OLTCALAOVERTSNGNNOA:P FERSFECTVE

Alok Ku', Pamod Pathak"

ak.ism.dhn@gail.com
ABSTRACT
T world of advertising is unique, fll of vibranc and h becme highly eerimental in nature. Wth t dvelument
of mod media, things have strted transfrming on t advertising fnt wit more inclination to psychological
concets, apeals hopen to be one of those. Another intensifing occurrence i t 'political advertising' in India, its
concet, shupe and size has been increasing multi fld in tis tenty-frt cntury, be it a national politicl party or a
regional one, all are resorting to suc a mechanism Henhance their reac amongst voting pupulation. T current paer
tries to bring a juxtaosed analysis to h knoingly or unknowingly, politicl parties could have aplied the concets
of apeals, of course thrugh the ad-agenc route, in the recntly concluded Assembly elections of Uttr Pradesh. A
literature reiew covering the details of political advertising histor and psychological aspects related to ad-apeals
precedes the analysis fr better comprehension and understanding. Howeer, it apears that politicl advertising does
inject awareness amongst public but then what preails is the poular perception in the minds of public. Political
advertising is in fct in a state of infnc and would tak time to gain maturity and meet the objectives fr what it is
dsigned.
RESEARO OBJECTIVE & METIIODOLOGY:
The idea beltind presentng such a pape is to know
(a) how the political advertsing has evolved and
changed contnuously in our county (b) what all
advertsing concept and psychologcal teatet
could have bee gven to such advertsing (c)
whethe concepts of advetsing appeals work in
politcal advertsing? The methodology i case based
and te advertsing taken into account is te 'print'
format of such advertseents peg to the
recently concluded Uttar Pradesh Assembly
Electons.
ITRODUCTION TO ADVERTISING:
Advertsing is defined as any form of paid
communicaton by an identfied sponsor aimed to
inform and / or pesuade target audiences about an
organisaton, product, service or idea (Belch & Belch
2(). It has a history of it own. As McDonald and
Sott (207) Hte first type of advetising was
what we now know by the name of 'outdoor
advertising'. Archeologists have unearthed
tradesmen's and tavern signs from ancient
civilization such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece
indicatg tat tades and mechants were keen to
tell teir community what they had to sell and at
what price. Similarly ads for slaves and household
product have been found in early writte reords of
the period. Later, town criers and tavelling
mechants advertsed goods and services and in
doing so bcame the fore-I s of today's voice
overs in audio-visual ads (McDonald & Sott, 2(7).
The Industl Revoluton bO 1730 and 1830
boosted the practces of advetising. T can be
partially explained by the large scale diffusion of te
division of labour which increasingly necessitatd
informing consumers of the availability of goods and
services, te ceaton of which they wee no longer
directly involved in, and partly because the
Industl Revoluton greatly hasteed te scale of
production, creatng an obvious impetus for
manufacturers to advertse in order to sell teir
produce. As a resut, markets tansformed fom
bing maWy loal to regional to natonal and flly
gobal. The Industial Revoluton also illustates te
pivotal role of advertsing as a necessary lubricant
for economic tafc. Whereas Advertsing can't be
said to create consumer needs, it is capable of
channeling those needs by reshaping tem into
wants. A side effect of thse tends was te ceaton
and gowing importance of te consumer 'brand',
the label with which to desigate an individual
product and differentate it from competitors.
Advertising professionals wee quick to assign
'Doctral Rserc Scolar, "Pfsor; Deartment o Managent Studies, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad (frkand)
Vol. VI, No.1; June 2012
16
unique labels to products and assoiat them wt
unique advantages not shared by compettors. Thus
t 'Unique Slling Propositon' (or USP) was bor!
POLITICAL ADVERTISING : CONCEP
Advetsing whose cental focus is the marketng of
ideas, atttudes and conce about public issues,
including political concepts and political candidates.
The essental task of politcal advertsing is to gain
t cofidece of te people for their acceptance of
ideas and, in the case of politcal campaign
advertising, to influence their vote. Political
advertsing diffes fom commercial advesing in
that t product is a person or a philosophy rathe
t goods and seices and in additon the
advertsing obectves must be met wt a specific
tmefame. Also, politcal advertsing carries a moral
irplicaton, because uresult have potentally far
reaching effect on te populaton at large. Politcal
advertising raises many contoversial social
questions concerg the funding of political
campaigns, ututh or reality of politcal c1ims, and
the likelihood of defamatory claims made by
politcal candidats. Politcal advertsing involves
t use of advertsing by politcans to bring ther
messages to te masses.
Politcians promote their partes to grab the attenton
of the electorate. Unlike commercal advertsing
where products a promoted, politica advertsing
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
promots individual. Political partes' view electon
statgly. Not only this, they feel that the
stategies involved in marketing of product and
services by the companies may also boost prospect
in t electon contests. The history of politcs is as
old as te history of mankind itelf. Politcians have
always marketed temselves with an a to w ove
their rivals by gabbing more vots during the
election season. Their primary aim behind
advertsing temselves and / or ther party is to w
ove uvors. It is a fact that a lot of hard work gos
into advertsing. Many factors have to be considered
eve before actually laying out the f plan. The
a is to idet the best statgy that will usher in
success. Unlike marketng of a product or service
which can be exteded ove te life of the product,
politcal campaiged is for 'short trm' prior to the
electon and wt the electon.
