Marketing Take Aways from Naredra Modi Sarkaar

Who has not heard “Abb ki baar Modi Sarkaar”?  Why we say Narendra Modi a great Marketer?  Here are few lessons we can learn from his way of doing things.

Understand the pain point of the existing market and craft our offerings according to it.

In India, people were fed up with the issues like corruption, poor governance, inflation, slow development, rising unemployment etc. Modi tailored all his promotional activities around these painpoints and promised people to bring solutions for them.

Develop credibility : Credibility brings in listeners and believers. 
“When I became the CM, many said, 'atleast give us power at dinner time' I have ensured Gujarat has 24*7 power. Nothing is impossible.” Modi said in an interview with Zee News.

 
And yes, Modi already has set a remarkable example of planned governance in Gujarat. He has a track record of being a social activist since his childhood, including RSS. Also, being a star performer in the eyes of industrialists of Gujarat, he got huge funding from the Gujarati business community for his massive paid promotions during elections.

Create a connection :The range of his local connect is apparent in how he spoke about the plight of banana farmers in Hajipur, Bihar, illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Kolkata, and rampant economic backwardness in Bhubaneswar. In Jharkhand, he reminded his listeners how Jhumri Tilaiya was once famous for sending the highest number of song requests to All India Radio. And in Imphal, Manipur, he told the crowd that repairing the Jiribam highway can lessen the state's burden if there's an economic blockade in Nagaland.
 

Catch the competitors’ weekness and use it in your promotional strategy: Modi created many videos showing development in last many years during the rule of Congress. For example, click here to see the video on the poor development of Amethi.

Build a great team: The team behind Modi’s win, like experienced leaders Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Arun Jaitley to name a few, were assigned specific roles, where they gave their best in getting the magic figure of 272.

Choose a leader to represent the company to the public at large: While there was an ambiguity about who will be the PM candidate for Congress, being bold, the first step the BJP took was to choose Narendra Modi as PM candidate.Sometimes personal branding supersedes the generic branding lines.

Don’t wait for the amiable climate, start early, just go and invade: The BJP had started its election campaigns quite early. Modi started giving speeches in various places about his dreams for India and Indians and also started using social media around 2009, which gave him a clear cut advantage in later stages.

Create recall value: May be a slogan or a tagline can create a strong recall value. The slogan “Abb ki Baar Modi Sarkaar” reached every nook and corner of the country.

Be "Structured" and "Researched": Ad Guru Piyush Pandey, who created the tagline "Äb ki baar Modi Sarkaar”, said that compared to corporate brands, a political party functions in a very un-structured manner when it comes to dealing with its ad agencies. But apparently, this was not the case with BJP. 

Recalling how clear the BJP officials were when it came to giving out the campaign brief, Pandey says, "They did their homework pretty well." In fact, he goes as far as to call it the best brief he has ever come across in his entire career! "They knew exactly who their TG was and what their communication was going to be," Pandey recounts, adding, "Hearing the brief, it was quite obvious that a massive amount of research was done by the BJP team to understand their TG before investing money. They knew exactly what they had to say and to whom."

Be Tech savvy to be game with the fast moving world :  A cornerstone of the Modi campaign is the technical innovations that his team has been able to roll out to multiply his outreach. He was quick to recognise the power of the internet and mobile phones in electioneering.

The most effective tool was the 3D rallies which started on April 10, one month before the last day of campaigning. Modi's experiment with 3D holograms during the 2012 Gujarat Assembly elections had got him a place in the Guinness World Records for delivering a speech to 53 locations simultaneously. These events sparked dramatic reactions. At a rally in Amritsar on April 18, some BJP supporters decided to get closer to Modi. As they surreptitiously started moving towards the dais, the security personnel were more amused than bemused. The supporters hadn't realised that it wasn't Modi in front of them, but only his holographic projection.

On February 19, a week after Modi's Facebook likes hit the 10-million mark, the campaign launched a special NaMo Number. An SMS, missed call, or WhatsApp message to 78200-78200 added the user to BJP's database as a potential volunteer. Campaign sources say they receive an average of 100,000 missed calls on a daily basis, and that the total interactions with people through this service has now hit 130 million-more than half of the campaign's total outreach.

"Everyone talks only about the Internet, but it's mobile phones that have been the game-changer in the Modi campaign," says Arvind Gupta, IT Cell head. India has 205 million web users, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India. In comparison, India's mobile subscriber base was 915.9 million in the end of 2013. (India Today reports)

Convert adversity into opportunity : During the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in New Delhi on January 17, Mani Shankar Aiyar commented that though Modi can never become India's PM, they could make place for a tea stall for him at the meeting venue. Picking up on this, BJP decided to hold its remote 'nukkad sabhas' at tea shops and call them “Chai pe Charcha”.

Use all promotional tools: It was a 360-degree campaign that helped establish continuous commitment to and constant engagement with voters. Modi utilized all channels of marketing, be it internet based like content creation, social media, you tube or paid like newspaper, TV ads, distributing merchandise to local people and business, or non-traditional methods like “Chai pe charcha”.

Spread the message through your brand people, not only just though supporters: Our Facebook wall, Whatsapps or twitter feed are filled by posts from Modi fans in the past one year. Create a brand people who love to share, create a viral circle, and send message beyond their first set of audience. Modi successfully floated his messages around all social media in no time, he understood that its the Google time.

For Chandra Prakash, a city-based cyber enthusiast, May 16 turned out to be memorable for more reasons than one. Not only he received a big thank you from Modi, but he claims he is one of about 15,000 to have received letters thanking them for their contribution to the BJP's campaign on micro-blogging site Twitter. These people campaigned for Modi, without being associated with the party in any form. They sent millions of tweets, as well as re-tweeted many of Modi's tweets, with the sole aim of “spreading Modi's vision”.

Be a planned Executer : Execution in a planned manner is the key of any business. BJP’s election campaign was well planned. He talked on TV, videos, rallies in such a planned manner, that his voice was well heard for being ready to take up ultimate responsibility. He even did many rallies on a single day at this age which is set as a date of retirement by our government.

What you think???