URVI MALVANIAMumbai, 23 May

On a day that hadnearly every Indianglued to a screen,

advertisers made hay. Brandsstepped in for a slice of theaction with cheeky celebrato-ry messages, careful to com-pliment the voter withoutraising a toast for the victorwhile television channels, dig-ital news portals and socialmedia timeliness boiled overin cacophonous frenzy.Experts said that this is theevent to beat all events in thecountry and no advertiserwants to be left behind. At thesame time, they want to stepcarefully around party align-ments, without antagonisinga single consumer.

“Big brands with nationalpresence and deep pocketswill look at events like elec-tions and the counting daywith keen interest. The generalelections result in the nationengaging in one conversation,which then they try and lever-age for their advertising goals,”says Saurabh Uboweja, CEOBrands of Desire.

Over the past month-and-a-half through the nine phasesof the election, a large numberof brands such as KFC,Zomato, McDonald’s,Samsonite, Benetton have

waded into the electoral arenausing humour to get theirmessages across. As the D-daydrew closer, more and morecitizens were drawn deeperinto conversations aroundpolitics, providing whatexperts say, the best opportu-nity for brands to strike.

On social media it led totrending Twitter hashtags andon television, increased view-ers. In April for example, theviewership on news channelssaw a 60 per cent growth yearon year, a trend which contin-ued into the month of May.And on counting day, newschannels were estimated tohave clocked in numbers sur-passing that of the IndianPremier League finals.According to one media plan-ner, the average rates(throughout the day) on a typ-ical Thursday would be in therate of ~3000 to ~7000.However on May 23, rateswere in the range of ~2.5-3

lakh, he said. Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP

News Network says, “Chan -nels are selling just one thirdof the inventory on electionday since the focus is on pro-viding as much in-depth cov-erage as possible. Moreover,with a fairly decisive result,viewership is expected totrickle over into the weekendsince there may be some com-munication from PM Modi.”

With the time available forads going down, brandssought out innovative ways tomake their presence felt. Onticker boards flashing at thebottom of the screen, labels onstate-wise breakdowns of elec-toral results and of course viaads on social media. The ratesfor a flashing band on thechannels was going foraround one lakh rupees, saidindustry sources.

On television, brands tooka fairly routine form of mes-saging, keeping it simple and

straightforward with just aname being flashed or run-ning an old commercial.However on social media,many brands took a humor-ous swipe at the results. Theairline IndiGo tweeted a photoin its trademark blue back-ground and the copy read,“We have seats for everyone”.SpiceJet didn’t couch its mes-sage, congratulating the PrimeMinister and declaring that itwas time for ‘Saffron on theground, red in the sky’.

Uboweja says that brandsought to be cautious at suchtimes, more than what theywere when Article 377 wasstruck down or the World Cupfinal is played. “When itcomes to a political event,especially the general assem-bly elections, brands have tobe very careful. They couldend up alienating a part of theconsumer base, employees orcommercial partners other-wise,” he adds.

TOP 5 NEWS CHANNELS

Brands join the frenzy, stepgingerly around poll politicsAd rates soar on television, Indian elections top the trend lists on social media,even as brands step in with celebratory messages

Top L to R: Amul and SpiceJet congratulated thePM; (Bottom L to R) Kingfisher and IndiGo usedhumour to convey an inclusive message

Channels Impressions (000s) sum

HINDIAaj Tak 141,950India TV 119,927Republic Bharat 113,526News18 India 110,785ABP News 1002,11ENGLISHRepublic TV 613DD India 540Times Now 452India Today TV 323CNN News18 316Hindi : HSM (U+R) : NCCS All : 15+IndividualsEnglish : All India (U+R) : NCCS AB :Males 22+ IndividualsWeek: May 11-17

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12 BRAND WORLD>

AHMEDABAD | FRIDAY, 24 MAY 2019

NEHA ALAWADHINEW DELHI, 23 May

Experts may be divided on the roleTwitter played in the just concludedgeneral elections, but going by thenumbers, the medium was certainlyused extensively during the period.

According to Twitter, about 396million tweets were made “aroundthe Lok Sabha elections” between 1January and 23 May, 2019.

On Thursday, the counting day,3.2 million tweets were made, one-third of these were recorded between3 and 4 pm, when Prime MinisterNarendra Modi also tweeted.

The microblogging platform sawa 600 per cent rise in conversationsover the elections. The#LokSabhaElections2019 emoji fea-tured hashtag for not just Englishand Hindi, but also for Tamil andGujarati.

Between 11 April and 19 May,national security emerged as themost talked about election-relatedtopic on Twitter, followed by religion,

jobs and employment, agriculture,and demonetisation, Twitter said ina statement on Thursday.

According to a research carriedby the Indraprastha Institute ofInformation Technology Delhi andHyderabad, the number of election-related tweets on Thursday was407,000, the number of retweetswas 252,000, with about 164 uniquehashtags.