Advertsing in politcs is a relatvely a new feature in
our count. There are two types of advertsing in the
context of political advertising- positive and
ngatve advetsing. I a party ties to proect a
positve image of it by highligtng its achieveent
when it was in power, it is referred as positve
advertsing while in case of negatve advertsing; one
party smears another's image by critcng i. Both
positve and negatve advertsing a te most
common types of politcal advesing. Negatve
advertsing is more fequenty eployed to tsh
TOOFTCAGN5FKOMTTO
MAjOKALLlANCE5Wl1WE55OOUKlNG
UOlANELEC1TON5FYEBAL
CON0m&
AamaadmI k8 badhl8 kadam,
HaIkadampafUhafalbuIand.

Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012

Y
Politcal Advertsing In India: A Perspectve
the image of te target party or any partcular
candidate. In the process of tshing te rival
party, te sponsoring party/ individual ties to
ceate a positve image of itself / h. Negatve
advertsing is usually employed t invoke a negatve
feeling among the voters about the targeted
candidate. These tactcs generally shift the fous
fom what is really important to what is negligble. I
is believed tat negatve ads have a greater impact
on the minds of the votrs t te positve ones.
Thee are various stategies that parties employ in
negatve campaigning. These include: attacking te
opponents, personality, reord, rn g ads that
degrade te oppositon party's reputaton, leaking
out te preudical informaton about te opponent
or his party, et. For instance, prior to the 15" Lok
Sabha electon, the oppositon party tied to th
the image of the ruling part by higligtng te
26/11 Mumbai teror attacks. Thoug very oftn
negatve advetsing gves desired results, one must
rememb that it can also boomerang i te message
is not conveyed well.
In an expeimetal study that was conducted in
1985, Garramone assumed that a backlash efect of
negatve advertsing resultd due to folowing
reasons: frstly, most viewes condemn advetising
that attacks candidat and such viewers may
develop not positive but negatve feelings about te
sponsor of te advertsement. Scondly, viewers
may perceive negative advertising as an
iningemet upon their rigt in making a decision
for themselves. Such a pecepton may result in
reactance, a boomerang effect in which the
individual react in a O opposite to te
persuader's intnton.
In a yet anoter empirical study conducted (M
Gupta, 2000) to find te efects and effectveness of
negative political advertising in terms of
information-giving ability, believability and
atttudes towards bot te sponsor and the target, it
was found that people do notice political
advertsing, it has a favourable reogiton and
recall (aided recall!). Negatve political advetising
did not cause people to believe that they were better
informed as a consequece of their having been
eposed to such advesing. Howeve, t seems
contary to previous research (Garramone) which
measured information levels and political
Vol. VI, No.1; June 2012
17
practi ti oners' claims concerni ng negative
informaton.
Negatve poltcal advertsing was perceived as
untuthful. When non-politcal organisatons join
the eletoral debate and attack politcal partes
through advertsing, audiences do not see such
advertsing as being released at te behest of te
politcal party opposing the party under attack in
such advetisemet. T could be an index of
electorate maturity or may be electorate innocece! I
needs further research. I was also found that
negatve politcal advetsing produced positve
evaluatons of bot the sponsor and the target.
POLITICAL ADVERTISING IN INDIA -
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:
An uncooked form of politcal advetsing in India
dates back to the sevetes whe the forme Prime
Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi gave te slogan of
'Garibi Hatao' (Remove Poverty). Instantly te 'hand'
symbol of the Congress too became an identty
which now serves as a link between the party and te
public (Congrss ka ha t aam aadmi ke saath). But it
was 1980 when India witssed the dawn of real and
formal 'Politcal Advertsing'. For te frst tme in te
county, an advetsing agency (Grahic Ad) was
roped in by the Congress party but it was in 1984
(when Rajiv Gandhi stpped in as the new leader of a
mode India owing to the catastophic politcal
scee as a result of te assassinaton of Mrs. Indira
Gandhi) that marketng skew began to intevee in
politcal area. There was almost no neessity of any
campaig in 1984 because the sympathy wave
reduced te othe politcal paes to ashes and
Congress captured te hithto massive support of
the public which tanslated into more than 40 seats
in the LokSabha.
However, after goveg for five years post-Indira
India Rajiv Gandhi ventured into formal politcal
advertsing in 1989 whe h party siged up with
one of te top advertsing agences of the county,
Redifsion - Dentsu, Young and Rubicam to carry out
electon campaig somewhee of te orde of Rs. 20
cores. The campaig brought the 'Mr. Oean'
concept for te Prime Minister. Despite heavy
campaiging acoss the existng media (primarily
AIR, Doordarshan and some prominent daily
newspapers; F Radio or socal networking or
'|
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18
Intret advesing wee unheard of during those
days), te Congess lost the General Electons to the
Third Front headed by Vishwanat Pratap Singh.
Rajiv Gandhi's fate did not allow him to undestand
the nuances of reaching the public through
advertsing (uword means to tu one's atteton!).
He too succumbed to the hands of a differet nature
of terrorism in 191.
