How would we view Arvind Kejriwal if he were a brand, my blog follows
Arvind Kejriwal – the master
marketer!
Let us start with a
small quiz…
Who is the Chief
Minister of Karnataka?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Kerala?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Uttarakhand?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Chattisgarh?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Punjab?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Jharkhand?
Who is the Chief
Minister of Gujarat?
Some tough, some easy
ones, right? If you are very knowledgeable, you would have got all of them
right. Else, your answers would depend on where you hail from or which
geography you have interests in.
The next question-
Who is the Chief
Minister of Delhi?
Easy one right?
In a state that just
forms a speck on the Indian map and has just 1.33 Crore voters, against India’s
81.5 Crores, it is no mean achievement to be India’s most known Chief Minister.
An amazing marketing
feat indeed.
It calls for an astute
marketer to create, to borrow a marketing parlance, Top Of Mind Awareness
(TOMA) that is significantly higher than the market share.
In the last Delhi
elections, 48.8 lacs (less than 5 Million) voted for Arvind Kejriwal, i.e less
than 0.4% of Indian population.
Yet, today, his brand
identity looms large across the country.
An odd even decision
on cars, impacting about 1.4 Million people on a day became headline news in
cities as far from Delhi as Ahmedabad, Visakhapatnam or Guwahati. A feat that
many chief ministers would find difficult to match.
Some might say, this
is because he heads Delhi, India’s capital. To those people, the question is –
how many remember Sahib Singh Verma, Madan Lal Khurana? They were Chief Ministers
of Delhi too.
Another marketing
point - It is difficult for brand extensions to become larger than the brand,
like, difficult for iPad to become larger than Apple, but Kejriwal has proven
that it is possible.
When the 2011 anti
corruption movement led by Anna Hazare was at its peak, Arvind Kejriwal was
almost invisible. From there, for him to take charge of this agitation and lead
his party to a win in Delhi indicates incredible marketing wizardry.
As Kejriwal and team
AAP complete one year in office, there is a lot that marketers can learn from
their rise and rise
1)
The consumers
love solid propositions.
2)
It is
possible to have a TOMA substantially higher than Market share if you create a
brand appeal the cuts across segments.
3)
Yes, brand
extensions can become bigger than mother brands.
4)
Yes, Brands
can get created in a short duration of time.
