10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

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Home Business Today Case Study June 8, 2014 Story

Just the Right Image

This case study looks at the strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi.
Shamni PandeDelhi Print Edition: June 8, 2014

Narendra Modi Photo: Reuters

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Executive Summary: Bharatiya Janata Party leader Narendra Modi's election Aadhar card not mandatory
juggernaut in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls is an example of howto prepare and to get ration in Jharkhand:
Minister
successfully implement a marketing and branding campaign. Irrespective of your
faith, ideology and voting decision, there has been no escaping Modi. His image
and in-your-face messaging have overshadowed all other brands - even that of his India says ready for stronger US ties after
Rex Tillerson endorsement
own party. This case study looks at the strategy and tactics behind the creation of
Brand Modi.

Pitching a specific leader as a driver of change and to mobilise voters' support is

India's oil imports hit
hardly a new political strategy. After all, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had
record high in September
projected L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee its prime ministerial candidates in
the past (remember the Ab ki baari Atal Bihari slogan in 1996?). The Congress
ECONOMY CORPORATE MARKETS MONEY INDUSTRY TECH OPINION PHOTOS VIDEOS MAGAZINE
party's projection of Indira Gandhi as the country's tallest leader with its 'Indira lao
US to monitor India's dollar
desh bachao' tagline in the 1970s is another such example. But the personal rhetoric accumulation
had been tied, and sometimes made subservient, to the political parties to which
these leaders belonged. With his landslide win in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections,
Narendra Modi has rewritten the rules of the game and redefined Indian With 25 lakh dead, India saw world's most
pollution-related deaths in 2015, says
study
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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

politics. Brand Modi has not only captured popular imagination but also trumped
Brand BJP. How did it happen? MORE

David Aaker, American marketing guru and author of several books on branding,
wrote in an April 2012 blog post that every person has a brand that affects how the MORE
person is perceived and whether he or she is liked and respected. This brand, he
says, can be actively managed with discipline and consistency over time, or it can be You May Like Promoted Links

allowed to drift. Modi and his marketing team showed oodles of both once he was This Limited Edition Home in Khar
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Modi's transformation over the past year from a regional, right-wing politician to a
decisive leader with a clear development agenda, the one best suited to take India by Taboola

forward is nothing short of extraordinary. Senior BJP leaders Piyush Goyal and
Ajay Singh handled the overall media strategy, and a task force was constituted to
handle Modi's campaign in Varanasi. Advertising legends such as Ogilvy & Mather's
Piyush Pandey, McCann Worldgroup's Prasoon Joshi and Sam Balsara of Madison
World lent their skills at various levels. Advertising agency Soho Square, part of the

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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

WPP Group, handled television, radio and print campaigns with catchy slogans
such as "Ab ki Baar Modi Sarkar". MORE

"The archetype he offers is of a strong, all-knowing father figure who is

unwavering," says Santosh Desai, who heads Future Brands, the brand consultancy
arm of Future Group. To create the father figure, Modi's team invoked tales of
childhood, in books and comics. Invariably, and understandably, they were tales of
heroism involving a precocious Bal Narendra (Modi as a child). What else would
you call a story about a child swimming across a crocodile-infested lake to plant a
flag on a memorial? The child, when he came of age, walked away from his family to
devote himself to public cause, lending what brand consultant Harish Bijoor calls
"bachelor blandness" to his story.

From Gujarat to India

Modi's team faced three main challenges when it set out to project him as the
country's next prime minister. One, the three-time Gujarat chief minister was a
regional brand trying to go national. Two, the 63-year-old was seeking to connect
with the youth considering that this year's election had almost 150 million first-time
voters. Modi, who rarely chooses to speak in English, was trying also to connect
with the urban, middle-class audience that is becoming more politically conscious.
Finally, and most importantly, he carried the taint of the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in
Gujarat.

The one event that, perhaps, helped Modi the most in making a mark on the
national scene was the shifting in 2008 of Tata Motors' factory for the Nano
minicar from West Bengal to Gujarat. Farmers in West Bengal, backed by firebrand
Social News
politician Mamata Banerjee, now the state's chief minister, had been protesting Business Today

land acquisition for the plant by Tata Motors. Modi provided the company land and
other incentives almost overnight. In the process, he also established himself as a Business Today
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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

MORE

Sridhar Samu, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Hyderabad's Indian School of

Business (ISB), says it's not easy for most product brands to go from regional to
national. He says the dilution of the only other national brand, the Congress, and a
common underlying need for change also helped Modi. "If a brand can tap into a
common underlying need and connect it to benefits, then it could go national. We
see how both Haldiram's and Saravanaa Bhavan have managed this. They targeted
the underlying need for tasty snacks and south Indian food," he says.

