DISSERTATION 2019

REPORT

ON

‘IMPACT OF BRAND ADVERTISING ON POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS’

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR

THE DEGREE OF

MASTERS IN BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

BY

RAHUL JAISWAL

AMITY UNIVERSITY,
KOLKATA

ENROLLMENT NO.: A91801917025

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF

PROF.PRASANJIT CHAKRAVARTY (FACULTY GUIDE)

TO

AMITY UNIVERSITY KOLKATA

1
 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that this project work entitled “Impact of brand advertising on political campaigns”
submitted in the partial fulfillment of the requirement for the award of Degree of Masters in Business
Administration is a record of an original work done by me under the guidance of Prof. Prasenjit
Chakravarty (faculty guide). This project is carried out by me in 2019 and is my original and true
work for the academic purpose only.

DATE: 03.03.2019
PLACE: KOLKATA

RAHUL JAISWAL

2
 FACULTY GUIDE APPROVAL

This is to certify that the project report entitled “Impact of brand advertising on political
campaigns” being submitted by Rahul Jaiswal with the enrollment no. A91801917025 in partial
fulfillment for the award of the Degree of Masters of Business Administration from Amity University,
Kolkata is a record of bona-fide work carried out under the guidance and supervision of the faculty
guide Prof. Prasenjit Chakravarty.

The results embodied are self-attained and not copied from any other work; this project has not been
submitted to any other University or Institute for the award of any Degree or Diploma. It is understood
that by this approval, the undersigned do not necessarily endorse any conclusion drawn or opinion
expressed therein, but approve the project for the purpose for which it is submitted.

PROF. PRASENJIT CHAKRAVARTY (FACULTY GUIDE)

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AMITY BUSINESS SCHOOL,

AMITY UNIVERSITY KOLKATA

3
 ABSTRACT

With an increase in competition in the political sector, there is a paradigm shift as parties revert to branding

to influence voters’ political party brand preference. Political marketing is one of the most important aspects

of developing industry which affects institutions, people and the involvement of successful candidates in the

modern generation of politics. Therefore, it is of interest to examine how political party branding can enhance

brand preference of the voters. Brand has special importance in marketing around the world. Hence it is

applicable in political marketing field also. The brand in short is an identifier of the seller or services-provider.

A brand name consists of word, letters, and/or number that can be vocalized. The brand has value also. The

values of govern of a product or services provider are reflected by the brand. The brand has culture too and a

brand represents a certain culture. Hence the study has been done of the importance of brand in political

marketing. The top leaders of party are assumed as brand and the voters have been assumed as a consumer

even, they don’t directly purchase product or services. As well as the parties are being treated as seller or

services provider. Evolution of political campaigning in India by parties have been taken for study i.e. Party

X, Party Y, and what is the contribution of brand (top leaders of party) and how it impacts in achieving goal

which is winning of election.

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This project is successfully completed under the supervision of Prof.Prasenjit Chakravarty (faculty
guide). I would like to express my sincere thanks from the core of my heart to my respected faculty
guide for giving me his valuable time.

I would like to express my gratitude towards Amity University Kolkata, for the guidance and constant
support as well as for providing necessary information for completion of this project.

With the blessings, guidance and cooperation of everyone I have tried to stand up to my respected
faculty guide’s expectations.

My special thanks to my parents and friends for their constant support and encouragement for the
completion of this project.

RAHUL JAISWAL

5
 INDEX

SL.NO PARTICULARS PAGE

NO.

1 INTRODUCTION 7-9

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 10-11

3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 12

4 RESEARCH METHADOLOGY 13

5 POLITICAL MARKETING 14

6 ANATOMY OF POLITICAL MARKETING 15-16

7 FUNCTIONS OF POLITICAL MARKETING 17-18

8 USE OF THREE STAGE MODEL 19

9 IMPLEMENTATION OF VARIOUS MARKETING TECHNIQUES 20-22

10 INFLUENCE OF MARKETING MIX 23-24

11 EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGN 25-32

12 MODERN MARKETING ELEMENTS AND TOOLS USE BY THE PARTIES 33-35

13 CONCLUSION 36

14 REFERENCES 37

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 INTRODUCTION

Spending on political advertising has grown dramatically in recent years, and political campaigns have
increasingly adopted the language and techniques of marketing. As such political marketing efforts proliferate,
the factors that drive electoral success warrant greater attention and investigation. Marketing and advertising
are powerful revenue-generating tools used to create brand awareness, customer acquisition and retention. Just
like a company selling a product, a political candidate and his or her party are an entity whose main purpose
is to convince voters (consumers) why they should vote on (consume) the ideas (products) that the campaign
(advertisers) proposes (offers). Parties, candidates and activists deploy marketing techniques such as
persuasive advertising to convince voters why they should vote for a particular candidate or measure that the
party or organization promotes. Like marketing campaigns, political campaigns use the psychology of
consumer behavior to understand how best to appeal to potential voters. The psychology of consumer behavior
strives to understand how consumers “think, feel and reason” between options. Consumer behavior is the
study of individuals, groups, or organizations and the processes they use to select, secure, use, and dispose of
products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on the
consumer and society. Understanding consumer behavior and decision-making patterns is important for any
brand, including political brands, because understanding how consumers (voters) make decisions between
options affects how a political campaign will advertise to specific subsets of voters. Today, big data extracted
online has further empowered marketers by creating greater access to information about consumers, including
potential audiences and current target markets. Similar to marketing campaigns, political campaigns use data
about potential voters to promote their candidates and ideas. Advancements in technology have allowed
advertisers to make tremendous strides in their ability to deliver customized messages to niche audiences.
Whereas television was previously the most prominent way to target specific groups, the Internet has opened
up endless possibilities for advertisers to better reach their target audiences. Though slower to adapt to this
innovation in big data and target advertising, political campaigns are using information about prospective
voters from sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google to propel advertisements that capitalize on the unique
motivation factors that influence specific groups to vote. The use of personalized political advertisements has
already begun to affect the way in which citizens make political decisions. Recently, however, political
branding has taken center stage. Applying brand to a political campaign isn’t actually new, but adapting the
corporate terminology that surrounds branding is new in the mainstream. However, not all candidates
understand branding or the role it needs to play in their campaign, and in some cases, it’s even played a part
in costing them the election.

