How Brand Anna shook the government

‘Brand Anna’ has tickled the imagination of marketing and brand management experts. On August 23, the students of Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University, had a class on ‘Brand Anna’. The students gained an insight into how Anna turned the corruption issue into a brand and an exciting marketing strategy.

With the aim of coming up with a case study and presenting a paper later, Professor Harsh Vardhan Verma, a faculty member for marketing at FMS, started his study in the form of two blogs — ‘Brand Anna: Lessons in Branding’ and ‘Anna direction and youth directionless’.

“What has this simple man, who otherwise may fail to attract attention on the street, appropriated?” asked Verma. “Anna’s brilliance lies in his ability to sense the void and respond to that by creating a product accordingly (Lokpal). Some needs are so obvious that they escape attention. Anna has lent voice to a murmur that the political establishment knowingly ignored. He converted it into a war cry. Brand Anna stands for a ‘promise’ (India liberated from corruption), which connects people.”

The physical similarities between Anna and Gandhi, the similarities in their core promises, the similarities in their approach, made the vast supporters familiar with the core meaning of Brand Anna, that reminded us of the freedom struggle where Gandhi achieved through non-violence.

Building brands, and communicating with the public at large needs to be based on a singular plinth: honesty,” says Pratap Suthan, the man behind the India Shining and Incredible India! campaigns, and who is the chief explorer at brand and creative consulting firm ‘The Advisory’. Explaining what worked with Anna, he says, “Tomorrow if Ratan Tata decides to go on a fast, he will get media coverage because he has the power and the money to ensure that. But he will not get our goose bumps going. He is too polished, and his accent isn’t mine. What makes Hazare special is that he is a simple, honest, old, frail man who has nothing except public support. He is fire, light, hope, and he is me. For him to stand up and challenge generates inspiration.”

Today Brand Anna and the Jan Lokpal crusade have featured at the tenth spot on the India Influencer list released by digital brand management firm Pinstorm. India Against Corruption became the highest-ever entry on the Indian Influencer list, according to the digital agency.

The India Influencer list tracks over 3,000 Indian online entities daily and ranks their influence based on their impact on social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin besides others. This top 10 ranking puts the Jan Lokpal movement as being more influential online in Indian as compared to established online brands like Vodafone, MTV India.

The ‘India Against Corruption’ movement has attracted over 500,000 fans across a few dozen groups on social networking site Facebook, over 100,000 followers on micro-blogging platform Twitter for the @JanLokPal identity and a Klout score of 80, which is higher than that of even Amitabh Bachchan said the study released by Pinstorm. A Klout score is a social grading service, which measures a person’s influence in aggregate of all of their social networks presence.

This is the only movement in Indian history that has motivated and swayed thousands of NRIs.

India may have many issues that need to be resolved. This campaign is completely focussed on one issue that is the greatest concern of all Indians. The government therefore cannot overlook the resolution passed by both the houses of Parliament.

In case Chairman of the Standing Committee, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, delays its report as he said that it may need four months, and that there is no guarantee of its exactly conforming to the provisions of the Jan Lokpal Bill, there could be serious trouble ahead as Brand Anna will again put the government on the mat.

The author is advisor, Institute of Development Studies and Training, Chandigarh
lvasu022@gmail.com