BJP’s celebrated IT cell guru Arvind Gupta shares the best practices employed by the party in the Lok Sabha elections while marketers decode whether Tier II and III cities are the growth drivers for the brand at exchange4media’s CMO League held in Gurgaon on September 5
The successful marketing campaign, particularly in the digital domain, undertaken by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been well documented now. In fact, the general elections have become a study in the use of social media analytics to gain understanding of human behaviour at a micro level and BJP used the data collected to get the momentum going. Elaborating this in his talk was BJP man Arvind Gupta who shared the best practices employed by the company and how the seeds for this clean sweep by the saffron party were sown five years ago at the latest edition of CMO League. “In 2009, the BJP performed miserably and it was a lesson learnt the hard way. There was no personalization or planning. We were directionless, a party in chaos. That’s when we realized the importance of planning ahead. The seeds were sown for the 2014 campaign,” explains Gupta.
Explaining how technology was leveraged to its own advantage by the party, Gupta adds, “In early 2010, we began the planning. We worked back with the data. We segmented all electoral booths and studied the Internet penetration in that booth. Extensive planning and research was conducted. We knew how to reach each constituency. Having data at a micro level is key to planning any campaign.”
BJP’s social media campaign tried out some masterstrokes that worked in its favour. The party trained volunteers as online campaigners. They understood where they were weak and focused on those areas. The party had 22 lakh volunteers who were trained to focus on the areas.
“We found out that 160 seats were digitally strong and 200 seats were still digitally dark. They had to be our focus group. We used technology innovatively and what helped even more was that Narendra Modi was a master communicator. We held virtual rallies where he could personalize the message. Speed, size and scale turned out to be the biggest factors in this campaign,” Gupta says.
Gupta gave immense importance to ‘crowd-sourcing of ideas’ and spoke about the positives of being open to ideas from people at large. Personalization of messaging became another strong pillar in the campaign and digital media helped by precise targeting and smarter reach. The campaigners mastered the art of free air time or free media. In fact, digital brought down the cost of engagement and produced the highest ROI.
On reasons for the dismal performance of other parties, Gupta says, “Other parties had a bad product. They also failed miserably on their communication. They misjudged and undermined the mood of the nation. There were clear signs which they chose to ignore. Congress should have recalibrated its campaign after reading the signs.” When asked about mid-campaign course correction, Gupta was quick to point out that his team did at least four-five corrections by becoming more aggressive each time. Addressing marketers, he shared how small victories and strong self-belief led the campaign to its successful completion and a resounding victory for the BJP.
His final words to marketers is summed up in his message: “Content is key and the meat lies in execution and implementation. Social media has set the narrative for traditional media”.
Are brands ready for the big challenge from small towns?
The CMO League also had a panel discussion as part of the 'Unmetro' series featuring eminent marketers who debated whether Tier II and III cities have become the real growth drivers for brands and if marketers are ready for the new set of consumers who are keeping marketers on their toes.
For online free classified ads, there is considerable potential to be tapped in the small towns. “Today, 50% of the business comes from Tier II and Tier III cities. Exposure to media has removed the urban-rural divide,” said Amarjit Batra, CEO Olx India and Head, Asia. “There is no major difference between the aspirations of people in these towns versus those in the metros. In fact, people in these towns are more receptive,” he added.
Kunwer Sachdev, Founder and CEO, Su-Kam, the India-based power solutions provider, shared his insights on consumer behaviour patterns in small towns. Relationships in the smaller towns were crucial, he said. Marketers entering this space need to have a local touch if they wish to create a niche for their products. Stressing on the importance of home-grown talent and manpower, Sachdev, also known as the 'inverter man of India', narrated anecdotes from his life as an entrepreneur and the insurmountable challenges he faced when he set up Su-Kam in 1992. From humble beginnings in a small town, his brand now has a presence in more than 70 countries.
Satinder Juneja, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, NIIT, spoke about how technology was helping homogenize the markets. Giving a fresh perspective to the discussions, he shared how the definition of small town is changing. “Marketers should pick up heterogeneity from the markets and take them into account when devising their plans,” he said.
Speaking the local language
There has been a growing interest in products and services from smaller towns, but marketers face several challenges when they venture there. Local manufacturers and brands always have an upper hand, as they have better access to the people and are familiar with the consumer culture of the region. What also creates a hurdle is their own bifurcated mindset, which overlooks the growing similarities in consumer behaviour across India. Speaking about the communication in these regions, Ashish Sehgal, Chief Sales Officer, Zee Entertainment Enterprise Ltd said, “Despite the similarities, it is important to devise different communication for different markets.”
Kaacon Sethi, Chief Corporate Marketing Officer, Dainik Bhaskar Group described how ‘Unmetro’ India had the capacity to surprise marketers. “Earlier, Mumbai was the most important market in the region for us. But recently, we analysed the market in detail and found out that central Maharashtra had a huge potential. The discovery of central Maharashtra as an important market was wonderful,” she said.
So what has kept marketers from exploiting the potential of this emerging market? One reason, as pointed out by Amit Kumar Gope, Head Marketing, Century PlyBoards, was the lack of data and knowledge about these markets. “More data is needed for marketers to evaluate these markets,” he said.
Summing up the session, Manu Seth, Director Marketing, HTC India and also the moderator said, “Marketers have to find out how to expand their customer base in these markets. The need is for customized solution for each of these markets.”