T year 1996 witessed furter actons on the
politcal advetsing battlefont. The other politcal
partes too got egossed in tis communicaton
model to reach te geeral public. The politcal
chanakya (as he was called), M. P Narsimha Rao,
the Prime Ministrial candidate of the ruling
Congress party was proected as a versatle person
who could gover a versatile county bttr. He was
tagged with modem iconic words like t, doer
and of course a reformist. Videos, graphics,
melodies, songs etred into the scee for the frst
tme. Congess party hired te agecy Madya for
designing its posters. The party's campaig cetred
on the typical 'Gandhi' brand and t videos harped
on the 'balidaan' (sacrifce) of the Gandhi family. The
main oppositon party, te Bhartya Janta Party (or
BJP) optd for patiotc fervor in its campaigs.
During the 1998 geeral electons, both the Congess
and BJP had task force of media professionals to
demarcate their brands. Through in-house
campaigning, the BJP focused on the voter's
perspective. Nevertheless, it had a big brand called
'Atal' (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) which got spread acoss
the naton even through theate campaigs and on
cable networks as well. The shift also emerged here
wit the party embracing modem communicaton
techniques including the Intret. I launched its
website ww .bjp.oq under the stewardship of the
campaig committee ce Pamod Mahajan. O the
oer hand, the Congess could not come out of its
'Gandhi' mindset and the campaign launched
focused on te importance of 'Gandhi' dynasty for
bette ruling or goverce. Snia Gandhi was stll
within the framework of a 'foreigner' bahu
(daugter-in-law). The language barrier was stll
persistent althoug te party did all out efort to
make her communicate in local flavours acoss
differet regions of the county which she did to the
best of her capability.
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
The 1999 geeral electons witessed the rise of
politcal advesing. The BJP unleashed a series of
high-profile campaiging trough a special media
cell headed by Arun Shourie. A separate ofice also
came up guided by the Information and
Broadcastng Ministe of the ruling NDA, M.
Pramod Mahajan. It was from here tat te image
building and positoning stategies wee kick
started! The BJP was actually contestng as a part of
uNatonal Deocatc Alliance and it required
increase in vot share depended heavily on it
parte partes in differet stats acoss India.
Moreover, it had to fght the ant-incumbency factor.
Another BJP giant, ArunJaitley, also a member of the
media cell opined that BJP could only figt such
situatons with a 'feel good' factor which got
incorporated into its campaigns late on. T feel
good factor was the first 'emotonal' appeal to have
ben exibited throug politcal advesing. T
Kargi victory and the historic Pokaran-I further
accentuated this appeal and uiconic 'Atal' brand
got the better of any other advertsing propositon.
Al tese culminatd into slogans like 'Leader you
can tust, in war, in peace' (for AB Vajpayee).
Looking positve, movemet towards bettemet
and handling the oppositon Congess campaig
were u marketng challenges for te BJP. T
agencies Trka Gr and Crayon were on the job for
BJP, focusing on rural electorate thug melas and
hnats, folk dances and steet theates.
Congress on the oter hand was working wit
agencies like Mdison, Concept (for print ads)
coordinated through stalwarts like Pranab
Mukhere, Kapil Sibal, Jairam Ramesh, Ka Nat
and Jagdish TytIe who helped the agecies develop
a doz print rus trough natonal and regonal
dailies based on the stability plank. Sonia Gandhi got
positoned as the undisputd leader of the Congress
and a family emissary of Indira Gandhi. Congress
positoned itelf as a reliable politcal party tat
could provide a vision to the county working on
harmony throug secularism. The figt got refned
to Vajpayee vesus Sonia rather that being BJP
versus Congess. The foreig origin and lack of
politcal familiarity of Snia Gandhi fuer dented
te prospe of Congess which was in a fantc
mood to regain power. Jairam Ramesh commented
ten, while BJP might have a Nirma in Vajpayee,
Congress was like Hindustan Leer with a stng of
Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012
Politcal Advertsing In India: A Perspectve
stong brands! He had fuer indicatd that
electons in our county are al about 'reach' (to
voters) rather than becoming smarter! Also,
marketng activity coves merely 20 per cent of the
electorate!
For the 20 geeral electons, use of informaton
technology revoluton for compettve edge was on
cards. BJP became hi-tech and started getting poll
feedback daily with analyst doing all sorts of
calculations. Building up database, approaching the
electorate through e-mails and SM but with cauton
was on the party's stategc intet. The 'India
Shining' (or BlIrat Ud) campaig (a sort of
surrogate one!) set te ball rolling for the BJP led
NDA. The Agecy Grey Worldwide released a
plethora of such advetsemet throug the press
and visual media untl te inteveton of Electon
Commission of India. The ads higlighted the
accomplishment of the five year NDA regime from
socal to economic bettrmet. The target group was
very wide and the state r Doordarshan was used
mostly as it h te widest reach in th count and
the pr channels are fee-to-air. Newspapers
acoss India wee selected for the print r of these
ads, mostly in colour, besides hoardings across
highways and selected city roads. For the
technology savvy electorate, te e-media helped the
campaigns. LK Advani, te BJP doyen, known in the
Indian politcal history for h 'rath yatas', opted for
yet another such thing called 'Bharat U day Yata'.
The entre idea was t make te common person feel
good throug 'India Shining'.
T 'India shining' campaign escalated the problems
for te Congress which was already out of powe
and had othe issues (like infigtng) to figt. While
'India Shining' was on te popularity ted, the
Congess tought to take out some gloss off t
campaign by posing questons to each campaig.
