The Great Indian Digital Elections!
Do you know which company featured at the top in the Fast Company 50 list this year? None other than Obama & Company. The way Obama used technology and digital medium to attract , engage and convert voters was unprecedented! So much so that Indian politicians have also embarked upon the digital safari. Do you think it’s a waste to spend on Digital media-for election campaigns-in India? I am sure your answer would be similar to mine- ‘NO WAY’!
So, by just having a site, and using search marketing- with ‘Vote XYZ’ headline-can one hope to attract and engae enough people to create a serious monetum?
Of course not! So what is the potential of Digital Medium in India? And how can one use Obama’s best practices here in India? Here is your answer through a useful powerpoint presentations with facts and figures. I have hosted it on slideshare (it’s about 3mbs) for ease of viewing and download.
You can view and download the presentation here : http://tr.im/gBiF
OR
visit Slideshare to view and download via this link: http://tr.im/gzLZ
For deeper and actioanble strategy - if any political party representative is reading this post- you know who to contact- saurabh@atomthought.com! Also if you need this presentation via email in a pdf format-don’t hesitate to contact via email.
Image courtsey: http://www.orlandorand.com
Mar 15th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Dear Sir,
This reply is post my converstaion with a political leadership of a prominent party i UP. Last two days we have been trying hard to pitch to them for internet media as a propoganda ( west calles it PR/advertising) tool.
There were some serious questions on the deliveries expected out of the campaign… there is just one slide in your ppt that talks about it : slide 5
“Opportunity to bring in a total of 10.02m additional Voters (by increasing The % of urban youth voter turnout From 9% to 18%)”
now the catch phrase is urban youth. what i learned in my past two days was that even in urban lok sabha seats like South delhi, its the areas semi urabn areas of old villages that have the turnouts which win or loose the polls, So its Garhi in Okhla/nehruplace region, the gujjar villages in Delhi - Gurgaon border who decide the victorious.
We are having a hard time to convince the said party that online can matter beyound a PR excercise in English press. Again that is not enough, since english press penetartion among those who vote is miniscule.
… Those who vote is the catch line, unless we have a voter turnout in excess of 42%, we are not counting any urban ‘determining vote’. Except for the polls post Babri demolition when middle calss was actually motivated to come out and vote this trend has never been observed in India.
everyone is convinced though that internet is the medium of future and its a right time to start experimenting… but thats where the strategies remain - experimenting
Mar 16th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Hi Nishant,
Precisely the reason why one should invest in internet. The fact that we have youth on web which is not voting, the task of the campaign should be to engage and propel them to come out and vote!
Second internet is an amazing medium when it comes to engagement, but you cannot equate this to conversion in terms of vote! The metrics cannot be vote in favor of the party. At most one can work around metrics like- registration for voting, referral registrations etc. apart from engagement, influence and visibility metrics.
Mar 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Sir, unlike in US, our political partites are still waking upto publicity with unde 60 days to d day. The kind of campaign you are suggesting should have had happened back in aug-dec 08.
We did suggest it to a national party then, and they disagreed …
Mar 16th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
You are right Nishant. My main aim of publishing this piece was to make one aware of the ‘potential of youth’ and ‘web’! And as you correctly said, a few elements need a long time period to produce conspicuous results, but at the same time, there are many things that can be done under 60 days.
The crux is that by just spreading banners across and by having a website alone -may not help reap the full results.How do you address relevant issues of youth, how do you engage them with those issues and finally how do you use the medium to let the youth echo your voice? are a few challenges which are as true in the offline medium as in web! So taking the specific case of BJP- i think there’s a confused or incomplete messaging anywhichways-whether web or whether offline.
On web, this political party had a chance of engaging-which they have themselves shelved! So if a political part disagrees with you-it doesn’t necessarily mean that ‘your’ thought process or suggestion was wrong. It means that they need more proof-they need more confidence that it can work-they may need more time to understand and appreciate-which is fine- as an agency you will need to continuously prune your communication and it will benefit you if not here somewhere else if not now sometime else.
cheers
Jun 8th, 2009 at 10:42 am
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