The Hindu Business Line : Political image-making gets a push-up

THE Chief Minister of Rajasthan, Mr Ashok Gehlot, is looking for an image-maker. Elsewhere, the Chhattisgarh Chief Minister, Mr Ajit Jogi, is getting ready for the forthcoming polls. He has not only hired a former multinational corporate communications head to handle his Government's image, but has also placed an order of some 40 lakh school bags with his photographs printed on them, as a publicity exercise. Other similar examples abound.

With the Assembly elections due in the four States of Delhi, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, advertising agencies and public relations companies are gearing up to service politicians and political parties.

According to industry buzz, small to mid-sized ad agencies such as Graphic Ads, Rashtriya and Grey are among the names actively vying with each other to sign up political ad accounts.

Some of the larger ad agencies such as JWT and McCann-Erickson, on the other hand, do not work with political parties, since it is against their international policies.

As Mr Rohit Ohri, Senior Vice-President & Area Director, JWT, said, "As a corporate policy, we do not service political accounts."

During the last general elections, while the BJP had an in-house cell comprising advertising professionals, the Congress had worked with a whole stable of agencies such as Live Wire, Concept, Sony and Madison for its poll campaign.

This year, political image-making prior to the elections could assume larger proportions.

According to officials in the advertising industry, besides political parties, individual politicians too have increasingly started utilising the services of such agencies.

"With the proliferation of local cable and news channels, it is important for the local politicians to be visible," said one ad professional.

Another trend now is that the ad agency handles only the creative aspect of the media campaign, while the advertisements are directly released by the concerned political parties.

Meanwhile, ad industry sources pointed out that problems regarding payments to ad agencies have also to be dealt with.

"Generally, corporates or some local biggie picks up the tab for these campaigns," the sources said.

According to Mr Gopinath Menon, Vice-President, TBWA, political accounts, by and large, remain the domain of smaller agencies.

"The kind of revenues generated from such advertising, and nature of the work, are among the reasons for this trend," he said.

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