How Synergos’ efforts towards B.PAC’s Election Habba 2019 campaign gained recognition from the Election Commission of India

Landscape

It was the year 2019 and the Lok Sabha elections were unique and challenging due to the growing number of young people and new voters showcasing heightened interest in politics and their impact on the same. The changing landscape demanded novel ideas and mediums, addressing a generation that communicated and made decisions very different from their predecessors.

Synergos Finds Scope for Improvement

B.PAC's Election Habba 2019 was conceived as an election awareness campaign that celebrated the electoral process of this country. The campaign was designed to seamlessly connect all the aspects of an electoral process that play a decisive role in the formation of an elected government, ushering in a new era of electoral politics of having a well informed and enthusiastic voters leading to good governance through election of committed and responsible leaders.

Aspirations

The campaign aimed to

• Create awareness about the election process
• Increase voter enrolment
• Integrate and set up a forum for all stakeholders
• Familiarize citizens about the performance of their incumbent elected leader
• Engage citizens in formulating a hyperlocal citizens’ manifesto

• Set up a platform for an interaction with stakeholders and nominated candidates
• Endorse and support worthy and qualified candidates
• Maximize voter participation during elections
• Continue engagement with elected representative to facilitate neighbourhood development

Challenges with Aspirations

The election process was largely marketed with loud campaigns by individual members and parties alike with a vigour and spending that was hard to match. Catching the attention of people and establishing credence was a difficult hurdle for an established partnership, let alone a newly developing union. Additionally, the campaign that aimed to address and reel in the young voters had to also ensure it did not alienate the remaining group of voters, as they still consisted of a large proportion of the total voter population.

Executed to Perfection

The campaign consisted of 3 major segments that were executed with the help of social media, web development and design, and SEO.

Online Streaming of Offline Events

By actively taking part in the organisation of the offline events and streaming them online on various social media channels, the campaign aimed to reach several members of the voting community that would not make an effort to attend these events offline, and as a result miss out on the vital information shared in said events. This part of the campaign improved the size of the audience for political events by a large proportion. While the NEWS channels offered selective bits of the events colored by the corporations’ opinions, Election Habba offered a neutral and straight forward portrayal that helped in building trust with its audience.

Know your candidates

This segment of the campaign offered vital information on the electoral candidates for those who were actively looking for it, through creating dedicated pages for the campaign and its components that were search engines optimised with expertise; and for many who were not necessarily looking for information through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. With a prominent presence on social media, the campaign helped spark interest in young adults that were unaware or uninterested until the point.

Encourage Voting

Encouraging voting is a long process that consists of several steps. The process began with creating a sense of urgency through #ElectionCountdown, a countdown of the number of days to the poll helping fight the lethargy shown by several eligible voters in spite of their willingness to participate. It was elevated by educating the audience on voter registration & making registrations easier through detailed step-by-step instructions while making the channels of registration far more available reducing the amount of time and effort required by the process. Furthermore, with the #AllToPoll and #ProudMathadara, voters were encouraged to go vote in groups of friends, colleagues, and family members giving rise to one inspired voter embracing the role of leadership and gathering more responsible voters.

Results That Speak Volumes

While the campaign witnessed success in many small and large ways, discussed below are the 3 Key results we are particularly proud of, and believe have made a real difference.

Most significantly though, there was a notable contribution in voter turnout for the Lok Sabha Election through the Election Habba 2019 Campaign.

Conclusion

The campaign, as challenging as it was, as Synergos’ first campaign of political nature, is one of our favourites. It pushed our team to learn more while exploring communications and strategies that would not be applicable to corporate brands. It also yielded the kind of results that made us proud not just as a digital marketer but as a human being while reminding us how powerful the medium we use everyday really is.