Full Coverage:Lok Sabha Elections 2014

According to Y.L.R Moorthi, Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of

Management, Bangalore, there is a difference between a regional brand going
national and a politician going national. He says Modi was known outside Gujarat
even before he decided to move beyond the state, just as Nitish Kumar and J.
Jayalalithaa, chief ministers of Bihar and Tamil Nadu, respectively, are known. But
these regional leaders didn't venture out of their home states in the recent elections.
Modi did. And he did it at a massive scale - he attended more than 5,000 events and
470 political rallies across the length and breadth of the country.

Striking a Chord
On February 6, 2013, more than six months before he was named as the BJP's
choice for the prime minister's post, Modi addressed students at Delhi's Shri Ram
College of Commerce. He talked about Gujarat's model of development. He spoke
passionately about the need for speed in government decision-making and about
the need to improve skills of the youth to accelerate economic growth. That speech
won him many young admirers. One of them is the second-year student Sulabh
Newatia, who says he decided to cast his vote for the BJP after listening to Modi's
speech. "I see him as a visionary who can take the nation forward," says the 19-year-
old from Kolkata.

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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

Modi, an excellent orator, has delivered scores of similar speeches since then. He
highlighted slowing economic growth, high inflation and lack of new jobs - issues MORE

which immediately resonate with young and urban voters - while blaming the
Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for the problems. After the
elections were announced, his marketing team bombarded voters with print,
television and radio advertisements with the same themes. It reached voters
through text messages and Modi's recorded voice seeking votes for himself. It also
tapped into social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter - Modi
has about four million Twitter followers - to magnify the impact of the advertising
and branding campaign.

The impact of this relentless campaigning has been felt across different age groups,
geographies and sections of society, says political analyst Manisha Priyam. "I have
even heard young children, far removed from such debate, mentioning the word
'NaMo'," she says, referring to a sobriquet for Narendra Modi. The carefully crafted
moniker also appeals to the traditional Hindus - the BJP's main vote bank - because
of its religious connotation, as the Sanskrit word Namo is used as a salutation
reserved for the Hindu gods.

Modi's efforts to connect with the youth and urban

voters were helped in no small measure by his pro-
business persona. Business leaders from industry doyen
Ratan Tata to billionaire brothers Mukesh and Anil
Ambani have praised Modi and his administration in
Gujarat. This has allowed Modi to build his brand as a
progressive leader who has the ability to deliver
economic results - the single biggest leitmotif of this
campaign that has allowed it to cut through caste bias
among other things. "The Congress is not lacking in
spending power or ability to get marketing brains to
campaign for it. But the biggest push for Modi has come
from the overt push and advocacy of corporate leaders,"
says independent political observer and media veteran
Paranjoy Guha Thakurta. "It is a truism that marketing
cannot sell a bad product. Irrespective of the money you
spend on marketing, if what you are selling fails to strike
a chord in the minds of a large section of the electorate,
all efforts to market Modi would be in vain."

Shaking Off the Stigma

The biggest challenge Brand Modi faced was diverting
public attention away from the 2002 communal riots in
Gujarat that claimed the lives of more than 1,000
people, mostly Muslims. Initially, Modi's supporters in
BJP attempted to engage in public debate and highlight
the clean chit given by courts to wash off the stigma.
Then, they changed tack. They toned down the Hindutva
rheotoric and focused instead on Modi's more recent
past and his development record in Gujarat. "He knows
that people want a better life and he offers Hindutva
with the right dilution," says Desai of Future Brands.

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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

Marketing gurus cite the examples of Cadbury, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola that battled
problems relating to brand-taint. Cadbury had fought its way out of a controversy MORE

related to worms in its chocolates while the two beverages giants faced allegations
of pesticides in their colas. "The best way for a tainted brand to overcome a
challenge is to not talk too much, but to acknowledge it happened, and then move
on," says Samu, the ISB professor. "The more one talks about, the more the
memory for that event gets activated among the target market, and they remember
it more. The BJP and Modi did not talk about it. Or if they did, they kept it to a
minimum," he adds.

IIM-Bangalore's Moorthi says the weakness of the Congress leadership also helped
boost Brand Modi. "When the brands in the domain appear worse, the contending
brand might shine by comparison. In Modi's case, he was helped by the tightlipped
nature of the Congress leadership and their indifferent performance in the second
stint," he says.

While most companies routinely apologize for problems detected in their products,
Modi stopped short of doing so. "He did give an account of reflections on the event
[the riots]. He seemed to say that he was pained about the event but didn't say
sorry," says Moorthi. Veteran adman Prahlad Kakkar concurs. "It does not matter if
he [Modi] is wrong. He will never publicly admit that," observes Kakkar, who has
been associated with several political campaigns, including that of Indira Gandhi.
"But he will, at the same time, take corrective measures to navigate out of it,
without ever saying so."