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What Branding Is and What It Includes
One of the most common mistakes to make is believing that your logo is your brand. It isn’t, but it can be an
important piece of it. A brand is really the audience’s perception of an entity, be it a business or political
candidate; branding defines who you are as a candidate, frames the issues in a way that appeals to the audience
(i.e., voters), and helps the audience connect with you on an emotional level.
It includes, but isn’t limited to, logos, colors, fonts, jingles, catch phrases, and graphics or other images. These
should appear on or in a candidate’s campaign website, social media, email, paper materials, political
advertisements and signs, and all communications. Even the simplest lawn sign needs to deploy branding. In
fact, being able to control a news cycle and define the language used for a particular topic is also a part of
your political brand. Political branding is crafting a narrative, and each element supports and strengthens that
narrative, making you easy to recognize and hopefully easier to vote for.

Voter relations and Party Campaigning

Principally, voters within elections determine which political parties are elected into governance by means of
aggregate voter support. In order for such to happen, in-depth decisions are carried out by voters in respect to
which party’s ideology and campaign seems beneficial to them on a socio-economic and political level.

In more detail, this beneficial perception of political parties may be based upon two commonly established
beliefs in which constituencies heavily rely on when voting for parties. The first being political identification
which includes an array of features such as;

1) commonly sought visions between supporters and parties of what governments should and must
perceive to be for instance: solid policy plans and effective service delivery mandates,

2) culturally, ethnically and racially orientated parties are targeted by constituencies of mutual identity
and struggle, and

3) the proven success and trustworthiness of political parties in order to lure constituencies.

The second belief stresses voter motivation, which discusses;

1) the consistency of party campaigning where constituencies preference parties (party loyalty) over
others in relation to mutual interests- ‘being on the same team’, such as a specific party liberating the
politics out of their supporters where they want to be represented by that party exclusively.

2) civic duty of citizens to vote where it is recognized as a national, provincial, and local responsibility
to participate. “the greater the ability or motivation to vote, the more likely a higher voter turnout
would be”, which may be deduced to be partially true as voter motivation is not only dependent upon
the country’s contextual democratic setting, but also on the manner of campaigning and how parties
mobilize electorates.

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Political parties emphasize three major techniques in their approach to engage and mobilize electorates that
are expressed through traditional and modern forms.

The first two techniques Pertain to the traditional forms of campaigning, and the third to that of the modern
form Respectively.

• The first discusses the appointment of popular leaders as the party’s ‘people person’ in order to be
politically communicative with their current and potential supporters by public speeches in the formal
or informal manner; with the former pertaining to planned and systematic events such as rallying and
the latter to rather un-prescribed forms of gatherings such as communal speeches (with the latter
recognized to be considerably more cost-effective than to the former, yet less effective).

• Secondly, ‘door-to-door’ contact within districts of influence in order to broaden campaign prospects
and strategy to a more personal level with their supporters at home.

• The third technique refers to the use of mass media as in the modern technological era, embracing
three essential segments;

a) print and environment media which includes newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and billboard
posters of slogans and candidates put up around targeted regions (urban and rural),

b) LIVE-broadcast media involving aspects of radios and televisions on popular channels, and at
appropriate times to attract mass listeners and viewers, and

c) digital media, being the most advanced technique where it is targeted to the technological-active
citizens or voters through the World Wide Web: Internet. This penetration to the internet broadens
the prospect of political parties vitalizing the technique, by forming impressions and conveying
campaign fundamentals through official websites or blog-sites (Facebook), as they are highly
effective and accessible from practically anywhere.

Thus, constituencies must consider the long-term impressions of electoral procedures upon governance
through rational and cognitive decision-making before casting their votes to a particular party or candidate, as
every vote holds an essential role to that effect of determining political party campaigning as a success, failure,
or one that needs development in democratic states.

