Brand AAP under threat

Confusion about disparate voices and the tone of voice is harming the party's carefully crafted brand identity

The branding of the Aam Aadmi Party is well-documented as being the reason that brought it success so early after its conception. Yet, after it assumed office in the country’s capital, especially in the last two weeks, its brand identity has come under threat.

While it has stuck to its antecedents of a protest group, there is confusion regarding the voice it is trying to project. The brand image of a force against corruption that was built through symbols like an inclusive acronym, the broom, online sharing of donation sources, showcasing a clean leadership and the common man’s opinions, is being scuttled by piecemeal activism. There is a growing dissonance in what the audience thinks AAP represents, point brand experts.

Jagdeep Kapoor, CMD of Samsika Marketing Consultants says, “For a brand to be successful, it has to stick to a core value in the initial stage. If the value is interpreted differently by different people, then there is a confusion. If a brand is confused then it runs the danger of being refused by its audience. The early signals say that AAP is squandering away the advantage it had by walking down multiple strategic paths. One is swamped with messages from the party thrice a day, it needs to focus on what it thinks is core to it rather than take peripheral paths.”

Brand strategy expert Harish Bijoor, CEO of Harish Bijoor Consults, says, “Disparate voices within the party are pulling the AAP brand in too many different directions, threatening to tear it apart.”

The past two weeks have already witnessed the confusion arising out of AAP embracing people from across the ideological spectrum with members falling out with each other on issues in public. There seems to be no 'party-line'. What is puzzling commentators is whether AAP is working on a narrow interpretation of its positioning or is it stretching it too thin.

Bijoor says AAP is dangling by the thread of the idea of anti-corruption and needs “a nervous system to function, deliver, and importantly, survive the long, difficult game of politics. Not fitting into binaries of the left/right sounds romantic, but society expects a fit somewhere."

AAP leader Yogendra Yadav had said that the dissimilar ideologies of Medha Patkar and Meera Sanyal, Binayak Sen and V Balakrishnan depict a rise above the “20th century binaries of the left and the right”.

Santosh Desai, MD and CEO of Futurebrands India, agrees that the ideological diversity is not detrimental to the party’s image because its logic for existence does not lie in ideology: “AAP need not be an ideologically coherent party as it has been centred around anti-corruption”.
 
USP frittered away
But K V Sridhar, national creative director of the advertising agency Leo Burnett, who has become an AAP member to support it, sounds a warning against the jarring tone the party seems to have adopted of late.

"AAP needs to take care of the tone of voice at this moment which is critical for any brand. If AAP resorts to abuse then it would go against the Gandhian idea of andolan that it had adopted, which is about the strength of deeds and not talk. It could make its supporters compare it with those it is trying to be an antithesis of...No brand should come across as cheap, which means the audience should have a sense of pride in ownership.”

While AAP took up hurdles in good governance, the triggering incidents and the form of demands have drawn criticism; comments from some of its members and ministers have betrayed prejudice of one kind or the other.
 

Sridhar says while AAP’s focus on specific issues to advocate good governance and anti-corruption might help, confusing the task of removing hurdles with going after individuals could bring down its brand value. “Who the Home Minister is does not matter, but the ministry’s control over Delhi’s police does,” he says.
 
Desai agrees that the last few days have seen a significant departure from AAP’s raison d'être. “Using the brand analogy, it was strategically unnecessary for AAP to act in this manner as it was seen as having used power the same way as the incumbents, with a sense of ‘I don’t care for the rules and what I say is right just because I say so.’”
 
Image Consultant Dilip Cherian says the 10-month-old outfit needs more time. Notwithstanding its problems, "AAP has harnessed the voter’s urge to demand things and unambiguously symbolises the pull factor," he says.  To keep generating such a pull, however, AAP needs to keep alive a clear promise and recover from the muddled events of late.