Poll and political branding in 2019

Even the fiercest critics of Donald Trump would agree that the US President is a branding king! Whether you liked him or hated him, his brand appeal was unmissable at the peak of the US presidential election 2016. Clearly not interested in courting all Americans, the businessman turned politician constructed a brand that resonated deeply with the conservative white citizens — the section who collectively rued the emergence of multi-cultural trends in the US. Complete with his ‘damn you all’ mannerisms and the war cry of ‘Let’s Make America Great Again’, Trump won the day, thanks to his distinct and omnipresent brand.

Branding is a process of creating a unique name and image for a product aimed at establishing a differentiated presence that strikes a chord with the consumers. When these principles of branding are applied in the political arena, it has the ability to unleash movements by bringing the masses under a common umbrella.

To be fair, the idea of political branding is not new. While western democracies have for long used multiple mass media channels to create brand identities, in India too we can relate to strong political brands over the past 50 years.

Be it Indira Gandhi’s fiercely designed brand of ‘iron lady’ or Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s delicately crafted image of a ‘master statesman’ and ‘a dove among hawks’, political branding has been in the scheme of things for political parties in India. Interestingly, an assessment tells us that out of the 58 government programmes and schemes named after eminent persons under the previous UPA regime, more than 25% were named after former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, another case of subtle branding for a political family.

However, in recent years we have witnessed a clear shift towards a more professional political branding environment. Today political parties have come to represent brand identities as well, thanks to the widespread use of advertising, digital channels, marketing, and data mining in the same manner as corporates do.

2014 was seen as an election year that brought a major shift in the trend of political branding in India when a relentless, 360-degree in-your-face political campaign catapulted Narendra Modi, then a regional leader to the forefront of Indian politics. Perhaps, this was the first election in India where a massive use of mass media and social media was made towards establishing a political brand.

The necessity of being present and vocal on social media can be gauged by the fact that immediately after announcing her political debut, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi also made it a point to debut on Twitter. As social media gives millions of people a voice in the virtual world, politics today has acquired another dimension.

Social media warriors

It all began with BJP’s IT cell whose dedicated army has actively worked to sway public opinion since 2014. Most other political parties today have social media workers, 2019 is therefore being seen as the battle that is being fought both on the ground as well as on the online space. The social media warriors working for their respective parties seek to generate debate on issues that will benefit them and indulge in trolling opponents. “Manufacturing consent” online is one of the primary agendas for political parties today as they seek to sway public opinion.

This election season, the trend of political branding is at its highest with all sorts of political parties — national, regional, to create a positive brand identity for themselves. Small parties understandably face a cash crunch vis a vis national parties when it comes to spending on branding campaigns, and this shift towards professional branding exercises in a way benefits the cash-rich national parties.

Yet, this phenomenon is still in a nascent stage in India. Political parties still do not conduct any largescale impact studies or detailed statistical analysis of reason and causes of communication campaign failures. Branding in Indian politics is still largely driven by verbosity and attacks on opponents, rather than an exercise in creating one’s own distinct identity.

A brand can successfully build a perception that can attract voters to its fold. However, in order to make brand successful it has to finally deliver. In the long run, the brands which deliver are the ones that are successful. Good communication designs can act as powerful tools for persuasion but delivering on the promises, thankfully, still remains key to success. Hail democracy.

(The writer is Director and Creative Strategist of CHAI Kreative and Return of Millions of Smiles)