Digital Marketing Case Study:Brand Modi

DIGITAL MARKETING CASE STUDY

SUBMITTED TO Dr. LOVELEEN GAUR SUBMITTED BY: VIPUL VERMA MBA-IB 2014-16 A1802014058

BRAND MODI: A DIGITAL MARKETING CASE STUDY Namo! Namo! Namosatya! These chants could be heard all over India whilst the elections of 2014 of the next PM candidate were held. The fan following of PM Narendra Modi multiplied into folds during this period and majorly among the youngsters. One of the main factors that can be accounted for Modi’s success is Social Networking , Database Marketing and Social Media Marketing. In this case we discuss the building of Brand Modi in lieu of Digital Marketing. How Modi with the help of Digital Media took Brand Modi from regional to National. This case also digs in to his strategies using Digital marketing which made him convince 1.3 Billion people and become the Prime Minister of India.

Whatever your outlook to politics and political parties in the country, there was no escaping Modi. He was everywhere and overshadowed every other political party in the country. Positioning a specific leader as the face of the political party is nothing new in India. Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and Atal Bihari Vajpayee to name a few have had the distinction. But in each case the individual personalities have never risen above the political parties to which they belonged. In the case of Narendra Modi it is safe to declare that the political campaign made Modi overshadow even the BJP. Brand Modi captured public imagination in a way no other political leader had done before. How did this happen? Narendra Modi was an important figure for BJP in the 1995 state election campaign and six years later he became the Chief Minister of State. He was serving his 4th consecutive term and during this period and 13 years of service he was praised for his economic policies and the increased economic growth of Gujarat. But, he was also seen as a Hindu nationalist. In June 2013 he was chosen as the Chairman of the national campaign committee after L. K. Advani’s resignation in his favour. From that moment, Narendra Modi became the Centre of BJP’s campaign.

It was not an easy task for Mr.Modi as everything has past associated with them as well. It was clearly known by everyone in Bhartiya Janta Party that, if Modi wanted to successfully win the PM campaign he must first have to renew his image which was of prime importance.

Why was an image reversal necessary? Modi carried a taint from the 2002 Anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat. It was under Modi’s leadership that such an incident took place and many non-supporters of Modi, blamed him for uplifting these riots as BJP(Bhartiya Janta Party) has always considered themselves an all in all Hindu Party. Non-supporters believed that Modi was the person who provoked these riots and a lot could have been done by Modi as he was the chief minister during those riots. This had left Modi’s image all tarnished and cramped up, and in order for Modi to achieve national success and image reversal was of utmost importance.

What helped Modi with the image reversal was the TATA Motors Ltd, land acquisition case in West Bengal,2008. This case was one of the most important turn of event that helped Modi to establish a national mark. When farmers in West Bengal, were protesting for land acquisition by Tata Motors for the plant, this uproar was also given a green signal and backed by politician Mamata Banarjee, now the chief minister of West Bengal. Modi then asked Tata Motors to shift it’s Nano Car plant from West Bengal to Gujarat and also provided the company other incentives and land overnight. In this prpcess, he established himself as man with business intellect and a champion for Industry & development.

Objective for ‘Brand Modi’ campaign There were two major objectives or challenges(as stated below) associated with this campaign, and Modi wanted to overcome these challenges at all cost. Firstly, It was that, that the three-time CM of Gujarat was regional brand trying to go national.

Secondly, It was a well known fact that, 2014 elections had 150 million first time voters and was the largest vote bank that could make or break any campaign , Thus, it was of the utmost importance that the 63-year old PM candidate connect with the youth of this country. Thirdly, Modi was trying to connect to the Urban, middle class families who were becoming more politically conscious.

Broad Strategy Brands are constructed when they are trusted. Also, trust is constructed when clients, for this situation, voters can securely foresee better execution of the administration in future. A decent forecast is just conceivable in view of past reliable execution and not as a matter of course on future guarantees. One of BJP's key marking procedures was to represent an in number individual as the possibility for PM, as opposed to the gathering. It is on account of BJP in general has not been a predictable entertainer throughout the years but rather Modi has been. With a high sharp crusade, it was unrealistic for Congress to continue battling at a gathering level against a high performing person. They were constantly hesitant in naming the PM competitor and made Rahul Gandhi the substance of Congress. I don't think Congress ever needed to battle the decision taking into account an identity; they needed to battle it on issues and keep people in general befuddled. On the other hand, they were constrained into playing the diversion, the way BJP needed to. When Rahul was designated the substance of Congress, it was the first enormous procedure botch for them. Rahul did not have a background marked by initiative take off alone predictable administration of a legislature. Add to it the perplexity and absence of planning he conveys to the table, everything brought about voters not trusting Congress to lead the eventual fate of India.

