With this win, NaMo is India's most trusted brand

It’s pretty much official now. Narendra Damodardas Modi is India biggest and most trusted brand. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) of which he is the uncontested mascot, has polled around 48 percent of votes across India, a shade less than the all-time record of 49 percent Congress won in 1984. The scale of Modi’s victory seems even more staggering in the face of an economic climate that hasn’t been as grim in the past two decades. Clearly, almost half of India seems to have reposed faith in Modi to turn things around on the economic front. An NDA at around the 350 mark suggests Brand Modi’s salience has grown immensely over the past five years, adding significantly more believers to the fold.

In the world of marketing, when a brand’s purpose meets performance, it inevitably leads to preference. One of Modi’s biggest successes since the run-up to the 2014 elections has been the effective communication of his brand’s purpose. Unlike his competitors, brand Modi hasn’t tried to be all things to all people. While it grates a significant section of India, Modi has made muscular nationalism, embracing the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) idea of Hindutva unapologetically, and decisiveness that is a result of centralising power, the elements of his brand’s purpose. Economists may have described Modi’s performance as underwhelming at best and blamed him for measures such as demonetisation, but voters seem to be convinced that he’s the best man to pull India out of this mess, even if some of it may be of his own making. As for the retaliatory cross-border Balakot airstrikes – whether successful or not remains a matter of debate – have won him points for decisive action. Brand Modi’s in-your-face seems to resonate with the young and millennials, many of whom were first-time voters in 2019.

Modi’s impressive run of election victories since 2014 made many of his critics wonder if the BJP had managed to permanently communalise the Hindu majority in India. It would be churlish, especially on a day of such a spectacular victory, to argue that the gullible Indian voter has been weaponised. A successful marketing campaign seeks to determine the needs and interests of target markets. Perhaps a sizable chunk of voters among the majority community was, for various socio-political reasons, waiting for a Modi-like figure in whom to place their trust.

The Opposition virtually took over the responsibility of marketing Brand Modi. The relentless and personal attack on Modi ensured that he wasn’t too far away from the minds of voters. By the time the voting ended, the Opposition had successfully turned it into a referendum on Modi.

If Brand Modi promised to offer young voters, in the age of cheap data and streaming, smartphones with bigger screens, better resolution, louder sound, and million-megapixel selfie cameras, Brand Rahul, by comparison, threatened to relaunch a souped-up version of Nokia 3310 aimed at retro-loving Twitter hipsters. Congress’ platitudes on secularism and NYAY, the Rs 72,000 a year income support scheme for the poor, floated almost as an afterthought, managed to excite only its core support base. The actual and intended target audience gave it a cold shoulder.

Just as the context of consumption for young India has changed from merely utilitarian to signaling status and aspiration through the things they buy, the context for Congress’ staple offerings – secularism, social justice and doles – too, has undergone a shift. Not only do they increasingly seem intangibles but bring to question Congress’ real commitment to its stated purpose.

Without a more sharply defined purpose that can be easily articulated, and performance that’s consistent and visible, none in the Opposition can emerge a credible challenger to Brand Modi.

(TR Vivek is a Bangalore-based journalist)