The Congress Party's Rs 150-crore ad campaign for the 2009 elections has been the largest by a political party to date. A behind-the-scenes look at what went into it.
No one can gauge just how much the advertising campaign with its reiterative aam aadmi focus and co-option of an Oscar winning theme song, Jai Ho contributed to the Congress Party’s unexpectedly decisive victory in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
But ad agencies Crayons, JWT and Percept, which shared the Rs 150-crore Congress Party campaign, aren’t worrying too much. The money is already in the bank. Within days of returning to power, the Congress has paid all the three agencies in full.
Accustomed to unending delays in payments from companies, the agencies are on cloud nine. Promotions, bonuses, new cars are all in their way for the key campaign members.
Never has so much money been spent on a single political campaign.
The Congress had started the hunt for an agency some time in July last year. Several agencies including JWT, Euro RSCG, Madison, Rediffusion and Crayons made their pitch to the Publicity Committee of the All India Congress Committee headed by Rahul Gandhi.
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Four of these were shortlisted for the next shootout — JWT, Crayons, Euro RSCG and Rediffusion. This time there were more AICC members. The leader was once again Rahul Gandhi. Finally, in August 2008, two of these, Crayons and JWT, were asked to make presentations to a select Congress team at 10 Janpath, residence of Congress President Sonia Gandhi in New Delhi. Having screened the agencies earlier, Rahul Gandhi was absent this time.
In September, the Congress handed over the contract to Crayons, the small Delhi-based agency that had worked for several years with the government. In the past, it had worked with the Bharatiya Janata Party including the 2004 General Elections and was perceived to be close to that party. What clinched the Congress deal in its favour was its strong pitch for Hindi and local languages as the medium of communication.
“What we said was that the communication is not about creatives but about content. And for that you need political understanding. Few voters connect with a campaign in English,” said Crayons Chairman & Managing Director Kunal Lalani.
Some time in December, a debate arose within the Congress: The campaign was big and would Crayons be able to do it alone? Crayons lobbied hard to say it could. Still, the Congress called JWT on board.
The mandate was divided: JWT would do the electronic media and Crayons would do print, out-of-home and digital media (internet). The money was split roughly equally between the two.
The Congress then set up a war room for the campaign. It was headed by Jairam Ramesh (he had resigned as the minister of state for power by then). The other members included Vishwajeet Singh, Digvijay Singh, Motilal Vora, Mukul Vasnik and Jagdish Tytler. Since it was a Congress campaign, none of the ministers was involved.
“I was amazed to see the involvement of the senior political leaders. The brain-storming was an open thought process and I did not expect the leaders to be so positive and receptive about advertising, ” said Percept Senior Vice-president Amitava Mitra.
The key parameters for the campaign were defined, according to insiders, in consultation with Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi. It was to be a “ positive ” campaign that would talk about the achievements relevant to the aam aadmi — the rural jobs scheme, farm loan waiver, empowerment of women. The Indo-US civil nuclear deal, it was decided, was yet to result in any benefit for the people and was, therefore, kept out of the campaign.
Actual testimonials were encouraged, celebrities and models dumped. For the print media, testimonials were shot at 38 locations such as Sangrur in Punjab, Nashik in Maharashtra and Jaisalmer in Rajasthan. And these faces were used extensively in the campaign.
From the Congress, only three faces were used: Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Local leaders and caste heavyweights were axed from the campaign.
Fresh creatives were done in local languages because it was decided that translations from English and Hindi do not work in local languages. Hindi advertisements were placed even in English dailies. The focus was on regional papers with a large footprint.
And just in case the BJP decided to opt for negative advertising in its campaign, the Congress had a counter-campaign ready, complete with the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya and the release of terrorists at Kandahar. The powder was dry but the use for such a campaign never arose.
The war room ran all the creatives past Rahul Gandhi. He proved to be more than just a rubber stamp. Many a creative was rejected and sent back to the drawing board. The final nod always came from Sonia Gandhi. She too brought in several changes. “I was amazed at her understanding of the Hindi language, its nuances and context,” said Lalani.
Every bit of the campaign that broke out in February was thus approved by Rahul Gandhi as well as Sonia Gandhi.
The focus was on the electronic media. Television reached 75 per cent of the registered voters in the country. JWT did almost 250 spots for television as well as radio. The focus again was what the Congress-led government had done in the five years of its rule and what it would do if re-elected to power. BJP, in turn, had few promises to make — the only thing that struck a chord was that it would raise the income-tax exemption limit to Rs 300,000.
Meanwhile, the Congress also felt the need for a song that could be played on the electronic medium. The party had approached Oscar-winning musician Allah Rakha Rehman some time late last year for such a song but he couldn’t find the time for it. Meanwhile, Slumdog Millionaire swept the Oscars. It was then decided that the hugely popular theme song, Jai Ho, should be used for the campaign. The rights for the song were held by Percept, for which the Congress paid Rs 1 crore. It asked Percept to do some short films with the song. Jai Ho’s upbeat notes, the campaign managers were convinced, would go down well with the electorate.
