Creating a positive perception and a strong political brand even for a mass hero-politician is not an easy job, say brand and perception strategists.

“Today when actors float a party, their on-screen popularity gives them a leg up. But portability of their movie image to real life politician is difficult,” Harish Bijoor, brand expert and founder of Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, told IANS.

According to him, people will start asking so what if an actor comes to politics. An actor can bring the screen imagery to the physical world but after that it is difficult to convert that into votes.

This is where perception positioning of politicians comes into play and the experts in this field are in good demand not only from politicians but also from people who what to build up an image before joining a political party.

Actor-politician Kamal Haasan, after an insipid initial election campaign and unclear positioning during the Lok Sabha polls in Tamil Nadu, turned decisive to position himself as a third alternative to AIADMK and DMK only towards the end, political analyst Raveendhran Dhuraiswamy told IANS earlier.

“While last minute change in positioning may fetch him some additional votes, Kamal Haasan should have clearly positioned him as an angry new politician from the start. He began tweeting against AIADMK government and that momentum should have been maintained,” perception and political strategist Jhon Arokiasamy told IANS.

Arokiasamy was instrumental in building former Union Health Minister and PMK leader Anbumani Ramadoss’ brand perception during the 2016 Assembly elections in Tamil Nadu.

“Unlike a product brand, a human brand is a persona brand. A persona brand needs to be real and alive than an inanimate brand. Political branding is more dynamic,” Bijoor said.

According to him, while branding a human being, the inherent qualities of that person should match with what is being portrayed. If there is a clash between the two images then distrust come in, as brand is basically all about trust.

A variance of 10-15 per cent between the real persona and the branded persona is fine but when it exceeds that, problems arise, warned Bijoor.

“What we do is the perception positioning of a politician. For a human being, image and perception are important. Image is a long-term journey and it cannot be constructed. Brand perception is short term and audience centric,” added Arokiasamy.

A politician should be portrayed close to what he can deliver. He cannot be portrayed as person who can deliver the sky when he can deliver only the earth, Bijoor said.

In the case of movie actors, the problem they would face on entering politics is the transition of their on-screen image to real life politician.

According to Arokiasamy, mass heroes will appeal to all sections of the society. Once a hero starts to appeal to masses, then his movie image is cultivated carefully and transition of that image to politics may not be a big problem.

The problems the current day actor-politicians face is: political ideology, their stand on an issue, party structure, caste and cash.

Arokiasamy said Kamal Haasan said his party’s ideology was the middle-path while Rajinikanth had said he would follow spiritual politics.

“People who backed the AIADMK founder and actor M.G. Ramachandran saw him as their leader and not the Dravidian ideology he was propagating while he was in DMK,” former AIADMK MP K.C. Palanisamy told IANS.

Telugu Desam Party founder N.T. Rama Rao (NTR) was seen as an avatar of Hindu God Rama after his movie roles.

“Actors will not find the political space difficult where there are no ideologies,” Arokiasamy said.

On the importance of being politically correct on a burning issue, Arokiasamy cited Rajinikanth’s statement after the police shooting at anti-Sterlite Copper protestors which brought down his image.

Rajinikanth, after visiting the injured, said Tamil Nadu will become a graveyard if there are protests against every issue.

The other problem for actors is that movie charisma will not click against cash-for-votes scam which is now widespread in Tamil Nadu.

There is a segment which is not influenced by cash. To appeal to that segment brand building, perception positioning gains importance, said the two experts.

The role of a perception strategist does not end with designing various campaigns but also includes convincing his client to change his lifestyle in line with the brand perception that he wants to be known.

“I had a politician-client who wanted to be known as a champion of rural areas in a North Indian state. However, his lifestyle was divorced from the rural lifestyle. He was living in a huge house with multiple swimming pools and other luxuries. He was advised to change his lifestyle to be in line with the populace with whom he wants to be identified. He did change,” Bijoor said.

“Even aspiring politicians too want to build up an image before joining a political party. Sometime back a professional specializing in the real estate sector came to me to brand him so that when he joins a political party, the reception will be at an elevated level,” Arokiasamy said.

There was a funny scene that happened during Modi’s visit to Tamilnadu recently. Ruling ADMK party officially joined NDA and it also pulled some other smaller parties like PMK into NDA. But Vijaykanth’s joining into their group was not yet finalized by that time and the discussions were still going on. So just before Modi meeting, AIADMK cadres have erected flexis and banners of all other leaders of Tamilnadu who already joined into their alliance.

The funny part of this was that, they have kept a few empty flexis here and there so that if ongoing discussions with Vijaykanth fructify, they can quickly paste his photo over those empty flexis. Even in the banner photos that has Modi, AIADMK leaders and PMK Ramaswany, they had some ‘gap’ within the photo for same reason.This made Vijayakanth a laughing stock in Tamil Nadu politics. Not only this, but there were some other developments that happened in past couple of weeks completely exposing Vijayakanth’s confusion state in Tamil Nadu politics.

Vijaykanth’s politics from 2005 to 2016:

Vijaykanth formed Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) party in Tamil Nadu in 2005 in Madurai. His party contested in all seats in 2006 assembly elections but won only one seat that was contested by him. But DMDK garnering 10% of the vote bank in next Lok Sabha election surprised analysts and parties. So, Jayalalitha didn’t want votes splitting of Vijaykanth to affect her prospects in the 2011 election and formed an alliance with him. Vijaykanth’s party contested in 41 constituencies and won 29 of the 41 seats, which is more than DMK. He didn’t join government and became opposition leader. In 2016, DMK wanted to ally with him and offered him 55 seats, which is more than what AIADMK offered in previous elections, 4 ministries after forming government and Deputy CM. But for some reasons, he contested alone. His health was not well and he was always in inebriated conditions during his meetings and he lost his reputation as well as the 2017 elections.

2019 – Comedy starts:

AIADMK wanted to have him in NDA but he did not finalize discussions and kept on asking for more seats. They were ready to give him 4 MP seats but he was asking for 7 MP seats. As vijaykanth did not finalise discussions , AIADMK joined hands with PMK, another small party that has strong clout in some areas like Dharmapuri and some communities like Vanniyar. PMK was assured of 7 MP seats and 1 Rajya Sabha ticket. After seeing this, vijayakanth also started asking for 1 rajya Sabha seat in addition 7 MP seats, which AIADMK cannot accommodate.

Discussions with DMK, another comedy

Meanwhile, Vijayakanth brother-in-law Sudheesh announced , just to pressurize AIADMK, that DMK is also in touch with them and negotiating with them for an alliance. But DMK leaders quickly condemned that they have no intention of pulling Vijaykanth into their group, and this put DMDK in a very embarrassing position. Comedy did not end there. Sudheesh called a DMK leader and expressed his intention to join with DMK and he assured to take that matter to the notice of Stalin. The next day media asked that DMK leader about this. He told, he did call Stalin to discuss this, but as Stalin was sleeping at that time, he did not want to disturb his sleep for this UNIMPORTANT matter. At another point of time, both AIADMK and DMK leaders told that Vijayakanth is asking for money as well to spend in elections, in addition to MP seats , and that’s why the discussions with Vijaykanth are not progressing.

Overall:

Vijayakanth had more than 5% of vote bank until previous assembly elections of Tamilnadu. More than that , he had a good respect among people. But now he lost both his vote bank as well as the respect among people. We will have to wait and see if he bounces back.

– ZURAN (@CriticZuran)