The Agecy Orcl rd Advertising got the Congess
account of ad-handling for the 2004 geneal electons
while te P exercises wee handed ove to Perct
Relations. The Congress questoned the 'India
Sh' with uled promises of the NDA
Goveet. T USP t tme was te common
m (aam aadml) which cuted into te popular
tagline - Cngres ka lIath, aam aadmi ke sat (the
hand of Congess wit the common m). I also
found a weak link in BJP campaig, educaton and
Vol. VI, No.1; June 2012
19
employmt. T was higlighted by te Congess.
Two incidet, waning of te 'Atal' charisma
(appeal) and addition of new young voters in te
electorat also helped the Congess countr the hi
tech campaign. Person-to-person connectivity
through Road shows with star campaigners
(including film and sport personalites) worked for
te Congress. Sonia's foreig issue was give a
beatng by people late whe such citcs were
highlighted by the BJP. Young leaders like
Jyotiraditya Scinda, Sachin Pilot and Jite Pasad
were inducted into the core campaig team to infuse
new blood into the party and to get connected with
te youth aspiring for a btter tomorrow with good
educaton and job. However, after the Electon
Commission directve on February 29, 2004, all sorts
of politcal ads wee take back. Eve road-sigs
depictng Atal factor for te Golde Quadrilatral
Higway proje were reoved. I appeared that no
more such advertsing would occur in ft. The
use of public money for such campaigs ceated
negativity amongst public. Latr the results showed
tat BJPled NDAhad to face te public ire!
The 2009 General Electons came up to become
glamour induced. 'Celebrites' (including film stars
and sports persons) took on the campaign tail,
reasons coud have been numeous, like to gaer
more media attenton, endorsemet could make
public inclined towards votng as well as towards a
certain politcal party, even power could have got
assoiatd. I could b understood as a w-w
situaton, both for te party as well as the celebrity.
Not only t, certain estmates say tat the total ad
sped could have cossed US $ 3 billion (more t
US Presidential Election). Television, Radio
(including FM), Mobile services, oter digital media
(including soial networking) and outdoor media
along wit of course print media helped politcal
partes gain reach amongst te 'new' and young
India (who bcame voters for the first tme!). BJP
was using socal media more t the Congess
(even for raising funds). Congess instead used te
famous song "Jai ho" (Slumdog Millionaire) for
canvassing purposes since it was youth centic (like
the youth anthem of today-Kolaveridi). BJP
counteed with "Bhay ho" (Be fearful-hintng at te
voters t r away from Congess). Mass media
marketng, direct marketng tques were also
resortd to. Bloggng too was on te canvassing
20
meu. However, inteet penetatons bing quite
low stll in India forced partes to also heavily rely on
other taditonal media.
APPEALS DEMYSTIFIED:
Normally, it i expected that an advesing message
should appeal, directly or indirectly, to those key
needs which influence behaviour response. Appeals
are broadly classified as ratonal, emotonal and moral
appeals. Rational appeals are those directed at te
tg proess of the audiece. They involve a sort
of deliberate reasoning process which a person
believes would be acceptable to other members of his
society. A ratonal ad is believed to be efectve.
Emotonal appeals &those which are not preceded
by the ca analysis of the pros and cons of ma1dng
a purchase or subscribing to an idea. Emotons are
tose metal agitatons or ecited states of feling
which prompt us to make an acton. Emotonal
motves may be blow the level of conscousness.
Emotonal appeals may be positve or negatve. 'Fear'
appeal falls hee. More psychological elucidaton of
te fear appeal appears in the next section. Moral
appeals are those appeals which appeal to te
audieces' sense of rigt and wrong. These are oftn
used in messages to arouse a favourable response to
soial causes.
We know, clutter i a sigificant problem in evey
advesing medium. Humour has proven to be one
of the best techniques of cuttng throug clutte. I
helps in gettng as well as keeping atteton. The
success of humour as an advertsing appeal is based
on three factrs - wat, laugh, remebes. For
success, the product / sevice / idea should be
connected directly t benefit. It should te tgeter
te product features, the advantage to customers and
te personal values of te means-end chain (a
metod to desig an ad; based on a model called
MECCAS or Means-End Conceptualization of
Components for Advertising Strategy; Olson,
Reynolds, 1988). Another technique of brea1dng
trough the clutte is Sex appeal. It no longe works
to a great extent in today's scenario; rather, it has
reached a saturaton point. To reall it usage in
diffeet advertsing parlance, five ways have been
employed -subll techniques (attempts to afect
viewers' subconscious mind through icons), nudity
(partal / m),overt sexuality, sexual suggestveness
and sensuality. Although sexually oriented
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
advesemet attact atteton, brand reall i
lower hee because seual them 'distacts' the
from paying atteton to the brand name! (Sever,
Belch & Belch, 19).
APPEAL-PSYCHOLOGICAL OULOOK:
McDonald and Sott (2007) argue that from te early
19' centu to the 20" cetury, print ads used what
we call now an 'informatonal' or 'argment based'
appeal. They straightforwardly informed the
consume what was for sale, at what price and whee
one could buy it. The approach beame known as te
'tell' approach, a more subtle variant of the more
pressing 'hard-sell' approach of 'salesOhip in
print' which aliged a set of pesuasive argments to
convince prospectve buyes and thus became
known as 'reason-whyapproach'.