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 LITERATURE REVIEW

The literature on political branding has developed its own distinct trajectory as a subfield of political marketing
over the course of the last two decades. Scholars such as Scammell (2015) and Needham (2005) have sought
to position ‘the brand’ as the conceptual tool that can best capture both the tangible and intangible components
that work together to construct the reputation and 3 image of political leaders and of parties (see also Lees-
Marshment 2014: 103). For them, studying brands allows for the simultaneous analysis of ‘…the rational and
apparently irrational, the hard and soft elements of voter choice, the big dimensions of political reputation and
the seemingly trivial details of appearance and tone of voice’ (Scammell, 2015: 7). Time also emerges as an
important factor, with the literature emphasizing that a brand cannot be built through a one-off transaction
alone (Cosgrove, 2012: 107), and instead needs to be nurtured over time through a relationship marketing
approach (Needham, 2005). In a branding sense, political parties and politicians can be conceptualized of as
offering products – an ‘amalgam of policy, leader image, inherited memory, promise …’ (O’Shaughnessy,
2001: 1048) – or services – the ‘promise of [what is] to be delivered in the future’ which is ‘sold on trust’
(Nielsen and Larsen, 2014: 154). Pich et al. (2016: 103) further reinforce the services perspective of a political
brand, arguing that the act of governing is ‘intangible, complex and heavily reliant on people’. This view of a
political brand as an amalgam of factors – and indeed, as an ‘overall packaged concept’ that can’t easily be
unbundled (Lock and Harris, 1996) – also makes it clear that perceptions of a party leader are closely
intertwined with perceptions of a party as a whole, and of local candidates. This means that in studying party
brands we are in fact studying a composite of contributing variables. In this regard, while leadership can be
crucial to how a political party brand is perceived, as our results will show, it is but one element of the brand
tableau (Pich et al., 2016; Scammell, 1995).
Definition of “Marketing”: - Dr. Philip Kotler defines marketing as “the science and art of exploring, creating,
and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit. Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs
and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential.”
Definitions of “Brand”: - “A name, term sign, symbol or special design or some combination of these elements
that is intend to identify the goods or services of one seller or a group of sellers. A brand differentiates these
products from those of competitors”
(American Marketing Association, Chicago)”. As, the “Political Marketing and its effect on Youth, in
Amravati region” is main research topic; the study is being done mainly on youth as a target consumer which
are voter here. Definitions of “Youth”: - “Youth are defined as those aged 15 to 29” in the national youth
policy (2014). This age-group constitutes 27.5% of India's population. But anyone, who has no right to vote
unless and until he / she completed 16 years of age. Hence minimum age of youth is treated as16 of years to
29 of years. The researches have taken places on “Political Marketing” and “Political Brand” in foreign
countries; comparatively it is less in India. These researches of other countries may partial applicable to Indian
10
Politics because there are many differences in Indian Culture, the pattern of Election, the definition of
Democracy, literate people percentage. The focus has not given on political market as it is required. The
Hopes, progress, security of nation as well as life style of people are depended on the policy of political party,
which is in Government. Hence, it is important to vote correct party to win for that the party is too required
apply correct Marketing strategy. In connection of this the brand (top leader of party) plays main role in
political marketing; it shows capability and eligibility of party to run government.
This study took top political leaders as Brand, the brand will be more effective and the brand personality will
be enough to reflect party’s strategy as well as to attract voters. In the magazine of Business Time Mr. Lea
Nathan, Marketing strategists agree that brand awareness in any industry gives that company an edge. He
writes in article; Brand awareness accomplishes several objectives for companies and organizations seeking
to increase sales and services in the marketplace. Brand awareness Campaign needs to be flexible enough to
grow with the organization and adjust if needed. Here all this is applicable in political marketing also through
all angles.
The brand in sentence for Political Marketing is submitted requests to voters to enhance it. The voters found
this leader and brand helpful to understand party’s strategy towards governing Government. Another way we
can say political brand means interaction between leaders, policies and political parties. Brands have become
a major player in the modern society. They have penetrated all spheres of everybody’s life. It seems that only
product and services don’t driven the market but they are only the parts of marketing. Even your product or
services are quality oriented; it should be reflected in your brand to prove best marketing. It had been widely
expected since the mid-1990s, that the Internet would have a decisive influence on election campaigning
(Anstead and Chadwick, 2008). However, as political parties try to engage the audience and break clutter,
2014 emerged as the year where innovative campaigning won. Prabhu(2014) mentioned in his book that “He
(Party Y) won a historic election but Public relations won as well”. The year 2013, in the same vein can be
termed as the year when the entire concept of election campaigning and political marketing went through a
complete overhaul, an unprecedented revolution. Political parties micro targeted various vote banks via using
new age technology by sending personalised messages using mobiles, social media and digital rallies. The
significant advantage of the Internet is its capability to mobilize resources: specifically, fund raising and
recruiting volunteers too. Internet electioneering gives advantage for improving the communication between
politicians and electors.

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 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

➢ To study the importance of Brand in Political Marketing

➢ Understanding of the measures of political parties in branding their image

➢ To examine the evolution of branding in the political arena in India

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 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

1. RESEARCH DESIGN

✓ Descriptive research design

2. SECONDARY DATA

✓ Secondary data collected from standard records, research publications, periodicals, essays, and

other relevant documentaries.

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 POLITICAL MARKETING

Political marketing implies the usage of marketing tools, techniques and methods in political process. In other
words, political marketing is the outcome of the marriage between marketing and politics. As an activity and
method, it reflects the penetration of the political space by marketing. Political advertising, Celebrity
endorsements, involvement of professional consultants and campaign managers, online campaigning, mobile
phone canvassing, segmentation, micro targeting etc. are some of the methods extensively used in political
marketing.
Though political marketing is increasingly used in democratic political systems in which mass support is
significantly important to sustain power; military rulers also use marketing strategy to build their branded
image. The influence of professional marketing has affected the working style of political parties. Parties
became more market oriented and began to frame their programs and policies in tune with opinion polls and
market surveys. Information revolution and globalization have played a vital role in changing the pattern and
content of traditional political campaigning into one of the most professional and sophisticated marketing
tactics. It is argued that if a political party implements the marketing philosophy, it will seek to meet voters
needs and wants, thus producing voter satisfaction, and in doing so gain electoral support to meet its own
goals.

Definitions

According to Harrop political marketing is not just about political advertising, party political broadcasts and
electoral speeches but it covers the whole area of party positioning in the electoral market. In the words of
Kavanagh, political marketing is set of strategies and tools to trace and study public opinion before and during
an election campaign, to develop campaign communications and to assess their impact

The American Marketing Association “adopted” the concept of political marketing by incorporating the
crucial word “ideas” in its redefinition of marketing in 1985. Thus, the AMA definition of marketing read:
“Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of
ideas, goods and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives”.

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 ANATOMY OF POLITICAL MARKETING

The Political marketing map shows a political candidate dispatching specific promises ant favors to a set of
voters in exchange for their votes. He uses general communications to convey these and gathers voter
information to plan next period's marketing effort.

1) The candidates, their parties and their interest group alliances are the sellers.
2) Each candidate develops a product concept that he believes is merchandisable to the voters. The
concept is built on a mixture of political philosophy, stands on particular issues, personal style, and
background qualifications.
3) Each candidate seeks to reach the voters through three major distribution channels: mass and selective
media, personal appearances, and volunteer and party workers. These channels interact, e.g., a personal
appearance reaches an immediate audience and also a larger audience through mass media coverage.
4) All of these efforts are adjusted for different voter segments, and the results are continuously reviewed
for further campaign modification.

The candidate must not only develop a marketing strategy calculated to win the support of voters but also of
the party, contributors, and interest groups.

