Memes and the Coming General Elections

Brand gurus, mostly, do not make good election strategists as simply as a good man. mostly, does not make for a great politician. Building brands and winning elections work on two entirely different communication paradigms. Elections are won when the evoked memes favor one party more than the other and not because one brand is stronger than the other (I had written a post last year that contrast brands and memes: Beyond the Brand: The Meme?. It is reproduced at the end of this post). When voters vote they are going much beyond making a brand choice. They are acting on the deepest and complex set of human needs and instincts. Election campaigns work when they are based, overtly and covertly, on "shorthand" that crystallizes these deep and complex needs. This "shorthand" is both pervasive and simple as it is magical. Magical because it manages to invoke and infer to a rich structure of perceptions and self-image within an individual.For many decades now the memes that have have distinguished the winners from the losers in Indian politics have come from the area of identity. Muslim and Hindu. Lower Caste and Upper Caste. Rich and Poor. Over the past two decades another powerful meme has been added to Indian politics: Local and National. The Local and National meme has added a whole new set of winners in Indian politics and ushered in the era of coalition politics. In the past few years another powerful identity based meme has made it's appearance: the Youth meme. This meme is the most powerful dimension of the demographic dividend that promises to change Indian politics and Indian society. Election strategists that deeply understand and invoke the Youth meme could tap into a winning vein that, given India's demographics, could hold them in good stead for the next 2 to 3 decades. On the other hand strategies based on a superficial understanding of the Youth meme can dump one into the loser's bin for a long time. The Youth meme is not necessarily evoked by "babalog" politicians. In fact fronting entitled members of the "lucky sperm" club might be a way to evoke the Youth meme not for your party's campaign but for the opposition. The election strategist needs to go deeper in his examination of the Youth meme. How does it interact with the still powerful memes from past elections - Religion,Caste, Class and Ethnicity. Is the best way to invoke the Youth meme not by direct appeal but to invoke a set of powerful ancillary memes? What are they? Jobs? Freedom? Quality of Life? Education? Health?. These are the questions that the election strategists who will win in 2014 are pondering over and getting answers to right now. And if no one is, well it could then well be that there is no winner in 2014. It will then be time to prepare for some more years of the doldrums of the limbo my friends. Beyond the Brand: The Meme?

Meme: (me~m) n biology an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by non-genetic means esp. imitation (The New Oxford American Dictionary) What does a brand that has done that, been there, go next? In these days of social media and viral communication it seems that becoming an “element of culture or system of behavior…passed on by one individual to another.. by non-genetic means” is well within the grasp of even relatively modest marketing budgets. The question is why would a brand want to become a meme? Well, simply because a meme is more powerful than a brand by many orders of magnitude. USA is a meme that still drives pop culture across the world. Milk is a meme, just ask any mom. India used to be a meme in the Middle Ages- fueling dreams of exotic mysteries and fabulous riches in many a buccaneer. Today the increasing soft power of India if husbanded well could give back to India the power of being a meme. So will brand marketing now move on to aiming for the power of the meme? Well while the use of viral media is on the increase and the marketing chaterrati is talking about changing paradigms etcetera, I don’t think anybody knows how to make a meme happen through marketing. Maybe we need a new to discipline to be invented. Will a new Kotler soon arise?

PS: To the normal consumer brands are a significant but small part of her existence. On the other hand to marketers and advertising people like me brands are the core of our discipline. So if you are one of my many readers who are from outside the marketing and advertising fraternity pleas bear with me when I, once in a while, indulge in shop talk.