ARTICLE:
Had read this great article over at www.agencyfaqs.com

What can the ad agencies learn from the Indian politician? | 2004-03-12
By:
Biju Dominic
vice-president,
Mudra

It is now the election time, a time when political parties come under our close observation. All these political parties fighting for our votes resemble in several respects different brands fighting for consumer’s attention. Major political parties are as much mass market brands as brands manufactured by different companies. Like in the market place all the ‘national political brands’ have strong competition from several ‘regional brands’. Most of the political parties use marketing techniques like market segmentation, targeted marketing, positioning, repositioning etc more diligently than even the most astute marketers in India.

Most of the political parties know that their success in any elections is all about effective communication. Right from the main ideology of the party to the latest ideology to the main leader’s image to the local candidate’s caste, there are several factors that influence the outcome of an election. Apart from having to communicate all these factors, these messages have to reach out to almost every one in the country right from the SEC A+ to SEC E.

Having closely observed several cadre based political parties for long, I have noticed that they are not major users of mass communication. But there is a continuous communication from the party to their workers even at normal times. The key focus of these political parties is to create a strong ‘lasting impact’ with their communication in the common man’s mind.

But what have fascinated me about the communication strategies of the political parties are not the content of their communication but the mediums they use for their communication. These political parties have over the years created extremely robust systems in every village and town in this country. This helps them communicate with the common man on a regular basis. More so, with an impact that rivals any other communication system.

The first stage of building this communication system in a village is to create the ‘party loyalists’ in each village. Care is taken to make sure that the ‘party loyalists’ are respected persons in that society and come from different walks of life.

Much before term ‘permission marketing’ was invented, the Indian political parties had been putting it into practice in the Indian villages while building their grass root structure. The local party loyalists are taught to get involved in all the major activities in the village. So be it a marriage or building a road in the village, these workers will be at the forefront. So these party workers are at first a social worker in his locality and then a politician.

These party loyalists are advised to create opportunities that would enable them to have close interactions with the people in the locality.

In Kerala a prominent cadre based party set up reading rooms across all most all villages in Kerala. The youth of these villages came to these reading rooms in the evenings to read the newspapers. These reading rooms became a meeting place for the youth of the village. I know a political party that had advised their core members to penetrate all the arts and sports clubs in the villages. The party set up such clubs in villages that had no such clubs.

So the primary focus of these political parties is on developing institutions that help have more social interactions with the common man in the village. These social interactions help develop the ‘social capital’ for the political party in the village. Care is taken to find more opportunities that will help develop more ‘social capital’ in the village. This is a continuous process. Higher the social capital of the party in the village, higher is the ‘permission’ given by the village people for the acceptance of different messages from the party.

American democracy might have been built using 30sec commercials and mass media advertisements but Indian democracy has been built by the ‘social capital’ developed by the grass root party workers in every nook and corner of this country.


While the Indian political parties had realized the importance of grass root workers decades back, not many Indian marketers have realized its importance until recently. LIC, which has built a huge agent network across the country, might be a welcome aberration to this trend. But many of the Indian marketers like HLL and ITC are trying to make up for the lost time and are putting up huge efforts to build a strong grass root level structure. Many marketers have changed the structure of their marketing department so as to put specific people in charge of market activation- reaching out to the consumer at a personal level.

All the major political parties have grass root level workers in all the villages in India. Days are not far when every village will have HLL ‘party workers’, or LG ‘party workers’ in as much as every village has a BJP party workers, Congress party workers.

That will be the dawn of a new revolution in marketing communication. But it needs some revolutionary thinking from all concerned to make this a reality. More on this later…


Article continued in this one............
Indian political parties, the universities of learning on marketing? | 2004-04-21

Biju Dominic
vice-president,
Mudra
In my last article I had discussed about the successful attempts made by Indian political parties to build extremely efficient grass root level party structures. At the same time I have been reading newspaper reports about several major FMCG majors wanting to introduce a new system in the villages where a sales person will sell products directly to the consumers. Just a piece of advice to these FMCG majors, learn a few tricks of direct selling from the Indian political parties before venturing into a new system.

The grass root political worker is first a leader in his society and then a political worker. It is also true that the worker needs to play both these roles effectively to be a success. The party’s local level functionary tag helps him to walk into the local Panchayat office or into the police station to ‘sort out’ some of the problems of the common man. This show of power is the reason why many of the local people look up to him as a leader in the society. And these little favours by the local political leader tie the common man by a ‘web of indebtedness’ to the political party. It becomes difficult for a person to refuse voting for the political leader who has helped him ‘move’ a loan application in the local co operative bank.

Every political party realizes that the ability of their grass root workers to ‘sort out’ these local problems is of paramount importance to the very existence of the party at the grass root level. So political parties ensure that their grass root workers are ‘empowered’ to play the tag of the local leader well. The ‘empowering’ of the grass root workers is very evident among the cadre based political parties where even the national committee of the party cannot overrule the decision made by the local committee.

How do the political parties make sure that the empowered grass root workers do not deviate from the core policies of the party? The answer lies in the effective communication strategies adopted by these political parties. The grass root level workers have regular ‘study classes’ organized by the party and the district level leaders are personally in charge of the training. Every issue regarding the party, each problem faced by the party and all strategies at the local level are discussed in these ‘study classes’. Arguments are allowed and encouraged in these meetings but once a decision is taken in the meeting, all the party workers have to adhere to the decision.

The efficiency of this communication system is clearly evident during a crisis in the party. For example, suppose one of the top leaders is caught in a bribe scandal. On the day of the controversy, most of the grass root workers will be clueless about the appropriate response to the controversy. But surprisingly within a few days, they suddenly have strong point of views on the same. What happens during this drastic change from utter silence to totally confident views? The party’s communication machinery makes sure that the national leaders along with their state leaders are in touch with the district leaders, who in turn get in touch with the grass root workers. Thus ensuring that everybody in the chain are aware of the ‘party line’ on the controversy.

Taking a cue from the political parties, organizations that are planning to build grass root level workers should focus on creating local level social leaders and not local level sales persons. The primary focus of these organizations should be to focus on building some sort of ‘power’ for these grass root workers of the company that makes the common man look up to them. For example, HLL should make sure that their grass root level workers are ‘experts’ in basic level health services. Thus every one in the village will look up to them for all the small health problems. The strong identity of a ‘health worker’ will lend a lot of credibility when the same person sells germ killing soaps and toothpastes.

The job is easier if such local experts already exist in the village. Let’s say a home appliance company wants to build such grass root structure and realizes that there already exist local ‘experts’ whom the local people consult when they have a problem with their home appliances. They only have to recruit these local experts and convert them into loyal grass root workers for the company.

Further learnings from the political parties are that the organizations that build grass root level sales systems should also focus on build a system that ensures continuous and free-flowing communication between the headquarters and the grass root level. I believe that although LIC has managed to create an extremely strong network of agents across the length and breadth of the country, LIC has not managed to extract full advantage of its agent network due to its poor communication between its agents and the headquarters.

So next time you need expert advice on building an effective grass root level structure for your organisation, do consult the Indian politician.