The Ideal Model

Not so long so, the words that could have been used to describe Modi were
authoritarian, megalomaniac and communal. The way the creators of Brand Modi
dealt with the third taint was by not dealing with it. "What more was there to say
[about the post-Godhra riots)? There have been various panels instituted to probe
into the matter," says a BJP leader.

Instead, they focused on building Modi's image as self-made, strong, efficient,

inspiring, and incorruptible. "He [Modi] created an impression of being a sincere,
credible and committed leader. He convinced people that he could improve their
lot," says social scientist Ramadhar Singh, Distinguished Professor, IIM-Bangalore.
This is the leitmotif the marketing arsenal of the BJP worked to amplify. "No media
can help create that kind of consistency," adds Kakkar, the veteran adman.

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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

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Automatically, as if by derivation, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance

began to look more and more indecisive and corrupt. "Today, India attributes
weakness and failure to Congress," says adman and lobbyist Suhel Seth. "Modi
stands for good governance."

All stories about Modi's life in the public domain have consistently fed into this new
image. And although questions remain about Modi's ability to perform at the
national level and his Gujarat model of governance, his personal branding and
marketing strategy seems to have worked and voters across the country appear to
believe his claims. "Even if you cut out 40 per cent of what is untrue about Modi's
promise of growth...the rest is very real," says Guwahati's Chiranjib Hazarika, 24,
who is looking to start a career in banking. "Development is his only agenda and
people are following him."

Modi's message has attracted even those disinterested in politics. "I have never
been very politically conscious. But it is frustrating to see our economy slide back
from the progress it made. So, I stepped out to vote, for the first time, for Modi,"
says Shankar Narayanan, 28, who works for a multinational information technology
company in Chennai. "Modi has a proven track record of governance and growth."

Cut to 40-year-old Manoj Rana, who runs a small guest house in Shillong, and you
have the answer to the most central ingredient of Modi's branding: "We are not
interested in politics. We want change. Modi can deliver that change. People are
sensible, they are not carried away by mere talk," he says. That indeed is the bottom
line of any brand's success story. It bears out that Modi's brand is by him, for him
and from him. The BJP machinery has served as mere coaches for the branding-led
engine of Modi.

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10/30/2017 Case study: The strategy and tactics behind the creation of Brand Modi

BRAND MODI MUST MEET ITS PROMISE OF

GOOD GOVERNANCE MORE

The national branding of Narendra Modi was born out of

compulsion. Opponents had successfully branded the BJP
as communal and checked its rise under the uninspiring
old leadership. The BJP needed to redefine Indian politics
along dimensions of good governance and development
that suited it better.
The branding of Modi
and a The party was the first to recognise and adapt to the
presidentialstyle
campaign was a fundamental shift in the composition and aspirations of
brilliant response to voters. It seized the opportunity to project a new face to
rede ne politics:
Siddharth Shekhar address voters' aspirations. Thus was born brand Modi. A
Singh, Associate humble origin, extraordinary achievements through sheer
Professor of
Marketing and
hard work and dedication, and a corruption-free image
Director of the Fellow made Modi an apt mascot to challenge the status quo. The
Programme in
branding of Modi and a presidential-style campaign was a
Management, Indian
School of Business brilliant response to redefine Indian politics.

The branding of Modi was a well-crafted strategy of the RSS and the BJP. The
campaign attracted many newcomers. It was the first election campaign in India
to use social media and information technology heavily and first to listen to the
voters and respond in real time.

Brands require huge investment to build, and continuous nurturing to sustain

value. Not only can brand Modi sustain the BJP in power for a long time, it can
also help the RSS reposition itself. However, before that can happen, the
promise of brand Modi - good governance and economic development - must be
realised. Further, many voters are uncomfortable with the communal agenda of
some of his supporters.

Modi has to show what true secularism is and why it is different from pseudo-
secularism. If he succeeds in these three areas, he would change Indian politics
forever and make the BJP the natural party to govern - the main objective for
building brand Modi.

Siddharth Shekhar Singh, Associate Professor of Marketing and

Director of the Fellow Programme in Management, Indian School of Business

MODI IS A BRAND WHO KNOWS HE IS IN THIS

FOR THE LONG RUN

It is not uncommon in the world of marketing for a brand

to become not only bigger than its creator but also to
revitalise and rejuvenate it back. What iMac and iPod did
to Apple Inc is what Narendra Modi has done to the BJP.
Prior to Modi, the BJP brand was on the brink of
He [Modi] is a very irrelevance for what it stood for. Its Hindutva identity
strident, tenacious,
and in-your-face resonated deeply with the partition generation but its effect
avatar of a brand: had weakened for the successive generations.
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