Partly as a reacton to tis aggessive approach, a
more subtle 'soft-sell' approach was developed in
early 20' century which sometmes used an
'emotonal' or 'affect-based' appeal, aiming to
influence the consume's feelings and emotons
rater than his toughts. The developmet of te
soft-sell approach was in l with the societal and
academic tend of te tme inceasingly to view
hOnature as goved by instnct, eotons and
non-ratonal process (Beard, 20O). Fox (1984) has
stated that argument-based and affect-based
appeals have co-existed throug the ages, rater
t one approach evolving out of the oter. Hence,
even the begn g of the 20" centu witessed
illustrations of emotional appeals next to
informatona ones, what we see even today. I
today's advertsing practces, hard-sell and soft-sell
appeals co-exst (Kardes, 2002).
lg about the impact of advetsing invariably
implies choosing a perspectve for doing so. I we
consider the pschologcal approach, t aims at
identg effet of advetsing at the individual
level. Its obectve is to relat specifc advertsing
stimuli to specific and individual consumer
responses. Moreove, it seeks to artculat te
intra personal, interpersonal or group level
psychological proesses that are responsible for te
relatonship betwee ad stmuli and consumer
responses. Specific outcome measures at the
individual level include toughts, feelings and
actons or more formally, cogitve, affectve and
behavioural consumer responses. Cognitive
Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012
Politcal Advertsing In India: A Perspectve
consumer responses are beliefs and thougt about
brands, product and sevices tat consumes
geerate in response to advertsing. They include te
'taditonal' ad efectvess indices such as brand
awareness and brand recall / recogiton, as well as
newly formed assoiatons about products and
brands which are sometmes a functon of te
persuasive informaton encountred in advetsing.
Affectve responses entail various more or less
tansient emotons and moods that can occur as a
functon of ad-exposure and dif er in valence
(positve vesus negatve) and intesity (Arousa).
Behavioural responses include t intnton and
actual behaviour in response to advertsing, such as
buying te product, choosing a brand but also
product tial, brand swithing and abandoning a
product.
Consumer thougt, feelings and behaviours might
be affectd by advertsing stmuli, i.e., we need to
understand te tpe of relatonships that could exist
between advertising stimuli and consumer
response. Pimarily, relationships & correlatonal
or causal. When an advertsing stmulus Qike
number of arguments in a message) and consumer
response (like atttude towards the product /
service) correlate, ten an obseved change in one
variable is associated with a change in te othe. A
positve correlaton implies tat argut are
associated with a more positve atttude (as
illustated above) or the vice vesa. Zeo correlaton
implies tat no relatonship exist between the two
variables. Correlaton is informatve because i
enables us to predict the values on one variable
whe the values of the other are known. In additon
to predicton, a psychologist wants to explain
consumer responses in response to advesing
stmuli and here correlaton coefficet fall short.
Correlaton is necessary conditon but not a
suficent one. Let the illustaton go like this. To
infer tat A causes B (ad appeal m people vot),
three conditons need to be met: A must precede B
(ad must preede votng), changes in A must be
associated with changes in B (difeent ads may
appeal differetly) and no oter explanaton for te
change in B must be present t te change in A
(change in votng must be explained only by c
in ad; third variable problem); correlaton only tlls
us something about the seond conditon not te
frst and tird.
Vol. VI, No. 1; June 2012
21
The main problem in inferring causality is usually
not t tmporal sequence but the third variable
problem. Ce non-obvious case may intrfee
and become responsible to cause te response. A
mediatn analysis could attempt to identify the
intermediary psychological processes that are
responsible for the effet of an indepedent on a
dependet variable. According to an artcle by Baron
and Keny (1986) to demonstat mediaton, we
would have to show that the independent variable
had an impact on t assumed mediator, tat
variatons in te mediator sigificantly accounted
for variaton in the depedent variable and tat
contolling for te mediator signifcantly reduced or
elted impact of t indepedet variable on t
dependet variable. I seems believable that the
amount of tg does not only deped on t
number of arguments preseted in an advetisemet
but also on t degee of personal relevance of t
advertsed product for the target audience. What all
this suggest i we are not assuming that the effect
of advertising variables are invariant across
consumers. Rather, we need to take the
psychological make-up of the consumer and
situatonal constaints into account whe making
predictons about the effect of some ad factor on
some individual outome measure, i.e., consumer i
not a passive recipient absorbing whatver h i
exposed to. Hence, advertsing efects can be best
understood as joint or inteacton efect betwee
situaton and peson variables (Kardes, 2002). A
advertsing message may have a large impact on
one goup of consumers t on the othe or the
directon of effet may vary for diffeet goup of
consumers.
Situational variables are exteral, evironmetal
variables that act as the independent or modeator
variables (contxtual variables tat stegthe or
change te directon of the efect of the independet
on the dependent variable) that affect some
consumer outcome. Examples of situational
variables include source and message variables in
advertsing stmuli and othe communicaton tools
that make up marketers' promotonal mix. Peson
variables are dimensions that are intel to a
specfic individual and typically act as moderator
variables. These include variables tat are specfic to
a peson and a situaton, such as consumer
involvement or pre-exstng product kowledge, or
22
they may vary over persons but be constant over
si tuations, such as individual difference
characteristics. Individual difference variables
include personality tait such as the need for
Cgnition or the need for cognitive closure.
L us now switch over to source and message
variables in advertsing. I many cases, sources are
individuas delivering te message may also be
organisaton or brand behind te product / sevice.
