NEW DELHI: Small business consulatancies have captured a slice of the digital political campaign cake. Companies such as Surat-based Design Boxed and Gurgaon-headquartered Political Edge and War Room Strategy, centred in Ahmedabad, are working with politicians across the party spectrum to plan and deliver their online campaigns.
Design Boxed, one of the three companies chosen by the Congress to design their 2019 Lok Sabha digital campaign – the other two being Niksun and Silver Push – has worked with the party extensively, starting from 2017 Himachal and
Punjab assembly elections. It also worked in three states during the 2018 assembly elections. Founded in 2014, the company now has over 300 employees who develop customised political content for clients.
Party strategies for 2019 elections are “confidential”, says Naresh Arora,director, Design Boxed. But the company will be developing “positive campaigns that focus on the idea of India and the Congress vision for the country.” “The national campaign will also be defined by a focus on shortage of jobs and agrarian distress,” he said.
Political Edge, founded in 2011, has also worked with “politicians across India” to develop their online campaigns. Founded by IIT alumni Saurabh Vyas and Gaurav Rathore, the company has a 35-member core team but they also work with people on a contractual basis. Vyas, who claims to have worked in nearly 1,000 constituencies, says the company undertakes field visits, does qualitative and quantitative research and devises unique war room strategies to “swing vote share by 4-6% in favour of the candidates they represent.”
Enhancing the client’s appeal is the name of the game. Political Edge worked with BJP politician Pushpendra Singh Ranawatfor his constituency Bali in Rajasthan in 2015 to solidify his connect with his constituents, which was “suffering because of his unavailability” because of his work as energy minister.“We identified the problem and then created a scorecard to identify his top followers on social media platforms.We narrowed down the list to 250 and then called them for a social media and interaction conference in 2017. Following this, they became our volunteers who spread the word of the development work in the area,” said Vyas, adding that “giving the volunteers due recognition and using their skill set made a lot of difference and took care of any anti- incumbency sentiment, if any.”
Arora gives another example of how such campaigns help a client. Citing the example of Gurdaspur by-election in 2017, where Congress wrestled the seat from BJP with Sunil Jakhar emerging as the winner. The company ran a “SaadaJakhar (Our Jakhar)” campaign to establish his connect with the people helping him get rid of the “outsider tag.”
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