The branding of politics

With the Tamil Nadu elections over, I am wondering if there is a lot of branding and marketing in elections? It looks like there is.

- Ravi S. Thyagaraja, Chennai

Ravi, you are right. Elections are full of brand and marketing inputs really. The politician in many ways is the best marketer. The oldest marketer of them all as well. A savvy one. Brand marketers can themselves learn a lot from the politician at the hustings.

There is a lot of branding. The mother brand is the political party candidates contest under, and the brand is the candidate himself/herself. And politicians invest a fair bit to build both.

Politicians look for professional inputs on both.

Typically, there are two pieces of work. One is of the strategic type, where one is putting together ways and means to garner votes. The other is of the tactical type, which translates into the activation work at the ground level.

Politicians and their cadres are typically good at activation. A good piece of strategy that receives widespread and orchestrated activation at the ground level spells the best of strategic branding practice.

The key point in an election is one of image. Image of the party and image of the candidate as well. Both go in tandem and candidates invest in both.

The younger candidates want a different image altogether. They are more aggressive in their want of technology. Many are driven by the Internet, blogs, debates and more. The older generation of leaders wants a mix of both. They want a bit of presence in every medium there is.

Older leaders are very keen to maintain their existing equity intact as well. In many ways, older leaders know the ground level reality that much more and are able to grapple with change a lot better. Younger leaders are willing to experiment with more.

A mixed bag of issues are really used to communicate image. Corruption has been one in this election. Poverty is the other big one.

In a real sense, there are few dominant issues. There is no one issue that is binding the nation. Poverty exists. So does the threat of terror. So does corruption. Economic imbalance has been a reality of Indian polity over the decades. Price rise was an issue. No longer. Inflation has dropped.

As there is no one issue at hand, ground-level realities of the electorate take over. And one big factor in Indian elections is the caste factor. There is a lot of strategising done here till the day of withdrawal of nominations.

Politics and branding are, therefore, good bedfellows. One learns form the other. Both gain.

Why is social cause marketing important in the present day scenario? What are its origins?

- Lalita Mohite, New Delhi

Lalita, in the beginning, marketing is all about selling products. About selling the tea and car and tractor and toothpick alike. Then it is about selling services. Marketing of services is a higher end development. When products come to a standstill, services take over. To that extent, I do believe everything is a service. Nothing will remain a pure product at all. Coffee drunk at home is a product. The same coffee partaken of at a Barista or a Café Coffee Day outlet is a service. God worshipped at home is a product. God worshipped at church or a temple is a “service”.

The service dimension adds value to a brand. Value that is unique and irreplicable. Irreplaceable, even.

Products and services are sold at the lowest common denominator level by the use of simple marketing. As societies and peoples evolve, marketing assumes a higher dimension of play. Look keenly at Maslowe's hierarchy of needs for a clue.

When marketing society is simple, simple marketing rules. When society is food-, clothing- and shelter-deprived, simple marketing rules. As one climbs Maslowe's hierarchy of needs, marketing itself needs to morph. When social needs dominate, marketing needs to focus on societal mores and moods. Marketing is all about classiness and experiential benefits here. Still, one lives at the functional satiation level.

As society morphs further, and as people reach levels of self-actualisation in their lives, when money and societal scores don't matter, marketing needs to morph to a level of emotional gains and cues. At the highest end of these emotional gains and cues lies social marketing. Social marketing dominates in a society that is operating at the highest common denominator level of its customer profile and not at the lowest common denominator level.

Societal marketing attains relevance in categories where there is enough ennui and boredom with standard brand positioning stances. Take tea, for instance. In the beginning it was marketed simply. As the “tasty” tea. The selling line was generic. Simple.

As society grows from one degree of want, need, desire, aspiration and deprivation to another, marketing itself morphs in its appeal. Tea, therefore, becomes functionally positioned. It becomes the tea with “taste” , the tea with “strength” and the tea with “aroma”. And then comes another tea with “taste, aroma and strength” all together. This functional stance can then move on to economy (the tea that gives more cups per kilogram) and more.

Society morphs and grows again. Functional attributes and functional positing stances give way to emotional ones. The tea that gets you to fall in love. The tea that helps you work more (the work-mate tea) and more.

Society grows up. Society is tired of everything else now. Consumers have matured and are self-actualising. This is the time for the “social cause” USP to come in. Tata Tea's “ Jaago re ” campaign fits in here.

Tata Tea is not the only company that has experimented with this to success. Lifebuoy has, with its “Lifebuoy SwasthaChetana” and the Lifebuoy clean up the locality campaign ads. So has Surf, with its “ Do bucket paani bachna hai ” campaign with Shabana Azmi in the lead.

The origins of social cause marketing is the society itself.

What is the benefit of after-sales service to the marketer?

- S. S. Sharma, New Delhi

Sharma-ji, most companies are very good up to the sale process and terrible at after-sales. These are companies that do not understand where the sale really starts and where it ends.

In reality, the sale begins when companies embark upon the process of making a consumer aware of the product offering. This then continues, as the consumer is made deeply interested in the product through the hard-selling process. The desire is then stoked. This also is selling. Most of the time this is done through advertising. The action of buying and selling is the real selling-in process. And after this, comes the after-sales process. This is the point when consumers and their product dissonances are managed. This is a critical phase. This phase could lead to good word of mouth for the product or bad, depending on the efficacy of after-sales service.

After-sales service actually helps bring in repeats as well. Sometimes it's the same customer, or more often than not, repeats from consumers referred to by the satisfied customer. The importance of after-sales service cannot therefore be under-estimated.

Harish Bijoor is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.askharishbioor@gmail.com

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