15
The above figure shows the four markets he faces. The interactions among these markets are complex and the
candidate cannot afford to formulate his marketing strategy simply on the basis of voter market response. For
example, taking a strong stand as an anti-machine candidate will gain voters' votes but hurt party support and
some contributions. Furthermore, each stand has distributive effects within a particular category. Taking a
pro-labor stand increases the contributions from labor and reduces the contributions from business. Thus,
political marketing strategy cannot be developed by simply calculating the distributive effects within the
voters' market. Similarly, business marketing strategy aiming at building buyer support cannot ignore the
impact on dealers, stockholders, government, and competitors.

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 FUNCTIONS OF POLITICAL MARKETING

Functions of Political marketing Functions of political marketing are pre- requisites for successful political
marketing management. According to political marketing theorist, there 8 generic functions of a successful
political marketing which includes the following:

1. Product Function: In political marketing practice, there should be an exchange between political
parties and electorate in the electoral market. Like mainstream marketing each political party has to
offer some product which they wanted to sell in the market. Here party wants to market its product
which is the promise of a good government. In some cases, the product may be image of the candidate,
an ideology or certain specific foreign policies. Hence the entire marketing process is designed to
market the product.

2. Distribution Function: The distribution function refers to the conditions regarding the availability of
exchange offer to the exchange partner. The function has two aspects- campaign delivery and offering
delivery. The campaign delivery function provides the primary exchange partner- the electorate-with
access to all relevant information about the political product. This includes the dissemination of
information regarding crucial party policies and programs, placing the candidates in right channels,
making sure that medium of distribution fits the ideology of the party etc.

3. Cost Function: One of the main functions of mainstream marketing is to sell a product which is cost
effective compared to other products in the market so that customer gets greater monetary satisfaction.
In political marketing, cost function refers to the management of attitudinal and behavioral barriers of
voters through calculated campaign strategies. The voter should receive all the information regarding
the product without spending money for it.

4. Communication Function: Communication involves the function of informing the primary exchange
partner of the offer and its availability. It is often seen as the heart of political marketing. For a political
party, it implies, providing political content, political ideas and future programs but also aiding the
interpretation and sense making of a complex political world. Often the communication function
involves simplification of political messages, concise political stand etc. The communication function
interacts with the campaign delivery aspects of the distribution function-the latter provides the medium
while the former defines the content. The communication function prescribes a dialogue with the
exchange partners – a multidirectional flow of information and shared agenda setting.

17
5. News Management Function: This function is closely linked to communication function. But news
management function is targeted to secondary exchange partners or intermediaries of which media is
an important part. In other words, it is the management of publicity of the candidate and party. Public
relation activities, media management, online advertising campaign management etc. are news
management functions. In the era of communication revolution news management plays a vital role in
success of political marketing.

6. Fund Raising Function: In mainstream marketing fund raising is not an issue. But political marketing
management cannot survive without fund raising. In fact, the success of other functions largely
depends on fund raising function. In order to provide the political actor with appropriate resources, a
distinct fund-raising function needs to be addressed. A political party depends to a varying extent on
membership fee, donations, etc.

7. Parallel Campaign Management Function: This function describes the requirement of co-
coordinating the campaign management activities of a political party with those pf parallel
organizations. Coordinated and synergic use of managerial activities allows for a more efficient
deployment of campaign resources. Furthermore, the use of parallel campaigns and the endorsements
by other organizations can increase the trustworthiness of the political messages.

8. Internal Cohesion Management Functions: Besides the external management aspects, internal
structure and functions of the political party also needs to be managed professionally. The function is
concerned with relationship with party members and activists as well as the spoke persons. The internal
marketing functions play a critical role in creating internal stability and therefore the credibility of the
party regarding its outside image.

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 USE OF THREE STAGE MODEL

Three-Stage Model:
In the Three-Stage marketing model, business organizations are assumed to identify consumer demand, feed
this back into the product and refine it accordingly.

STEP 1
Identify consumer demand, feed this back into the product and
messaging and refine it accordingly.

STEP 2
Inform the consumers of the changes to the product due to their
demands and needs.

STEP 3
Delivery of the refined product which will satisfy the consumer
demand better, thus producing incrementally greater profit for the company.

The Three-Stage Model assumes “that parties are able to establish what voters want using methods that include
sophisticated polling methodology and feedback from focus groups.

Conceptually, the suggestion is that parties/candidates listen to (targeted) public opinion, and provide the
electorate with a ‘product’ that they want, in order to achieve electoral victory.”

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 IMPLEMENTATION OF VARIOUS MARKETING TECHNIQUES

Various marketing techniques are used in order to have a successful political campaign, they are as
follows.

DEVELOPING A NARRATIVE

1) The narrative is the story behind a candidate – their history, their beliefs, their personality and all of
the traits and characteristics that make them worth voting for.

2) Crafting a narrative that your voter base can relate to is one of the most important elements of running
a political marketing campaign. A good narrative needs to be believable and relevant to the audience
whose support you’re campaign for.

3) In all political systems the media are not only shaping and influencing the political ‘message’
candidates wish to transmit: their activities are also impacting upon the democratic process more
broadly (Street, 2001).

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Political parties across the globe are learning that along with advertising on traditional mediums such
as television and newspapers, they must invest in digital marketing if they want to compete with their
rival parties.

1) Great platform for energizing a voter demographics that’s typically uninterested in mainstream
politics.

2) Building a Facebook Page for a candidate / party is one of the effective ways. This gives a reach to
thousands of voters.

3) Along with Facebook, the Twitter handle and video contents on YouTube is also been used
effectively to get connected.

4) One of the positive effects that social media has on politics is the opportunity for voters to interact
more easily with candidates and elected officials.

20
5) Political campaigns are now influenced by every story, whether true or not, that gets spread around
social media.

6) It is easier to spread rumor about candidate on social Through memes, fake news, fake ids etc.

NEGATIVE CAMPAIGNING

1) Bring attention to the good things your candidate will do, and bring attention to the bad things their
competitor will do.

2) Negative campaigning focuses on convincing voters not to vote for your candidate’s competitor.

3) Targeted towards those likely to vote for your competitor, it can sway these voters into changing their
mind and shifting over to your candidate’s side.

