Please
Note -This is the view of the Prime
Minister as a Marketer and not as a politician.
One of my
favourite management books is “ The end of Marketing as we know it”, by Sergio
Zyman, an ex Coca Cola Marketing Chief.
The book is
fairly old, written a few decades back. It precedes the Telecom Era and, by a
margin the Internet era. It still has relevance.
Zyman takes
pains to explain that Marketing is not about campaigns that make you feel good.
It is about getting more customers to buy more of your products at higher
prices.
The area it
does not talk about is Politics. Neither does the book understand marketing in
the emerging economy.
At 73, Mr
Zyman can travel to India to learn these two areas and write a new version. By
observing the master marketer, Mr Modi.
We have
rarely seen any organization, any politician who has such a good feel of the pulse
of the people.
With the announcements
of a political Maha Gathbandhan, the situation was suddenly looking grim for
BJP.
An
opposition that was looking clueless and listless had suddenly found its mojo. With
topics like Farm Distress and lack of job creation as its major planks, it was
looking as if the ruling party was finally coming under the pump. With elections
looming, the ruling party needed something major to wrest the political
narrative back.
The interim
budget was the last opportunity
A few master
strokes like raising the floor for income tax, raising tax bar on FD interest,
benefits for farmers were announced. And, Voila, has the mood swung!
As per the
2016 tax filings, almost 20 Million of the 40 Million individual tax payers are
in the sub 5 lakh salary band. One small step from the Policy and Modiji has
created a new vote bank of 20 Million!
With only
about 1.5% of India’s population that directly invests in the stock market, bank
and small savings play a vital role for the salaried class. Income tax limits
for FD interest being raised was the kind of relief tax payers were looking
for.
With a minimum
guarantee for farmers, he took the Farmer issue by its horns.
While doing
all this, through the release of a movie on the Surgical Strikes, Mr Modi has
kept BJP’s military positioning alive.
Only time
will tell whether all these measures are beneficial to the farmer and the
economy.
But, these measures have positioned Mr
Modi as the saviour of the middle class and the farmer, while keeping the
patriotic fervour high.
And, with
this, the initiative and the brand equity that seemed to be slipping away from
him has been firmly pulled back.
How many
people or brands can you think of that have pulled off such a perception
change in so short a time?
If this is
not brilliant marketing, what is?
