Arvind Kejriwal has Obama-fied Indian politics. He’s promised to bring change, through the Delhi elections, and has a strong message that resonates with every Indian. I’ll break down his overall marketing strategy, and include key principles that he’s leveraged throughout his campaign. Plus, I’ll share a special email campaign that he’s shared with his some of his followers, and how he effectively used a service called Thunderclap to increase his social reach.
Branding Principles:
1. Consistent Messages: His message wasn’t unique. Every politician before him spoke about change and how they’d improve the country for good. All we received was assembly riots, greedy decision makers, and a fall in both GDP and in the exchange rate. What Kejriwal has offered, was some consistency in his message. He’s proved to the people that he means business. After uncovering many large government scandals and proving himself debate after debate, he’s maintained a consistent image of being a change-leader.
He was open, honest, and transparent in his words, and spear-headed one of the greatest movements in modern history – “The Jan Lokpal Bill”. People flocked after him everywhere and resonated with his message of a better future. With “0” spends on tv, print media, and outdoor advertising, this campaign was run purely on door-to-door visits, social media and word of mouth (through 1,00,000+ volunteers). Still not convinced? – Corruption is an issue that cuts across classes. Delhi, having the highest per-capita income and having 40% of its population living in slums, responded unanimously to AAP’s message. There was no “Target Demographic” in this campaign, neither was there a focus on one “vote bank”. However, the message was customized, as per the channel (Radio, Twitter, Facebook, & YouTube) and as per the social strata (clean water for the poor, better highways for the rich), but with a strong focus on the core message. A consistent message that proved too powerful to be neglected by any single demographic. A cleaner India for a better India.
2. Usage of Mnemonic: The broom. Why did they choose the broom? Yogendra Yadav (NEC, AAP) told money control that the perception of the AAP was that of it being an “upper-class” movement. The broom’s purpose was two-fold. a. It included the lower-class by associating with the Jhaadoo (broom),
a household item present in all lower class homes
b. AAP associated itself with “cleaning-up” the nation through the broom’s symbolic meaning. What’s interesting is that the election commission has only a fixed number of images that parties can choose from. In other words, the broom was one of the government-approved images, which ended up working perfectly for the AAP.
3. Social Proof: Did I mention that AAP had over 100,000 volunteers? Some of whom quit their jobs, and most of whom worked for no salary. This reminds me of another major movement – WIKIPEDIA. Unpaid people that focused on the greater good of humanity, just so they could leave behind a legacy. A legacy that included them being the first few agents of change.
The numbers speak for themselves. 
Add to this the huge number of fan-created Facebook and Twitter accounts, and you have a massive movement that’s reaching millions. And what happens if there’s a lot of people in a specific group? Other people want to join in as well. Be it a football club or a rock-band, where there’s numbers, there’s curiosity. Pseudo-fans jump in and out, but the core group maintains its loyalty which drives the movement home. As Seth Godin would say, “Focus on the 10% of the people that will care and the rest will follow. Build your tribe”. A potent mix of survivor bias and FOMO (Fear of missing out), created this campaign and established its roots in Delhi. Celebrities joined in as well, and gave their full support to this mission.
Thunderclap allowed people to donate a social media feed, a Tweet or a Facebook post, to the AAP. Users could register their accounts and donate a customized tweet that would automatically publish at a specific time on a specific day.
An influence network of 35,00,000 is no joke. This is free coverage to make this movement truly trend-worthy. Brands investing in CSR activities should look at this amazing website. #Project Sunlight (by Unilever)
4. Overcoming challenges: The AAP had a clear villain – The corrupt government parties. Everyone could resonate with the story of an underdog battling for the greater good. AAP had it’s first challenge in Anna Hazare’s rejection of the party’s entry into politics, proceeding which it entered a phase of intense questioning related to its sources of funding. But, throughout its journey, AAP overcame all obstacles an created a strong position in every Indian’s mind. This is the fundamental difference between Jullian Assange‘s appraoch and Arvind Kejriwal’s. Assange, like Snowden, fled and did not enter into politics. Kejriwal knew that if he followed Assange’s footsteps, then his efforts would be in vain.
Although, Kejriwal came nowhere close to Assange’s level of investigative journalism, he knew that people don’t retain information for too long. They needed a call-to-action for the information that was being delivered to them. In the case of the AAP, it was a single vote. Comparing his strategy to that of the Arab Spring, Kejriwal knew that causing mass revolts would not solve the fundamental problems that affected this country.
5. One-to-one Engagement: Finally, it came down to engagement at the personal level. By going door-to-door and stating their case, AAP created a strong grass roots movement. Kejriwal even personally called homes in Delhi, and convinced many to vote for his party during the elections. The non-scalable things are the ones that are the most effective. Even his email campaigns were custom designed to include a certain zonal-level volunteer that was a point of contact. Here’s his email campaign, that he sent out to all his followers. Click on the image to expand it.
AAP has made it extremely simple for anyone (young and poor, or rich and old) to create buzz around its campaign. There are a few additional points, that made this campaign a success at the tactical level.
Additional Insights:
1. Auto-campaign: With no money to spend on expensive billboards or TV campaigns, AAP focused on running banners on auto-rickshaws. An auto rickshaw also serves the purpose of targeting multiple classes of society, since people from across the spectrum have travelled via rickshaw sometime or another.
2. Targeting NRIs: People living outside of India have experienced a life of comfort and the advantages of having a somewhat corruption free government. Call it guilt or call it nostalgia, NRIs wanted to help the AAP. With a majority of its funds coming from people living outside of India (some peg it to multiple of crores), AAP truly became an international movement. 3. Being Unconventional: AAP spoke to a few media agencies that advised AAP to create a professional aura around themselves, and asked Arvind Kejriwal to clean-up his appearance. They decided to go against that route, which cemented their mission and vision further, and strengthened their commitment even more. For further information you can reach me at contact@fivemv.com and on Twitter Follow @sanchitkhera7
Original article at – https://fivemv.com/aam-aadmi-partys-marketing-strategy/
Sandeep Gupta
I think the biggest lesson to be learnt from AAP is that don’t start your business on fake promises and promising the moon. Be realistic, learn to progress step by step. As they say, you can fool some people at all times, you can fool all people some times but you can not fool all people at all times.