4) Takes the form of television ads, newspaper columns, political debates and direct marketing.

EVENTS

1) candidate’s campaign launch is a key introductory moment. This important and monumental event
should be designed to unveil and showcase your unique brand, and every event thereafter should reflect
that brand identity. Whether a rally, a small-town diner stops, a major speech, each event and
appearance should relay the candidate’s brand and personality.

2) If the events are chaotic and lack organization, audience might assume the candidate is the same,
damaging his or her image. If events are well-orchestrated, have a welcoming team of volunteers and
distribute information complementary of the candidate brand identity, he/she is off to a great start.

3) The key to creating these well-organized, brand-centric events is securing an Advance Team that goes
the extra mile and acting as “brand police.” That means keeping a keen eye on brand consistency
through push pieces, signage, registration, staging, backdrops, press management, security and
candidate movement. Mastering the event experience is crucial in supporting and complementing
overall brand experience.

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 DIRECT MAIL MARKETING AND OTHER MEDIUMS

• DIRECT MAIL

Direct mail is a tried and true method of targeted political advertising. One of the chief advantages of direct
mail is that it is scalable to a variety of budgets. With modern data targeting techniques, direct mail is also a
very precise medium. You can often send mail to the specific type of voters that you would like target.

➢ Brochures, leaflets, short form manifestos and other direct mail documents are all excellent tools
for persuading people.
➢ Direct mail is geographically targeted, it’s an extremely powerful marketing tactic for energizing
a voter base.
➢ Direct mail marketing needs to reinforce the narrative voters have created around a party, policy
or candidate.
➢ Focuses on voters’ benefits, strategies for improving the community, and the advantages a
candidate/party can offer over their competitors.

• RADIO

Standard terrestrial radio is another fairly traditional method of political advertising. A few of the pros of
radio are that fact that it can play to a captive audience (those at work, in their car, etc.) and it is reasonably
priced (both in production and for the cost of airtime).

• PRINT ADS

Like radio and direct mail, print ads have long been a part of the candidate communication scene. Print
ads share many of the same traits as radio, in that they have the benefit of potentially reaching a wide
audience (depending on the publication).

➢ Print ads for political campaigns there can be a very strategic reason for but many times folks are
spending this money without a real strategic value behind it. One of the significant cons of print
advertising is the fact that they offer little in the way of tracking conversions or potential message
testing.
➢ Most campaigns use a mix of different political advertising to address their target audience. Which
mediums to use, and in what proportion, is up to them and should be based on the demographic they
are trying to reach, how much they have to spend, and the depth of reporting metrics they need.

• TELEVISION

Television is another very common political advertising medium for candidate campaigns. There
are a few pretty clear pros: it has the opportunity to play to a captive audience, offers the
opportunity to engage people with both sight and sound, and can play to a large sized audience.
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INFLUENCE OF MARKETING MIX ON POLITICAL PARTIES IMAGE

Political images are crafted with the same sophistication as the leading products are. The packaging, labeling,
advertising and image-building power is so great today that almost anyone can be made to look and sound
politically appealing even to the most scrutinizing citizen. The application of marketing techniques and
strategies to the political market place is a paradigm shift that will continue to change politics as we know it
today. That is the current political picture shown by several things such as the sophistication of the product,
packaging, labeling, image formation and the power of advertising can be created by anyone and so much
attracted the attention of viewers and will affect the number of votes the party politically. Implementation of
strategies such as the marketing mix is a paradigm shift in the development of political life. In other words,
the political marketing mix will be able to influence the choice of people to channel their political rights.

INFLUENCE OF MARKETING MIX ON POLITICAL PARTIES REPUTATION

Managing the marketing mix makes marketing seem too easy to handle and organize. Marketing is separated
from other activities of the firm and delegated to specialists who take care of the analysis, planning and
implementation of various marketing tasks, such as market analysis, marketing, planning, advertising, sales
promotion, sales, pricing, distribution and product packaging. It means managing the marketing mix makes it
easy to handle and manage the company. Marketing is divided into six functions delegated to various parts of
the company's management or activities, namely: market analysis, marketing, planning, advertising, sales
promotion, sales, pricing, distribution and product packaging. Marketing programs are indicated by integrating
components of the marketing mix related to reputation is done for reputation, it needs a strategy through
management that takes into account such things as the following: internal assests, external assests, market
assests and performance analysis. Based on expert opinions and concepts above, it can be concluded that the
company's strategy in managing resources and the environment is affecting the reputation of the company to
be perceived by the consumer. When it is applied to political parties, then the strategy of managing all
resources, both internally and externally is essential in shaping the minds of the public reputation of political
parties or voters. It is special when applied to marketing management, marketing management through the
marketing mix will affect the reputation of the political party concerned.

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INFLUENCE OF MARKETING MIX ON POLITICAL PARTIES
COMPETITIVENESS

A good strategy combines the resources of several companies can improve the competitiveness of enterprises.
Strategy for the brand, product development strategy, customer service strategies unique, pricing strategy,
media strategy, distribution strategy, service after the sale, the strategy of customer satisfaction and proactive
strategy, When it is applied to political parties, then the strategy is to combine the strategy right product,
pricing strategy right, strategy right place and promotion strategy was good, the strategy preparation of human
resources of political parties is good, the provision of facilities and infrastructure for the management of
political parties good as well as political party management system is created and enforced properly, will
improve the competitiveness of the political parties.

INFLUENCE IMAGE AND POLITICAL PARTIES COMPETITIVENESS

Image or political image as a positioning strategy can be one source of the winning political parties in
competition with other political parties. Positioning in this case is a strategy that attempts to put a party's
ideology among ideologies that exist in the minds of society. Thus, the public will be able to easily identify a
political party through the image that are embedded in the system and their cognitive beliefs.

