Election results - lesson in marketing?

For second econsecutive elections Indian electorate has surprised poll pundits, marketers, political parties alike.

In 2004 BJP and NDA were high on "India Shining" campaign. There was a positive mood across country's urban elite and so called opinion makers and political analyst actually fell for NDA's glossy campaign. Everyone was expecting NDA to be back in power. Some commentators even predicted Congress' demise. But Congress surprised everyone, including itself. Not that it sweeped the polls or anything like that, but it emerged as the single largest party in a highly fractured mandate. Its 'insipid' but highly effective "Aam Aadmi" theme struck a cord with many voters.

Fast forward to 2009. One would think BJP had learnt its lessons.

Indeed they had...so instead of a positive campaign they embarked on a negative campaign. They countered Jai Ho by Bhaya Ho! They did not tell voters what would they do, but went around the town telling them what UPA government did or did not do!

Advani briefly thought he was Obama of India. May be he was. But he forgot that he was fighting election in India and not in the US. His advisors forgot that India has a parliamentry form of democracy which is different from presidential form of democracy that the US has. Even though Indian polity is hugely dominated by larger than life leaders, still voters identify leaders with the parties. They ultimately vote for the parties. They do not vote for the post of Prime Minister.

I found Advani's PM campaign to be too much in the face. Its fine to be popping everywhere on internet proclaiming yourself to be the next PM, but where was the content? L K Advani was the largest advertiser on Google's Adsense network during elections. They must have directed quite a lot of traffic to lkadvani.in. I myself visited his site at least 10 times during the campaign. But the content out there was very boring, static and did not do anything to promote Advanis' cause.

It seemed that Advani was running one race and BJP/NDA another. The two campaigns appeared disjointed.

Advani forced Congress to formally declare Manmohan Singh as its PM candidate. In hindsight, and with Advani's help, it turned out to be an advantage for Congress. Direct personal attacks on a man considered to be honest, upright and sincere by most hurt Advani and BJP big time. It also helped Congress rally behind its leadership.

While all these are reasons that would have affected the urban voters, I think despite 2004 setback BJP has not been able to discover a way to reach out to rural voters outside the states where it is in power. Its electronic media campaign had an urban look to them. Its digital campaign also was an effort to reach out to urban voters. While Congress reaped the benefits of its rural oriented programs such as NREGA and farm loan waiver, BJP did not have a specific communication meant for rural voters.

BJP managed the media well. Its spokepersons did a better job on electronic media. They exuded a sense of confidence, but were also dismissive about lot of things. In the process they scared the voters, they alienated them. On other hand mumbling Congress spokespersons seemed more genuine, and seemed more approachable to common man. Voters did not fall for suaveness, they empathised with bungling orators! BJP seemed arrogant to them.

For the second time running, general elections have proved that political parties at large, BJP in partcular, failed to understand who is their consumer. By failing to identify them, they also failed to articulate their USP to them. A glossy, agressive, over-the-top and negative campaign was rejected by voters in favour of an image of sincerity, mildly positive mood and actions-speak-louder-than-words campaign.