.

Future of Political Advertising

The decentralisation which the wider reach of Internet provides these days may reduce the importance of mainstream media as vehicle for ads. We are already seeing how Facebook and WhatsApp are affecting elections worldwide. I think more personalised ad serving will become a norm. Also, the relevance should increase. For instance, only showing parts of manifesto related to youth to younger voters. I would say Virtual Reality may play more important role. We have already seen holographic projection. Expect to see more innovation there.

We spoke to Krishan Upadhyay, Media Director, Ultraviolet Digital, on how he foresees the change from now. For him, Political advertising has come a long way from cartoons in newspapers to posters and hoardings to the new age digital led campaigns, triggered by interests, political & development issues and targeting key agendas of the constituencies where a campaign is being held. Digital Media has helped attain credibility and has impacted the elections; 2014 Ab Ki Baar Modi Sarkar campaign being one such key highlight. It would be interesting to see how data driven tools and mobile penetration will influence the 2019 general elections.

Concluding Thoughts

It is quite amusing to see the whole political advertising scenario evolve for the better over time. What began as a mere attempt to announce the propagandas, has now become a 360 degree strategic commitment. The parties and candidates come up with unique propositions to become a people’s favorite. Kudos to their teams who put in so much effort and shine bright. Let’s see what the 2019 elections have in store for us!