INFLUENCE REPUTATION AND POLITICAL PARTIES COMPETITIVENESS

the corporate reputation has an indirect impact on competitive advantage through perceived value and
perceived quality of the service. In other words, the firms should communicate effectively reviews their
favorable corporate reputation to the market so that the customers perception level towards reviews their
products and service would arise. That is, that the company's reputation has a direct impact on competitive
advantage through the value and quality of service. In other words, companies should communicate about the
reputation of their company which is effectively beneficial to the market so that the level of customer
perception of the products and services they will be formed. It can be concluded that the reputation of the
company or an organization, including political party would affect the competitiveness of the company or
organization or political party.

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 EVOLUTION OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGN IN INDIA

The Great Indian Elections

Lok Sabha Elections in India from 1991 to 2014

In 1991 Lok Sabha elections, being midterm elections obviously could not gain much campaigning

momentum. In 1996 Lok Sabha elections, where the X party suffered one of the worst defeats, the government

was finally formed by the Y’s party leader Z only to be aborted in twelve days. Successive governments were

formed under A and B. The Election Commission had strictly directed that the expenditure be no more than

Rs 4.15 Lakh focusing the parties to quit ideas of high-tech campaigning and stick to door to door canvassing

which are termed as the first “Mohalla Elections” by Roy (1996). Y’S party strategy of mobilizing sadhu

saints, is natural as political parties recruit such individuals into their ranks as populist appeals become more

important in Indian Politics and the democratic process percolates down to include formerly excluded groups

since the “religiosity of people” predisposes particularly villagers and women to respond readily to such tactics

(Dyke, 1997). Dyke also mentioned how letter writing was also adopted as a method for influencing the literate

voters. Star endorsements became a rage as Kapil Dev campaigned for MR Q, Sunil Dutt for MR W AND U.

Party Y started tele link services to deliver prerecorded messages and used toys and trinkets like caps, hooters,

lotus shaped, bindis (a small coloured mark or jewel) ‟ to build the connection. Street plays, magic shows,

talking dolls and video films too played an important role.

1998 again was a fragmented midterm election, but fortunately for Party Y, it emerged stronger and formed

government with regional groups only to collapse after thirteen months. The 14thLokSabha Elections were

held in 2004, which led to the formation of party X Cabinet. The election results were surprising as not only

did it spell defeat of coalition of party Y’S but also the resurgence of coalition of X’s led by MRS SG who

surprised everyone by declining the position of prime minister. Analysts concurred that Coalition of party’s

Y India shining campaign did not appeal to the rural poor. Zoraand Daniel (2004) was of the opinion that the

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India Shining campaign was just a pitch to big businesses. Masses found the party campaign calls on landline

and mobile phones a nuisance. It may be that voters found the Coalition of party’s Y insufficiently attentive

to the core issues of “Bijli, sadak, pani (power, roads, water)” and voiced a rejection of neo-liberal economic

reforms that were seen to benefit India’s middle and upper-classes only. Zora and Worweck (2004) describe

the flavour of the promotions as very pro-urban, posters and television (TV) commercials in all major channels

featuring women wearing sarees and playing cricket with the tagline, “you have never had a better time to

shine brighter”. The campaign explicitly seemed to widen the gulf between the haves and the have nots.

Initially, party X opposed and made a pun of the campaign by calling it “India cheated”. Party X took

professional help from advertising agency Leo Burnett to make a comeback with the question,

“AamAadmikokyamilega (What will the common man get?)” L Balakrishnan, the creative head of Lowe,

another advertising company, said ``if anything, the campaign set a lot of people thinking that India was not

shining for them'' (quoted in Times of India). Political scientist Philip Oldenburg (2004) argues that the failure

of India shining was not due to a revolt by the rural poor as both alliance parties got 35% electoral votes. He

concluded that the failure of NDA should be attributed to the fact that the campaign was not geographically

penetrative, neither state level driven other than being economically exclusive. Again in 2009, the common

man toppled, as Party X “Jai Ho (Victory Hymn)” defeated Party Y “Bhay Ho (Fear Hymn)”. The same

positioning was across all platforms-TV, radio, print, online and outdoor. IMRB used spotlight techniques,

the same that is used for studying effect of advertising on consumer behaviour to find effect of political

advertising on youngsters living in metros by studying the four campaigns: “Jai ho”, “Dishayein”, “ Bhay Ho”

and “Kadam”. 44% of audience liked Party X ads better, based on Oscar winning Slumdog Millionaire song.

According to the report the Party X ad shows elements around women while Party Y lacked gender focus.

Also, it is optimistic in nature as compared to the Party Y advertisements that focused on “Bhay (fear)” and

terming MR LK as “NidarNeta (fearless leader)”. As per the estimates of CMS (Centre for Media Studies),

about Rs 10,000 crores were spent during the Lok Sabha elections.

Then the 2014 Grand elections, the largest in human history with over 815 million voters, larger than the

electorates of the US and the European Union combined will elect 543 representatives. The Party Y wanted

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to position itself as a pro development party and hence unveiled the Vision 2020 document, that diluted its

image as the “mandirwali party (Advocating for temples)” (Deshpande and Iyer, 2004),

Based on the issue of abrogation of article 370, building of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya and enforcing a

Uniform Civil Code (UCC) (Kumar, 2014). Apart from innumerable road rallies and holographic presence,

campaigns used micro targeting approach via social media, mass media, robo calls and marketing through

number of volunteers and fans who were willing to cooperate. Twitter emerged as a key tool for campaigning

in the elections. MR M of Party Y had 4.3 million twitter followers in thirty-eight different languages.

Holograms, voice messages, personalized mails and even experiential marketing by groups like CAG (Citizens

for Accountable Governance) were used for volunteer enrolments. The elections also witnessed a revamped

new age interactive website, offline and online campaigns by way of Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, YouTube

and even quirky mobile applications.