Credibility includes the dimensions of source
epertse and tustwortiness. Source cedibility
influences message processing and persuasion
mainly when recipients are not particularly
motvatd to process te message. Since this is ofte
the case wit ad-messages, organisatons focus on
tustworthiness which can b conveyed by stessing
that te message source dos not have a vested
inteest in delivering te message. A source variable,
source attractiveness, h received great attention
now-a-days. Many products / services are sold by
appealing to sex and physical beauty that ceats
'halo'. It is understood that what is beautl is good!
From the perspective of the advertiser, the
attactveess halo-clfect can b easily exteded to
have a positve impact for a product / sevice.
Advetsing message variables include argument
quality and message structure. Areni and Lut (1988)
have suggested tt argument quality is based on
perceptons of te valece of te argumet, as well as
the likelihood of ocurrence. Hece, a stong
argument highligt a product attibute coupled
with 'certinty' that it would b delivered with te
product. Message stucture refers to how the product
informaton is communicated? Presetng stongest
arguments frst proves beneficial always in te of
consumer attention and increased processing
intesity but argumet at the end may benefit
because they a most recently actvated in memory.
Two other message vaables that are pacularly
relevant for understanding advertsing effectveness
a message sidedness and argument based versus afct
based appeals. A one-sided message is the classic,
biased, lopsided ad that contains only arguments
supportng a conclusion favourable to the advertsed
brand. A two-sided approach includes bot positve
and negatve, or supportng and countrarguments.
Advetsemet can use diffeet types of appeal.
They can appeal to reason and use argument or they
'|
Y
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
can use emotons and feelings to get the message
acoss. Hece, they can choose an argument based
or a more afect based appeal. The usefulness of each
of tese approaches depends on the product to b
advertised and the involvement level of the
audience.
Anothe type of emoton is 'fear'. They are also
kown as far arousing communictions (t to scare
consumer into acton). Fear appeals in advertsing
fequenty refe to rk that the consumer can eithe
prevent or reduce by buying or not buyng the
product. Risks as physical, social, financial,
opportunity and relatd to product performance are
fequenty ecounteed in advetsing. Hovland
and colleagues (195) studied the impact of such an
appeal on the acceptance of a recommedaton tt
would reduce te treat. They found tt the
weakest appeal was most effective in changing
atttudes and behaviour. Here te concept of
'defesive avoidance' was intoduced arguing tt
the stong fear appeal was so threateing that it was
more effectve for recipients to reduce fear by
rejecting the appeal as aarmist rather than
accepting the recommendation. The drive
reducton model of fear appeals Ganis and
Feshbach, 195) assums tt individuals who are
informed of an impending threat wlbe motvated
to search for responses which reduce the threat.
When a recommeded acton promises to protet
them and tus reduces fear, it will be reinforced and
become part of the individual's peent response
repertory. T model predict that higer fear
should result in more persuasion, but only i the
recommended acton is perceived as effectve in
avertng dange!
Leventl (1970) intoduced a more cogitive
theory (Parallel response model) which no longe
assumed that emotonal arousal was a neessa
antecedet of te adaptation to danger. A threat is
cognitvely evaluated and can gve rise to two
parallel or indepedent responses, danger contol
and fear contol. Dange contol involves the
decision to act as well as actons taken to reduce the
danger while fear contol involves actons take to
contol emotonal responses. Witte (1992) late
etnded the parallel response model by adding the
plausible assumpton that te peceived eficacy of
the recommended response detrmines whethe
Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012
Politcal Advertsing In India: A Perspectve
individuals egage mainly in dange or fear contol.
I a recoOdaton seems effective in avertng a
threat, individuals will engage in dange contol
and if inefectve, tey focus mainly on fear contol.
TRAD I TIONAL APPROACHE S FOR
ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS:
Tellis (2004) distinguishes the modeling and
bhavioural approach. While te former focuses on
the aggegate level, the latter focuses on individual
consumer responses as a functon of specific
advetsing input variables. Hece, ad variables
functon as the independet variable and consumer
responses as indepedent ones. According t te
sales response model sales follow the law of
din g I. the incremental impact of
advetsing on sales diminishes with increasing te
communicaton budget. Another model assumes
that inital impact of advertsing as a functon of
communicaton budget is low. In this phase,
advetsing wear-in occurs (Blair & Rabuck, 198).
After t phase, sales inceases exponentally with
inceasing expeditures up to certain saturaton
point where the impact of advertsing levels off.
After t_ added investents may even lead to
advese result.
Hierarchy-of-effects models do not make
assumpton of a diret link between ad message and
consumer response but instad propose several
intemediate steps. I incorporats the 'consumer
leag' concept following to teir exposure to
advetsing. The AIDA (Attenton, Interest, Desire,
Acton) model, origl y for pesonal selling, got
usage in advertsing. I proposes linear sequence of
efects. It also explains tat if consumer has never
be exposed to te brand before, advetsing must
induce consumer atteton in orde to fostr brand
awareness. I the consumer is aware of te brand but
is unaware about any of its attibutes, advetising
must educat te consume by frst arousing intrest
and seond, descibe the product's attibuts in
order to induce consume desire. Once the flame of
desire has been sparked, consumers will
consistetly act upon i and buy the brand.
DAGMAR - Defining Advertising Goals for
Measured Advertising Results (Colley, 1961)
suggests that advertsing can yield nine diffeent
Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012
2
effect that are hierarchically ordeed-stg with
category need, brand awareness, brand kowledge
/ comprehension, brand atttude, brand purchase
intnton, purchase facilitaton and purchase, all te
way up to brand satsfacton and brand loyalty. It is
more explicit, is compatble wit two essental
functons of advesing: to inform and to pesuade.