The profiles were mentioned themost were that of Narendra Modi(@narendramodi), mentioned54,344 times; BJP's official handle@BJP4India, mentioned 18,834;Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi),mentioned 9,997 times; and BJPPresident Amit Shah (@AmitShah)mentioned 9,099 times. Other pro-files that were mentioned a lot were@smritiirani (8,658), @SirJadeja(6096), @INCIndia (5420).

The most popular hashtags were#ElectionResults2019, #Verdict2019,#LokSabhaElections2019,#VijayiBharat, #ModiAaRahaHai,#Amethi and #ModiAaGaya.

Tsu-NaMo...Congratulatory messagespoured from leaders across theworld, including ChinesePresident Xi Jinping, JapanesePM Shinzo Abe, RussianPresident Vladimir Putin andPakistan PM Imran Khan. ThePM is set to visit Bishkek toattend the ShanghaiCooperation Organisationsummit in mid-June where heis set to meet Xi and Khan.

The PM’s immediate chal-lenge would be to revive bothconsumption and investmentin the economy, and appointhis council of ministers.However, there would beimmediate as well as long-term ramifications of the BJP’swin. The Janata Dal (Secular)– Congress government inKarnataka could face trouble,as could Congress’ MadhyaPradesh government that hasa slim majority in the state’sAssembly. In his speech, BJPchief Amit Shah congratulatedOdisha CM Naveen Patnaikand Andhra Pradesh’s YSRCongress Party for theirrespective wins in theAssembly polls in the twostates. He, however, warnedthat the BJP would soon con-quer West Bengal.

While the BJP now has abrute majority of its own in theLok Sabha, it still needs thesupport of its allies in the RajyaSabha to get the key billspassed. But the BJP by 2022could be in a position to pushthrough constitution amend-ment bills, which require pas-sage by two-thirds of the mem-bers of the two Houses.

It remains to be seen howsteadfastly the BJP pursues itscore agenda of abolishingArticle 370 of the Constitutionthat gives Jammu andKashmir special status, con-structing a Ram temple inAyodhya and implementing auniform civil code. The situa-tion in Jammu and Kashmirclearly remains a challenge forthe new Modi government.

Shah may...In Gujarat, Shah had served ashome minister in govern-ments led by Modi. However,Rajnath Singh, who hasretained his Lucknow seat, isone of the senior-most partyleaders and served as homeminister in the first Modi gov-ernment. It remains to be seenif Nirmala Sitharaman, whoably defended the governmenton the alleged irregularities inthe Rafale fighter jet deal,would continue to remain

defence minister, and whetherRailway Minister PiyushGoyal, who has emerged thegovernment’s crisis manager,gets a more high-profile port-folio.

However, there are con-cerns on Finance MinisterArun Jaitley’s health. He wasdischarged from New Delhi’sAllMS on Thursday and did-n't attend the party's victorycelebrations at the BJP head-quarters in the evening.Given the challenges on theeconomic front in themonths to come, the concernin the party is if Jaitley’shealth will permit him to jointhe ministry at the currentjuncture. Jaitley has not beenattending office for aboutthree weeks now. He had thefinance portfolio, and brieflythe defence portfolio, formost of the duration of theModi government but for twointerregnums, when Goyalhandled finance.

Jaitley had undergonesurgery in the US on January22 for a reported soft tissuecancer in his left leg, an illnessthat led to him not being ableto present the Modi govern-ment's sixth and final Budgetof its current term. Goyal hadpresented that Budget.

Sushma Swaraj, who hasserved as external affairsminister, decided not to con-

test the Lok Sabha polls.Currently, Swaraj is not amember of either of the twoHouses. She recently attend-ed the Shan ghai CooperationOrgani sation (SCO) meetingin Bishkek. The PM is set toattend a key SCO meeting inBishkek on June 14-15, wherehe would be meeting not justChinese President Xi Jinpingbut Pakistan PM ImranKhan.

Textiles Minister SmritiIrani, who proved to be a giant-killer by defeating CongressPresident Rahul Gandhi fromthe Amethi seat, could be ele-vated.

The PM and Shah wouldalso find it difficult to ignorethe claims of such leaders as VK Singh, who has won his seatby a huge margin fromGhaziabad. Senior leader RaviShankar Prasad has alsodebuted in the Lok Sabha afteryears spent in the Rajya Sabha.

The Modi governmentwould need to factor in theupcoming Assembly polls inMaharashtra, Haryana andJharkhand and give MPs fromthese states representation inthe council of ministers. Partysources said some ministries,particularly the agricultureministry, could see a change.Some of the younger MPscould also be inducted in thecouncil of ministers.

Record election-relatedactivity on Twitter

> FROM PAGE 1

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