The clutter on social media and the saturation of mass media has posed the complexities of Big data which

emerged as a big challenge in the 2014 Elections. "The era of big data in Indian politics has arrived," said J

Ramachandra, CEO of Gramener that is a data analytics company. The 2014 elections were data driven and

very similar to the US elections. MR M of Party’s Y unique digital events like 'Chai peCharcha (Talk over

tea) ‟ are unprecedented election events that put the political leader directly in touch with people at tea stalls

in villages at publicized localities through a combination of satellite, DTH, internet and mobile (Quoted in

TechEdge, CNBC 2014). Hence parties are increasingly seeking professional help from corporates and Public

Affairs agencies. The “Ungli Campaign”, MTS election tracker and Google’s Pledge to vote campaign are

perfect case studies for how corporates have leveraged the elections.

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 CHANGING FACE OF POLITICAL CAMPAIGNING STRATEGIES IN INDIA

Campaign strategies of Indian political parties have rarely moved away from traditional methods of
broadcast campaigning of printing campaign posters, playing tv and radio ads and door-to-door
campaigning. These methods have given them results in the past and so few campaign managers saw reason
to change a winning strategy. There is always apprehension about adopting something new and politicians
were in unchartered waters when it came to moving a large part of their campaign to a digital format.
Moving towards a digital medium also poses the threat of leaving out the rural voter bank who have limited
access to smartphones and internet. The biggest issue faced was that there were no completely accurate voter
files available to leverage targeting.

Past election campaigns made an ideology to define their party goals and it would be their loudest message.
But issues and concerns are not the same for every voter and a blanket approach to campaigning does not
give the desired results.

For national campaigns, the biggest reason for not adopting digital channels into their campaign is because
majority of India’s voting bank is rural. To win an election, a campaign needs to only target this large voting
bank. Old ideas have worked well and will continue to be an easy bet. When it comes smaller campaigns
like state elections, urban cities count for a significant size in the voting bank.

Digital adoption by political campaigns in India

MR OB of USA campaign in 2008 became a proof of concept for Indian political campaigns. Their
campaign had a 100-strong analytics team that helped him rally voters and win the election. The MR OB
campaign brought the advantages of big data to the attention of Indian campaigners. 2014 saw a new face of
election campaigning in India when MR M hired the political strategist, MR P.K to manage his election
campaign. MR P.K and his group of data analysts went to work collecting and analysing huge amounts of
data across various demographics in India. Their efficient use of big data propelling MR M into the front
seat. Data analysis helped the team micro-target their audience and tailor messages for every demographic.
It helped them raise funds and determine efficient ad placement, exponentially increasing the campaign’s
reach.

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The PARTY Y had data on each of the 543 constituencies. They knew how many mobile and Internet users
were present in each constituency. The same holds true for social media users. Alongside, they used
analytics to understand which polling booths had voted for the PARTY Y in the previous elections. For each
polling booth data analytics was used to segregate voters into blocks to determine who were pro,

undecided or against the PARTY Y. They first used deep analytics to understand group communication
behaviour and then used appropriate technology to communicate with them.

The 2014 MR M campaign heavily used social media data to target voters and market their candidates. The
18 months long campaign was backed up by meticulous research done over the span of 3 to 4 years. They
got voter feedback and addressed voter concerns and issues in real time. It bridged the gap between the
candidate and the average voter. With millions of people feeding them real time data, analytics saw to it that
status updates on social media would reflect the opinions of voters. MR M used voice broadcasting to target
mobile only voters. Understanding the voter’s preferences also helped in placing ads where there is a higher
chance of them being seen and clicked on. MR M’s team carefully monitored social media conversations
where PARTY Y was being discussed and promptly responded to concerns voiced. The campaign spread
over internet and mobile with numerous social media campaigns to bring together PARTY Y volunteers on
the ground. With the advanced use of analytics, the MR M campaign targeted 810 million voters, 543
constituencies across 1.13 million polling booths.

With MR M’s success in using analytics to decide the course of his campaign, other parties are playing
catch-up to update their technological prowess. Any future campaigns that do not take use big data while
making campaign decisions run the risk of being left behind at the polling booth.

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 Comparison with New Vs Old Marketing Strategies

The traditional methods of campaigning have still been abundant in India with prospective political candidates

going from door to door distributing freebies, promising a well-being, gesticulating manners and courtesy,

and portraying themselves as a personification of transformation, evolution and a patient and purposeful

listener. Especially, this is seen when the election is declared and the candidates name has been shortlisted.

The reason these doors to doors and traditional campaigns have prevailed is the belief that is invested in

personal contact. Personal contact is more impactful, and this is further executed by distributing freebies,

announcing and requesting for votes through blow horns on rickshaws, TV and radio ads, broadcast, campaign

posters, vouchers, and so on. Hence, political parties have also been attempting to balance out and strategies

their marketing campaigns between conventional and digital, and media and social media.

There are two significant components that political campaigners aim to collaborate and maintain in sync: the

candidate focus and the environmental forces. Under the former, there are further four classifications namely,

party concept, product concept, selling concept and the marketing concept. And, the latter forms party to

technology, structural shifts, broker shifts in influence, political action committees, consultants and pollsters.

These 2 factors are blended and organized systematically through the marketing campaign along with the

stages of the political campaign. In the marketing campaign, the initial step is a market or voter segmentation.

The campaigning team has to assess and evaluate the needs and exigencies or the voters. This assessment

should be followed by creating a general profile of the voters and then identifying the segments of the voters.

Moreover, marketing and political campaigning is not just all about the voters and their responses, but also

the fact that the prospective candidate holds a balanced out quintessentially prominent significance in the

entire general picture. The campaign has to first analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate along

with the suitability and of course the past portfolio also plays an important role.

