8. Simple, honest, old, frail man
He is fire, light, hope and he’s ME
Bringing Aaj ka Gandhi & Doosri Aazadi to
the streets near you
Brand Anna Image
9.
10. Personal Branding &
What it Takes
• Self-less, Socially Conscious, Gandhi-wadi,
Fearless, Self-righteous, Conscience as
Clear as the Air
• The Build-up
• Bramhacharya
• Austere Living
• Gutsy
• Soft Spoken
11. Candle March
Songs
Anshan
Anna Topi
Tiranga
Ramlila Maidan
Creating Brand Engram
through Symbols
12. Brand ‘Anna’ Traits
Anna - Packaged Anna - Personified
An - naturalAnna - Saangi
Anna - Mirror
Anna - Soch
Anna Projection
Anti
Corruption
Movement
Anna Stickiness
26. Emotional and Elastic Connection to the Brand
Self-Concept threatening stimuli activates
defense mechanisms
PR activities
Armor for Brand Anna
27. Fast as a weapon of protest
Gandhi-giri
Mass mobilizaton
High-Value Team with Rock-solid
Ideas
Apolitical Middle-class
Brand Anna Ammo
34. Anna - Relevance
Themes, Trade Dresses, Products, Acts, Projections, Promotions
Anna as a Style ICON of the Hearts
ANNA
DNA
Anna - Packaged
Anna - Personified An - natural Anna - Mirror
Anna - Saangi Anna - Soch
Anna
Projection
Anna
Stickiness
36. Reasons for fast track success
Noble Simple Consistent Message
Social Media Networking
Need of the Hour
BRANdNA
Editor's Notes
It is this simplicity that connected with the common man. They saw that here was an old man, who should ideally be leading a retired life, fighting for a cause that would not affect his personal future and is ready to even stake his life for the same. This instantly connected with their hearts. Anna as a person is signifier, amenable to catching by the eyes of both his followers and the condemners. But the brand actually lies hidden which finds a deeper soul connection with people who rally behind him. Brand is the idea which is singularly ‘owned’ or ‘appropriated’ by Anna in the minds of millions who rally behind him.
Anna also helped people get a first-hand experience of the movement. Many lapped up the opportunity to be a part of making history. Celebrities queued up for lending their support. Even little known celebrities were encouraged to get their five minutes of fame. Patriotic speeches, songs and bhajans reverberated the venue of fasting; that also kept the crowd entertained.
Issue would have a universal appeal cutting across religions, castes, classes, age groups and backgrounds. He catered to a latent need in the society for somebody to fight for this cause. It was incumbent upon the ruling and opposition political parties to address this issue but, how could they when most of them were party to it? There was a gap, a gap for somebody to raise the issue. It is this gap that Anna Hazare filled. Anna’s brilliance lies in his ability to sense the void (latent need- freedom from corruption) and respond to that by creating a product accordingly (Lokpal). Some needs are so obvious (patent but relegated to dormancy) that they escape attention. Anna has lent voice to a murmur which political establishment knowingly ignored. He converted that into a war cry. Anna brand stands for a ‘promise’ (India liberated from corruption) which connects people.
Anna Hazare is a brand already that stands for truth, justice, honesty, courage and conviction. Image as that of a second Gandhi fighting for a second freedom struggle. And, this worked especially with the children.
Creating an Emotional response at every touchpoint
Anna is a great ‘pull’ brand. Its customers/followers ‘go out of way’ or are willing to bear extreme costs (withstand rain, hunger, crowd, sweat, and lathi charge) to patronize this brand. Brand Anna is certainly a brand to envy for many politicians. This kind of brand is every marketer’s dream when customers don’t take even a second to switch. Anna has burst commoditization in political space in a big way. He is probably every politician’s dream. It is not a hidden secret that political gatherings are often paid assemblies. Brands operate in different value spaces- some value spaces are more elastic than the others. Brand Anna operates on a very high layer of value orbit with near zero elasticity. The delivery of Anna is not on the mundane level. Why do people perform service (the lower the job the higher the service) at religious places? It is because of the spiritual connect. Anna brand draws it power from a higher order connection.
There are many other things that Anna did right. Unlike the government, his team constantly communicated with the common man especially through the media. Anna also made sure that even when he was sleeping there was somebody from his team available. After his first fast, he made statements to attract more people especially the youth. For example, he said that he got his strength from the youth of the country. This must have struck a chord with the youth, if one were to go by the increased number of youth in the second fast. The Anna team showed excellent media management. They kept providing fodder to the byte-hungry 24X7 news channels. Another thing that they did right was to make use of the Internet. Social networks and online news media were abuzz with Anna. Probably, his team knew that not everybody who supported his movement would be present physically and thus, they opened the virtual world for them. They even used SMSes and online services like YouTube to spread messages and news that helped in gathering crowds.
Hazare’s fast is India’s first major movement to have been actively driven by online media. After Hazare was arrested by the Delhi Police on 16 August, the day he was to start his second fast in the Capital in five months, 180,000 Internet users signed the online petition to free him. For two days, the Twitter hash tag #isupportannahazare was the top-trending topic in India. Till Monday, Hazare’s India Against Corruption campaign had more than 400,000 “likes” on its Facebook page. Hazare’s video, recorded in Tihar Jail, has been visited by more than 100,000 people on YouTube.
He is rebuilding and re-energizing the Gandhi brand, while building and strengthening himself.
In a situation like this when a powerful brand emerges, how does the competitor react? The government reaction has been the opposite of what strategy would command. Would it be a good idea to start a smear campaign against New Swift because it has attracted a great response? First, it must be understood that if commitment is emotional- inelastic connection to a brand (not based on reason), it is impossible to prove your superiority (I like blue and you can’t convince me that red is better). Emotion can’t be contested with reason. People buy Rolex not for time keeping, there may be better time keeping devices available at lower price yet customers show extraordinary commitment to the brand. Second, the harsher the criticism lesser is the openness to entertain (self concept threatening stimuli activate defense mechanism). Anything contrary to the commitment is either filtered to make the original stand harder (criticism falls in the zone of contrast). All the governmental (jail, criticism on media) response therefore has made brand Anna stronger
Anna followed Mahatma Gandhi’s footsteps by making his movement a non-violent one, using fast as a weapon of protest. He must have thought that when Mahatma Gandhi could shake the powerful British empire through this tool, then a democratic government like ours would be no big deal
