|
The recent UP elections witnessed political parties creating a differentiation for themselves, without focusing on their core strengths and deliverables. In the end, the triumph was for the one who was successful in reaching the target group. Advertisements play a very important role in every sector, including the political sector, to reach the masses, to win the elections. It can shower blessings if projected wisely; otherwise, it can be a curse resulting in drastic failure. The recent UP elections proved that if ads are projected in an unrealistic manner, they will show extreme results and become a bane rather than a boon.
India Shining was a political slogan referring to the overall feeling of economic optimism in India after the bumper agricultural year and the boom in the Indian Information Technology (IT) sector (Exhibit 1). The slogan was popularized by the then-ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2004 Indian general elections. The slogan was then used as a central theme in the BJP's campaign for the 2004 national elections, a move criticized by their opponents, who felt that public money was being used for partisan purposes. In response, the Indian Election Commission banned the slogan's broadcast until the completion of elections, although BJP politicians continued to use the slogan in other contexts.
"India Shining", "Feel Good", campaigns of BJP brought about its end in the last Loksabha elections. Then came Samajwadi Party's (SP's) UP mein hai dum, kyonki yahan jurm hai kam campaign featuring Bollywood Superstar Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign led to the worst defeat of the party in the just concluded assembly elections. People in politics should know that advertising is a double-edge weapon. The think tank of Samajwadi Party, Amar Singh, had learned a hard lesson from this fiasco. The series of advertisement which was aired in print and television media, exhilarating the greatness of the SP leader and former Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, caused more harm than good to the party's election campaign, because the message conveyed through the advertisement could not be digested by the masses. |
