Winnability Without Ability

This was written before the elections

Election season is a marketing exercise and the Central Election Committees of political parties are the Product Managers. The candidates waiting to get tickets are the products. The CECs are in an unenviable position walking a tight rope to determine which product is going to hit the market and which one is going to stay on the shelf.

However, unlike products like soaps, washing machines and cars, candidates are humans, exhibiting moods and egos making the job of the product manager that much more complex and challenging.

The market place is heterogenous and often unpredictable. A true marketeer is supposed to tailor products for the market rather than push products down the throats of his customer. Doing the latter has disastrous effects; while products can lie on the retailers shelves unsold, thelosing candidate can go into political oblivion.

India is one heck of heterogenous market place and it is only recently that MNCs have realized how difficult this market of a billion people is. The political Product Manager is astute unlike his MNC counterpart. He has the complete demogaphics of the market place; the minority, the backward, the tribal, the trader, the upper caste, the migrant and he launches his product in the market place with the product attribute that appeals to his customer base the best. Never mind that gutaka is cancerous or that the candidate has serious criminal cases; his saleability is sureshot and is the best bet to make the cash register ring.

Our founding fathers could be accussed of not being that clairvoyant enough to see how destructive and detrimental this numbers game is going to be; but I would’nt do that for I believe that they were selfless individuals and had the interest of the country at heart. It is the subsequent generation of leaders that led the politics into the cess pool that it we find ourselves.

Capt Gopinath in his Op-Ed on the NDTV website writes that the coming of AAP had changed the political discourse. It was taking away the country from the paradigm of caste and community. That alas has not happened as the political marketeer continues to segment the market with his classical marketing theories to guarantee the bottom line. Often, the best laid marketing plans come to a nought; remember new Coke? The consumer simply and plainly rejected the product prompting Coca Cola to apologize publicly and withdraw the product.

Should the Indian voter reject the bad product by exercising his power to press the “NOTA” switch? I would urge him not to for he is not contributing to the revenue of a corporation. He is electing a government and India needs firm and decisive governance. We want policies that will make our country a strong economic power that can raise the lot of the common man while we work to cleanse the system. Both, the purge and the economic growth somehow have to go together. They are not mutually exclusive. As David Pilling mentioned in his article in the Financial Times, it is about increasing the pie and not cutting fine the existing pie. Let me not mention here, which PM candidate he thought, was in the best poistion to do that!

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