Can online election campaigns become politically correct in India?

by Satrajit Sen

Barack Hussein Obama , the President-elect of the United States and famous for his 'Let's bring the change' message, might well prove successful in changing the way his Indian counterparts think about internet. Of late, many Indian politicians have begun considering internet as a viable medium for interactive communication and are, consequently, making their presence felt in the World Wide Web.

Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has already launched a website LKAdvani.in for its prime ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani and another for its chief ministerial candidate for Delhi, Vijay Kumar Malhotra at VKMalhotra.in . Indian National Congress has also entered the digital space by launching its first internet campaign for the Rajasthan state Assembly elections. Under the campaign, the party has uploaded video ads on YouTube and also plans to display them across sites including Yahoo, Rediff, MSN and NDTV.

Prodyut Bora, convenor of BJP's National IT Cell, believes that after television, internet has emerged as a very useful platform for political communication especially with the youth. And considering that the country is likely to see around 100 million new voters in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, the importance of reaching to the country's youth segment becomes a no-brainer.

“This (the launch of LKAdvani.in and VKMalhotra.in) is BJP's endeavour to listen to the views and voices of young Indians who are using the internet not only to receive information but also to express themselves. We want to demonstrate to them that our party and our alliance are in tune with their aspirations and expectations,” Bora told AlooTechie.

During the US Presidential elections, Obama's team ensured that the campaign also had a strong presence on social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn and probably that inspired V K Malhotra's grandchildren to create a group on Facebook and invite people to vote for their grandfather. The group, called 'VK Malhotra for Delhi CM', already has attracted around 200 registered members.

Not to be left far behind, even the Congress party is using sites like YouTube and Facebook to run a social marketing optimization campaign. Ignitee India, an online marketing company, has taken steps to associate every household in Rajasthan with the Congress party electoral campaign through the digital medium.

“Political parties are now trying to use the internet medium to gain attention of their audience. The Congress party decided to explore this growing interactive medium in the Rajasthan circle to help people understand the importance of these elections and to spread awareness amongst its audience,” said Atul Hegde, CEO, Ignitee India (formerly Mediaturf).

But can internet really prove to be a fruitful medium to reach the target audience of an Indian politician? While responding to this question, Navneet Kaushal, founder and CEO of PageTraffic , a search engine optimization company, said, “Not only can the internet be used to attract and organize volunteers, but it can also act as the perfect platform to offer political viewpoints.”

“If there was any doubt in the validity of the fact that online medium will soon be crucial for the process of election campaign, it was removed with the success of the 'Jaago Re' campaign. The campaign was a hit to say the least, with viewers pouring in from all over the country,” Kaushal added. Recently launched JaagoRe.com site, which aims to get every citizen of India register and exercise their right to vote, has already attracted over 71,000 people as registered members.

Incidentally, though the Congress has started using the digital medium for campaigning for the Rajasthan state Assembly polls, nothing is being planned by the party for Delhi or at a pan India level. When Delhi chief minister and Congress chief ministerial candidate for the state Sheila Dikshit was recently asked about her party's plan for using internet as a medium to connect with the country's youth, she said the party believes in one-to-one and person-to-person campaigning.

Perhaps, leaders like Sheila Dikshit need to understand that if they wish to connect with the country's young voters, especially those living in the metros; they really can't afford to ignore the internet. “It is hard to reach the youth through outdoor banners and posters and hence politicians should participate in social media to connect with the youth. They simply can't ignore it and have to make themselves involved in this medium,” Gautamm Mehra, head, search and affiliate, Ignitee India, said.

According to Mehra creating the future vote bank is only possible when the politicians or even party spokespersons interact with the youth. “The best possible way to do this is either by interacting through blogs and forums or by doing a podcast. Podcast might well prove to be the best option,” added Mehra.

Kiran Gopinath, co-founder and CEO of Ozone Media , an online ad network, said, “As voters get increasingly online savvy, digital media strategies will play an ever increasing role in contemporary and future Indian political campaigns. Political leaders can use database and the internet technologies to raise fund, organize volunteers, gather intelligence on voters, reach out to voters, and establish personal bonding with the voters and also to figure out the strategy and tactics of their opposition parties.”

There is another reason why politicians should embrace the online. It relatively costs less to run a campaign online than on any traditional media. But one needs to drive this point across the political parties and their leaders. In that context, the role of online agencies becomes significant. Digital agencies in India would do well to prepare themselves with strong and innovative strategies that may provide value to the political parties and their leaders. This can also help the industry get some additional ad revenues in the current downturn.

According to Gautamm Mehra of Ignitee, if the overall estimated electoral promotional budget in India stands at Rs 100 crore, at least Rs 10 crore can be spent online. “Politics is a very good issue to pull out budgets online and hence media planners should focus in churning out such innovative strategies that can attract politicians to be present online. If the political parties spend around 10 per cent of their total electoral campaign on internet, they can definitely feel the difference,” said Mehra.

Apart from the cost factor, there are various other points on which the online medium can prove more efficient than the traditional media like print, radio and TV. “The online medium is more efficient than other forms of media, primarily television. There is as much, if not more, video inventory available online, and at much lower cost, including in-banner and in-stream video impressions that can be geo-targeted to key primary states,” said Kiran Gopinath of Ozone Media.

The beauty of the online medium is that if a user gets interested in a political message and wants to know more, he just has to visit a search engine and get what he wants. Also, by clicking on the hyperlinked texts he can browse from one page to another and get to know the related information from a wider landscape. Certainly, this feature is not available in the so-called mass media.

Commenting on the same, Kiran Gopinath of Ozone Media said, “If a user is interested in learning more they are just a click away from hearing the rest of the candidate's message on his or her site and giving the candidate an opportunity to immediately and effectively engage with the user. This is something that is not possible with traditional mass media vehicles.”

Moreover, on TV, viewers have to see advertisements per force between their programmes whereas viewers watching political advertisements and speeches on YouTube are doing so with their own interests. “The effect is far deeper and lasts longer on the viewer watching an online video,” agreed Navneet Kaushal of PageTraffic.

Internet can also be used as a cost effective and viable medium for generating funds for campaign expenses. Barack Obama has already proved this through his successful online initiative that helped generate about $600 million through donations.

However, some people believe that in India the voters who really matter are still not present online and perhaps that could be the reason why most political parties in the country have been evading internet for running their poll campaigns.

Mrutyunjay Mishra, director, JuxtConsult , an online research and advisory firm, believes, “Hardly 20 per cent of the people who vote in India are present online. Hence, a person whose vote really matters is not online and that is why parties are not paying too much attention to the online medium.”

Citing instances, Mrutyunjay Mishra said that many of the executives who have access to internet do not vote and are rather focussed in contributing to the society in their own possible ways. “Thus, online poll campaigns in India can only be a failure until and unless the internet penetration increases and goes to the rural areas. Parties who are doing it might just want to be present in another medium in the country, but I can't foresee any long-term goals in that,” added Mishra.

India may not be ready yet for launching a full-fledged political campaign online, but as the internet penetration in the country goes deeper and touches the life of rural India, may be things would start shining! After all, Obama has already shown the potential of the online medium by using internet as an indispensable medium for his election campaigning process in US, and perhaps has even started inspiring people like Advani and Malhotra to experiment with the medium and see how the online can be leveraged to launch and run a political campaign in India as well. However, it remains to be seen whether we can replicate the Obama feat in this country where almost everything we do online appear to be a replica of something already done in the West.