And why does the #AAP need to do drama? Im no spokesperson, but let me try to answer. The thing is, every party needs publicity. Every party needs to get its message out to millions of people. And the traditional way to do publicity is to either spend hundreds of crores of rupees in ads, like #BJP and #Congress are doing, or to have great PR connections to get into the editorial parts of newspapers and TV channels. Now the AAP has no money for ads. And when it comes to PR, it not only doesnt have money for a PR agency - it is up against a slightly harsh media climate: A Congress MP owns Hindustan Times. Mukesh Ambani, the man behind both the Congress and the BJP, owns CNBC, CNN IBN, Lokmat, CNBC Awaaz, NDTV , NDTV sister channels and all the Eenadu / ETV channels, along with all the 9X channels too. His brother Anil owns Bloomberg. That leaves The Times Of India, which is owned by the highest bidder of the day - and the AAP cant afford TOIs Paid News packages. While Star is owned by Murdoch, a man with even less editorial backbone than the Jains, if that were possible. So what does that leave? Precious little in terms of traditional media - but Facebook, SMS, Twitter and Google are not owned by Indian politicians or their business sponsors - yet - despite Sibals failed efforts to rein them in. So news spreads on these channels that traditional or party-owned media try very hard not to cover. And that also leaves actions that cause news. In other words, drama. The fact that the AAP is still getting coverage in these publications despite their senior journalists being categorically told to support Modi and ignore AAP is because the actions, the drama as you call it, is so compelling that they cant not cover it. You can call it jugaad in the absence of money. When you cant outspend, then outsmart. You can call it modern marketing theory - todays top brands like Whats App, Zara, Google, Facebook and Red Bull are built on remark-worthy actions, not ad spends. What else is sending a man into space to skydive from there if not drama by Red Bull? And remember AAP won Delhi on a lot of on-ground drama or action - and a near-zero ad budget. Call it what you will, but its just marketing, folks. Done cheaper, and better that the rich big old parties do. Frustrating for them, yet. Because they havent learnt the art. But marketing is all it is. Cheers. - Mahesh Murty
Posted on: Wed, 02 Apr 2014 11:57:17 +0000
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