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On the grounds of these strengths and weaknesses, the competition of the candidate is orbited out, jotted down,

integrated, evaluated and then compared. Once the campaigning team figures out the target segment and relate

it to the expertise of the professional, the image of the candidate is established and portrayed to the society in

a good light so as to highlight their involvement, efforts, diligence and credibility. The process of scrutiny of

the candidate is a cumbersome process, and it involves various tedious decisions. Once the voter and the

candidate are thoroughly scrutinized, the strategy formulation and implementation commence with a product

campaign dais, push marketing and basic efforts, polling and organizational development and control. For

instance, the current ruling party of India is an epitome of how they followed marketing campaigners to the

tee. To begin with, their strategy of analyzing their voters and segregating them on different levels so as to

ace the persuasion and trust gaining and receiving the maximum number of votes. The vote acquisition took

place by identifying the values of the voters in terms of deep functional values (such as Swadeshi and its

juxtaposition with globalization, free market and foreign policies), internal social values (such as Dharam

Rajya, secularism, security, justice and efficient development), various emotional values (such as Hindutva,

and a uniform civil code,), conditional values through temporary events, and lastly epistemic values (such as

innovations, varied orientations, and incumbency factors). Every citizen, irrespective of caste, creed, gender

or race is a voter and hence, this voter has to be the highlight and the objective of the entire campaign.

Considering the aforementioned example of the Party Y, we could claim that the cognition and emphasis laid

on all these factors from a universal standpoint is what led to its victory. Triple Talaq issue has been the latest

issue involving the Muslim minorities. One of the most essential or initial factor of Political Marketing

Campaign is the brand imaging of a political party or a leader. It has been worldwide seen in the US where

the elections are mostly focused on the branding of the party.

It is a brand that helps acquire votes and eventually wins trust. If we see this digital era, campaigning has

greatly expanded and has been absorbed into various means such as forums, tweets, hangouts and chats, blogs,

unique agendas for promotions, and other social platforms through which problems could be talked while

campaigning simultaneously and user participation would be encouraged, and thus proving the value and

capability of the political party or the leader.

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Ashwin Varkey, director - Fatmen Ideas, says “Today, new media is actually the most interesting side to

political campaigns. It's constant, every day and has no rules.” Newly minted voters make it impossible for

political parties to ignore emerging mediums communication. Thus, political brands have to carefully develop,

manage and monitor social media strategies as of new media is playing a critical role in shaping the discourse

on issues and managing perceptions, according to Siddharth Shekhar Singh, associate professor – marketing,

Indian School of Business (ISB). If a party and its personalities don’t brand themselves consciously then others

will brand them the way they choose to.

There’s a caveat here though. New media is about personalities, which is distinct from how traditional political

movements function, especially cadre-based movements that operate around ideologies.

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 MARKETING ELEMENTS AND TOOLS USE BY THE PARTIES

USE OF SLOGAN

There are three simple communications devices that every campaign need: the first one is the message, another

has to do with issues that support the message, also, every effective campaign must have an effective slogan.

Campaigns are organized in order to sell the candidate or portray him or her as the best candidates amongst

others, giving people every reason why they should vote for that particular candidate. Many strategies are used

to actualize this and one of the common and most efficient ones is using a campaign slogan. Different

candidates and their political parties come up with their own slogan.

The slogan is usually a short phrase but has the ability to convey the agenda of the candidate or the party to

the masses. Whichever slogan the party chooses, the main aim is to draw the attention of the people.

USE OF MERCHANDISES

Ahead of the elections, markets are flooded with diverse kinds of political merchandise, including masks,

shirts and flags containing pictures of various political leaders on them. Selling key chains, T-shirts, and

jackets, among other things. On all merchandise, party logo is there. They have a humongous demand, the

biggest demands are for flags, cap and mufflers. The impact of these stuffs is huge and it also helps in building

brand image of the party/candidate. Turning a politician into a brand is certainly useful. Brand(candidate)

becomes an act of reflection with the multiplying effect of a hall of mirrors. As candidate stands at the rally,

beaming, waving to the crowd, the jubilant crowd gazes back at him/her. For fans it's like coming together in

the hyper-reality of a theme park, a Disneyland of hope and optimism.

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INTEGRTAED COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN

This involves the use of multiple methods of media but the message you send out should be a unified one.

Parties/candidates run TV ads, print ads, radio ads, they used YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.

They targeted different audiences and segments. They used TV to reach the average man. They used Internet

to reach out to the youngsters who are online most of the time. They reached rural people through road shows

and rallies.

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UTILIZING IN-APP AND DISPLAY ADVERTISING ON MOBILE AND DESKTOP

Apart from using mobile phones to reach out to the electorate through SMS and voice messages, parties in

their campaign also utilized banner advertisements and in-app ads to spread the message. In the weeks

leading up to the elections, many popular apps across all major OS would see an ad unit. This was not

limited to only applications but could also be seen on web properties. Parties also launch a number of apps

across platforms to provide information on their candidates, the latest news and quotes from their leaders

and other information. The intention is to target every available option that a person could use to interact

with the party and its prime ministerial candidate.

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 CONCLUSION

The Political Marketing is new concept entered in the field of Politics. As the brand gives major shape to

Marketing, hence the top leaders of parties are used as brand of that particular party. The party can get

success/loss because of use these faces of top leaders as party brand and the result will prove the strategy of

brand and party’s marketing processes were correct or not. The voters are well known that these top leaders

of party will govern the party and party will run Government. Hence, it is also importance that the brands

are justifying to the party’s manifesto declared by party before election. The brand has capable to set

consumers mind and divert it to your product or services. Even brand has magic power to rules on the

thinking of society. The common man relates the most to the political leaders in a campaign followed by the

past performance of the contending parties. party X failure according to the study can be attributed to the

fact that the party was unable to address the various allegations of corruption levied against it, when the part

was in Government. The leader is therefore, the face of the campaign and his personal beliefs; background

and character traits paint the overall campaign strategy and determine the keywords that are associated with

the party over variety of mediums. The political leader leverages maximum recall. Hence a political party

needs a strong leader who is the face of the campaign and of the party’s ideology. By use of social media

political parties can reach to the grassroots. But Public Relations have emerged as the most important

campaigning tool. Strategic communications and community engagement are the backbone of any electoral

propaganda.

Hence, it is concluded that branding and creating a brand image through brand advertisements have a lot of

impact on political campaigns. There is Brand to Political Party and the party uses top leaders as brand of that

particular party, it effects the voting decision and influence voters. Also, the Party Brand is responsible to

win/loss Election; it helps and plays major role in modern concept of Political Marketing.

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