Consumer is 'passive' is assumed. Various models
also in consum behaviour are reminiscent of te
researches of mid or late 20
"
cetury. Things have
changed now.
Consumer Atttudes can be influenced by efectve
marketng communicatons. An atttude is a mental
positon taken towards an etty tat influences te
holder's feelings, perceptons, leag processes
and subsequet behaviours (Fishbein & Ajzen,
1975). Atttude comprises of three components -
affectve, cogitve and conatve. The afectve
component contains the feelings or emotons a
peson has about the obect, topic or idea, te
cogitve component refes to a peson's mental
images and undestandings while te conatve
component is an individual's intnton, acton or
behaviour (Bagozz, Tybout, Craig & Sterathal,
1979). T most common sequece tat takes place
when an atttude forms is cogitve - affectve -
conatve.
The cogitve response model (Greenwald, 1968;
Petty, Ostom & Brok, 1981) spearheaded the new
atteton to information processing issues. I too
includes te concept of 'consumer leag' (as
explained before). However, in contast to a fixed set
of consume responses, t approach emphasizes
te mediatng role of 'cogitve responses' that
people geneat when being exposed to a persuasive
message. Consumer no longer is passive, has
become actve recipient and makes sense of it. In
essece, the cogitve response approach holds that
once a receiver is exposed to a pesuasive message,
he/ she may actvely add to and elaborate upon
message content. This means that message
recipients may come up wit countr-arguments
when they view te message argument as weak,
tey may derogate the source of the message, doubt
te authetcity of argumet, etc. Convesely, a
message contg stong arguments may provoke
more positive thoughts such as supportive
24
arguments, implementaton intntons in l wit
the advoacy in the message, or favourable thougt
on the source credibility. I is the valence of these
thoughts (posit ive/neutral/negati ve) that
determines the directon of any resultng atttude
change. Thus cogitve responding may lead to
persuasion, resistance or maintaining status quo!
Cogitve responding is a functon of the extent of
motvaton and ability to egage in elaboratve
thinking, with higher motivation and ability
resultng in more extesive cogitve responding.
Most of the teories of informaton proessing, soial
judgmet and decsion-making wee based on the
assumpton that individuals are able and willing to
egage in careful and tme-onsuming informaton
processing in order to arrive at a deision. In
recogiton of the fact that individuals & ofte
neiter willing nor able to carefully examine all the
informaton tat is available to tem but base their
decisions on rule-of-thumb heuristics, social
psychology saw the development of dual process
theories oj peruaswn according to which informaton
proessing, judgment and decision-making are
viewed as contnuum.
UP ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS 212:
Uttar Pradesh has always been a cete-stage of
Indian politcs, b it te Geneal Electons of the Lok
Sabha or the Assembly Electons. Before 2012 let's
t a flashback of 2007. Major campaigning using
politcal advesing was witessed in te 2007
Assembly Elections (where Mayawati's BSP
captured power) of Uttar Pradesh (UP). The
Samajwadi Party (SP) campaig was spearheaded by
the famous Bollywood icon - Amitabh Bachchan.
Several ads featuring famous and iconic places of U
on the background illustated "UPme dumhai" (UP is
stong). Perhaps it was on the lines of "Bharay Uy"
(or India shining) of BJP in 2004 Lok Sabha polls but
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
te SP t-t failed to undestand that illusions
don't bring reality, it proved costly for SP as it lost the
electons.
The promotons cossed limits of patence whe
photogaphs of common m applauding te efort
of the Goveent in bringng about a qualitative
change in ther life were pastd in the ads of SP in the
form of print ads and hording. The ad-copy
contained lines like, Mulayam mere ganne l mitas hai
(Mulayam is te sweetess of my sugarcane),
Mulayam mere rozgar l ummeed hai (Mulayam is the
hope for my employmet), Mulaam meri medicl l
degree hai (Mulayam is my medical degee) etc. The
BJP and Congess could not proect a proper Chief
Ministeial candidate and they too failed in their ad
capag. However, tings got a change in the
recetly concluded U Assembly Electons 2012
where SP could capture power dethroning the arch
rival Mayawat's BSP (BahujanSj Party).
The contest in U Assembly Electons in February
2012 was mostly four-coreed: the ruling BSP and
te oppositon SP, BJP and Congress candidates
were out to prove ther supremacy. This pape
actually restict to these four major politcal partes
(or alliances). The BJP and te Congress (as usual)
were te two major advertses acoss different
media. Let us first go trough te slogans of these
four partes. BJP used" Hum denge saaj suthri sarkaar"
(ye would give a clean Goveret), SP used
"Aka ek vote baaLaav l sakta hai" (Your one vote can
bring about a change), BSP said "Hamne jo k wo kr
dikhaya" and the power-drougt ridden Congress
had no opton but to vie for change in 2 years, tey
higlighted not one but many catch lines, "Unhe 22
saal diye, hame 5 saal d" (You gave them 2 years,
gve us 5 years); "Sonchiye zara!" ( a bit!); "Uta,
jaago, badlo Uttar Pradesh" (Get-up, Wake-up,
Cnge Uttar Pradesh).