It began in July 2013 with an advanced battle named "Mission 272+", alluding to the quantity of seats BJP required for a lion's share in Parliament. This in the end turned into an Android App that could be utilized by BJP supporters to enlist themselves as voters in a BJP database and enroll others as well. All through the whole battle, Modi utilized his Facebook and Twitter pages. 30+ million preferences on his facebook page when last checked. Second just to Barack Obama regarding fans taking after lawmakers. Modi's Twitter page tallies 15.6 Million supporters. As per Twitter India, 5 out of the 10 Top Elections Tweets have been sent by Modi, including the triumph tweet and the selfie with his mom.

As India is not a little and uninhabited nation and Modi expected to reach as much individuals as he would, he be able to utilized another innovation that lawmakers have never utilized: 3D images. Along these lines he's been equipped for holding 100 unique arouses around India at the same minute coming to 14 million additional voters. Clearly remaining in his studio in the Gandhinagar habitation. Voters could go to this "visualization 3D" arouses to see Narendra Modi's "Symbol" showing up and conversing with them as though he was really there. These Virtual arouses were then transferred to YouTube where a huge number of viewers have watched them.

Marketing Strategies behind the campaign Narendra Modi’s campaign team has used some very innovative and timely decisions that has helped give high visibility and add potent muscle to the election campaign. Here are some of the strategies that have worked. 1) Understanding Consumer Insights: We always say that marketing has to be based on consumer insights. Recently, you must have seen advertisements of Fogg deodorants where they differentiate themselves from competition saying that we are ‘All deodorant. No gas” vis-a-vis its competitors. This is something they learned through consumer research. Similarly, the campaign managers of the BJP conducted consumer research. They found that the brand value of Narendra Modi is much higher than that of the BJP. Therefore, they took the decision to project Narendra Modi instead of projecting BJP or the NDA in all their campaigns. Right now, after the victory, it all seems obvious. But 6 months back, when Narendra Modi was anointed the prime ministerial candidate, it was not that obvious. In fact, it was controversial. Even some of the senior leaders from the BJP were against the decision. The fact that they went ahead with their decision is a masterstroke.The campaign managers realized that Brand Modi is more powerful than brand BJP. 2) Getting the Best Minds on Board: Second, they hired the best known names in Indian advertising. Sam Balsara, Prasoon Joshi, Piyush Pandey. These people have a wealth of experience behind them. They have run successful campaigns with hundreds of brands in their lives. They took sentimentality out of the picture and looked at this as business. They decided that their client was the BJP. If BJP was any other brand, how would they sell? Having these experienced senior people like the trio certainly helped. 3) Catchy Slogan: There are slogans in marketing. Nike has ‘Just do it’. Similarly, BJP decided to have a catchy slogan. ‘Ab ki Bar, Modi Sarkar’. It was extremely catchy. It was easy on the tongue. Everybody could say it. Even the non-Hindi speakers could understand what it stood for and they could easily articulate it. So, it resonated with everybody.

4) Integrated communications campaign. This involves the use of multiple methods of media but the message you send out should be a unified one. This was done brilliants by the BJP and their campaign managers. The message was Brand Modi and what he stood for. They ran TV ads, print ads, radio ads, they used YouTube, 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. Narendra Modi himself addressed hundreds of rallied throughout the country and he also has a great ability to communicate. Just like Bill Clinton. He had an innate tendency to connect with the audience. I see the same thing with Narendra Modi. 5) Word of Mouth: There was a clear perception that Modi was a doer. He could get things done. There was a widespread perception that that there was a policy paralysis with the previous government. Modi and his team took advantage and leveraged his image as a doer. Even things like word of mouth and viral hits like Kolaveri Di did not use any marketing. It just spread among people. There are a lot of migrant laborers from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh worked in Gujarat and when they went back home, they spread positive word of mouth about Narendra Modi and his team. 6) Database Marketing. Particularly in important states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, what the campaign managers did was collect huge database and they worked on reaching out directly to the people. It also greatly helped that the opposition ran a very lackluster campaign run by the opposition party. All these factors mentioned above resulted in a landslide victory. While advertising and marketing alone did not help, but in my view, they were major contributors.

Success Once his victory was clear and after the famous tweet, the enthusiasm exploded on social media. In order to collect all the good wishes and the supporters’ passion, a “Victory wall” was created. Everyone could share comments by SMS, Tweet or Facebook, and also design their own message. The Victory Wall webpage has been quickly filled with thousands of notes from all over the country and not only, marked with the hashtag #CongratsNaMo. The great use of digital sources revealed itself as the right strategy for BJP in order to beat the Congress Party led by the Gandhi dynasty. Learnings An early start to the campaign gave the managers enough time to fine tune and change the messaging to keep the audience’s interest alive. It also gave them enough time to ensure that when one message had sunk in, another important message was brought to the fore. These elections – and in particular this campaign – marked a turning point in the global political communication, and can be only compared with the first Obama’s campaign in 2008, when he started using social networks.

But here we can notice an evolution of what happened in the USA: it is the leader himself that communicate with his supporters, creating a direct link between him and people. Narendra Modi used a simple communication that could be understood by everyone and, at the same time, he leveraged the new social media “language” bringing about the desired result. This brought about the building of brand Modi – from a regional to a national superstar.

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