With a spend of Rs 200 crore, more than a million seconds of airtime and 800,000 column centimetres of print space, Bharat Nirman has probably eclipsed the India Shining campaign.In 2004, the NDA government subjected the ‘aam aadmi’ to a Rs 150 crore plus campaign called India Shining. The media loved it and the tagline became a catchphrase for the booming Indian economy. However, the NDA lost and lost big. Suddenly it was the campaign that was villified and its giant price tag seen as an unnecessary extravagance. Everyone said that the BJP while recognising the achievements of a few in ‘India’ had forgotten about the teeming millions of Bharat. Circa 2009 and today the Congress led UPA government is in the NDA shoes. If one thought that they would have learnt from the NDA’s misadventure and desisted from wasting taxpayer money on tom-tomming the government’s achievements, think again! The temptation has been too great and a campaign of similar proportions has been released. Perhaps the only difference is that ‘India’ has been replaced by ‘Bharat’ and ‘Shining’ by ‘Nirman’. While the Congress insists that this is not a political campaign (just as the BJP insisted with India Shining), the timing and the quantum of spends seem to belie that. Arun Jaitley of the BJP has no doubts that the intention is blatantly political and minces no words when he says, “It is a proxy campaign for the UPA.” Salman Khurshid of the Congress defends the UPA’s actions saying, “There is no moral or political prescription against government advertising.” And as for the timing, he argues that this is the window available before the Model Code comes into operation. Model code or no model code, the ad budget for this campaign would make the likes of Levers and Vodafone do a double take. Sources close to the campaign say that close to Rs 200 crore has been spent on this campaign under various heads. So large is the campaign that in recent months the government has been the single largest consumer of air time and media space on many of the major channels in volume terms. According to TAM, the ad volumes of these campaigns on TV and print in second half of 2008 alone stood at one million seconds and 8 lakh column cms. Many media planners say that the government spending has turned out to be an unexpected boon for many of the channels, which have been seeing marketers cutting back on their spends. More so because unlike Doordarshan, private channels do not give any discounts to the government. So how different is this campaign from the previous one? Arvind Sharma, chairman, Leo Burnett, that came up with the Aam Aadmi campaign for the Congress in 2004 is not very convinced that this will work. Says Sharma “Right now, I don’t see an emotionally compelling platform on which the campaign is based.” Well, the fact is that all government campaigns, regardless of who is in power in an election year, have basically the same agenda and that is to convince potential voters that they delivered on their promise and to try and stay in power. So which means that this is the same old wine in new packaging. Or in the case of Bharat Nirman where the visuals seem to hark back to the eighties it is the same old wine in retro packaging. Given that it is a parity product, the differentiation comes more from a marginal difference in the talking points and significant difference in treatment rather than the product itself. Prathap Suthan, NCD, Cheil Worldwide, who wrote the India Shining campaign believes that in tonality and manner both campaigns, India Shining and the current Government’s proposition, are similar. Says Suthan, “If one knocks off the word Bharat and puts the word India, it’s one and the same.” If India Shining dwelt on foreign exchange, then Bharat Nirman has claims about the Government helping foreign employment seekers. If India Shining focused on the new age sectors like IT, then Bharat Nirman has chosen to focus on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. If there is one major difference it is in the execution or treatment of the two commercials. India Shining was largely about urban India, whereas Bharat Nirman is much more about rural India. Unlike the squeaky clean hip models enjoying the good life used in the India Shining campaign (even the farmers were gentrified) the Bharat Nirman campaign shows idyllic villages, which are bursting with prosperity. One campaign was shot in a studio and the other has been shot mostly in a village on the outskirts of Delhi — apparently the production budgets were not enough for the government to showcase the Aam Aadmi in villages, where they claim such development has taken place. The other is that this time around close to 50 films have been produced at an average cost of Rs 5-6 lakh each while the India Shining campaign had much fewer pieces of creative. For all the effort, many are unable to see the point of this campaign. Santosh Desai, CEO Future Brands has this to say: “Things are different now. I don’t see the Congress story in its new campaign and it hangs in limbo.” Some believe that it is unfair to call this just another side of the India Shining coin. According to Rohit Ohri, managing partner, JWT, which would be handling the Congress campaign along with Crayons Advertising, this is in no way a political campaign. Says Ohri, “It’s a report card on the Government performance. Once the election notification sets in, the Congress campaign will kick in. Till then it’s the achievements of the UPA which is being spoken about.” Ranjan Bargotra, president, Crayons Advertising says it’s common for any ruling Government to highlight the work it has done. “It’s not about India or Bharat, but a creative expression talking about the achievements,” states Bargotra. He believes that this is not feel good advertising like India Shining, but fact-based advertising. Needless to say that the BJP disputes most of these claims as does every party when in opposition in India. The bigger question though is, will this campaign connect? After all, India Shining for all the hype failed to achieve its goal — returning the BJP to power. One of India’s leading political commentators Mahesh Rangarajan warns against excessive use of the broad spectrum achievement plank, currently run by the Government. “UPA should be careful about it, as it may fail to connect. India is a country of wide disparities and expectations are running high given the current situation in particular,” he explains. Many also believe the Aam Aadmi kind of campaign works better when in the opposition. “India Shining was a brilliant campaign till the time our campaign happened. They played on the front foot but we spotted the chinks and got them at the right spot,” recollects Sharma. Desai of Future Brands concurs that it was not the brilliance of Aam Aadmi as much as the fact that it managed to tap into the flaws of the opposition. The other problem for the Congress led UPA is that the economy is in bad shape, the spectre of terrorism is looming large and there is anti-incumbency to deal with. According to Rangarajan mere imagery may not be enough and going ahead Congress will have to answer questions like — with the slowdown, how will Government take charge and steady the economy in the time to come if voted to power. “People want to see what next? And it’s not only about urban or rural India,” he says. So, the big question is — are political parties justified in wasting taxpayer money on advertising campaigns? For one knows that in India elections are not decided on the basis of advertising. It’s alliances and issues like roti, kapda, sadak and bijli which win votes. It’s the one point where both the BJP and the Congress agree answering a resounding NO. BJP’s Arun Jaitley says, “Tax payers’ money should not be used by political parties to pursue political agenda.” And Salman Khurshid of the Congress agrees saying, “It’s a moot point whether money should be spent on such ads. We would be happy to engage in an informed debate and are willing to consider appropriate legislation.” Perhaps the next government will have the courage to move a bill, until then the common man will watch every five years the massive public money extravaganza and ask; ‘Aam Aadmi Ko Kya Mila?’