Vol. VII, No.1; June 2012
Political Advertsing In India: A Pespectve
As see in the advertsemets (displayed at
diffet locatons in this pape), the Congess
resorted to 'ratonal' appeal communicatng to the
masses (Ads in Hindi only) that the state's
development agenda has been put on the
backbue in te past Zyears of te non-ongress
25
regimes, tue to a geat ett but absence of an 'icon'
about who would lead te party in \let it down
pehaps. The schemes of te Cental Govet for
the state were also on te font scene m Food
Scuity bor Reservaton Policy for the Mnorites
etc. The ads said tee were no employment and no
prospeity, how long wyou keep quiet?
ZZ m3null tf
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ml i Jw
WMf i i
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Vol. V ,No.1; June 2012
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O the contary, the BJP resortd to bot 'eotonal'
(fear) and 'ratonal' appeals. As see in its ads, the
party targeted al te other te major paes /
alliances and appealed to votrs not to vote for these
three parties oterwise they would have to pay the
price! The ads attacked the poor Goverance of
erstwhile state Governents, the corruption
prevailing at the Cente and State etc. Their othe
parallel ad I in the UP press highlightd the
schemes what they would implement provided tey
come t powe like puttng an ed to black
*.
..'.
WWBW|
i J
i
i k
MNAGMNTJN5IGHT
m+4,t W4
#9+
#
-
UO103
y .conQress!orup.org
_$I._to.
WI3_>. M
m""mt ...
-marketng of seeds (UP leads in giving count
mu food-gains), Unemployment allowance
for youth R. 20 0=00 montly, Reservaton for
Uppe castes, Aanganwadi employees / Shiksha-mita
to b regularied, Farmers gettng loans at 1 %
intrest, waiver for farmers on loans up to R. 1 lakh
et. The BJP ads seemed to have caugt unde
'defensive avoidance' concept. The fear aroused by
te first series of ads may not have been linked to the
second set of BJP ads depictng it offeings to public
i it came to power.
Vol. VII , No. 1; June 2012
Politcal Advertsing In India: A Perspectve
Mayawat's BSP resortd to the 'hard-sell' approach
telling the public what te manifesto said, the BSP
Goveet did it. It was wit respect to electicity
supply in state, bringing Delhi meto to U,
Sugarcane dues paid to farmes, building wide
roads and bridges, upgrading urban amenities,
better facilites to lawyes C. The statment in each
of t ads "Virodhi kc bhi khen par jo zameeni
haqiqat jaante hain, wo BSP I saath hain" (et
opponet say anything but those who kow t
As per Levethal's parallel response model, a treat
i cogitvely evaluated and can gve rise to two
parallel or indepedent responses, danger contol
and fear contol. Dange contol did t BSP out
while fear contol ousted the BJP and Congess (both
bing in shambles i te organisational stucture is
consideed in te stat). T could have let te SP in
following lack of choice among the public. Depicton
of yout icon in SP, Akhilesh Yadav (the current
Ce Ministe of U) as an answer to the natonal
Vol. VII, No. 1; June 2012
27
gound realities & with BSP). The ads reflect that
party was convinced tat it did better tn othe
previous regmes and hence was in no mood to
ebrace the 'soft sell' approach or target individuals
or goups. The party actually was confident that it
would I back to power, howeve, it could
eerge as the largest oppositon party finally. The
ads resorted to t 'source attactveness', only
Mayawat was seen communicatng wit public
(icon of BSP).
youth icon of the Congess, Rahul Gandhi could
have worked for it! Since depictons at t ed are
beefcial because they are most recetly actvated
in memory, it could be anoter reason for SP's
success, only Akhilesh Yadav was see wearing the
Red Samajwadi cap and served as t queue
terminator Qast person to be seen), exactly on lines
with Congess ads depictng Rahul Gandhi at the
end (a case of cognitvec1osure!).
28
CONCLUS IONS:
TIrrough the above discussions it can b opined tat
advertsing appeals are hee to stay and intensif
during election campaigning. The 'soft sell'
approach is te need of the hour. Public likes some
ratonal reasoning in such advertsing campaigns.
Although, politcal adveising is a relatvely O
feature in te Indian politcal scenario, it is here to
stay and it shape may get tansformed depending
upon the changes in media technology. The
advertsing twist and Owould, to a large extet,
deped upon the deogaphic realites and the
prevailing economic and social scenario. The ad
agencies meanwhile should gear up to provide
customized politcal advertsing solutions so as to
increase t effectveness and maningulness of
such ads aongst te public. At the same tme,
politcal partes must ratonal out te ad-opy; the
consumes (votrs here) &increasingly beoming
knowledgeable and smart, to what etent would t
ads pac tem is a queston for politcal partes to
answer.
However, one ting is very clear, te electons have
bewon b diferent politcal partes at dif eret
times due to t popular pecepton prevailing at
tat t concerg the partes or candidats, ad
campaigs had little role to play despite hig levels
of ceatvely involved. The vote is more mature
tan advertsing.
FUrRE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS:
Many more researches / studies can be conductd
concerg politcal advertsing related to the
influence of celebrites in electon campaig
impact of soial media politcal advesing O
youth, measuring the effectiveess of politcal
advertsing troug taditonal and modem media,
ehancing the ad-appeals in te entre electon
campaigs, influece of part brand on future
politcal advertsing etc.
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PRESS ADS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
UP City editons of The Pioneer, The Times ofIndia,
Hindustan Times, Amar Ujala, Dainik Jagran,
Hindustan, Rashtriya Sahara and Gandiv (mont of
February 2012).