Congress to use hi-tech tools to dig up first-time votes

Party conscious of digital and social media importance for 2014 elections, wants to hire specialised agency

Conscious of the increasing impact of digital and social media in shaping voter choices, specially of first-time voters, the Congress party is stressing on an online presence in the run-up to the 2014 general elections.

The party wants a specialised agency to handle its digital/social media account. As reported earlier, the Congress’ main ad blitzkrieg for print, television and outdoor media is in the works. Party sources said several digital agencies had made ‘ad pitches’ for the account. Among these were Webchutney (recently acquired by Dentsu), Pinstorm, Oracle and Percept’s digital wing.

This would entail not only managing the party’s website for 2014, its Facebook page or Twitter presence but also mobile applications, video content for Android and iOS, content for online applications and microsites.

A leader, privy to the digital campaign, said: “The reason we wanted to have a specialised agency was that not just a high percentage of youth but large sections of society were using digital media and we needed to target them.” Taking the help of surveys and research, the agencies had, said sources, presented ‘strategy pitches’ to the publicity and media group headed by General-Secretary Digvijay Singh. These display their capability and ideas on what people want from the Congress, their aspirations and views about the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime.

The leader said the agency chosen would take care of all online content. All other technical support for their website, etc, would be outsourced to a smaller outfit.

Digital ad firms are waiting for the party to finalise the larger contract for the overall ad campaign. Most are wary big advertising agencies, which have digital arms, might bag the more niche segment of digital advertising.    

In the run-up to 2014 polls, the Congress has started training workers across 57 cities. “For the Congress, its possibly a first to have these countrywide trainings. We have also held two workshops in Delhi for the Pradesh Congress teams,” said a state Pradesh Congress Committee chief. It was Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi's appointment as overall election coordination committee incharge that got things moving into the digital sphere.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had made the first forays into digital media, with its prime ministerial nominee Narendra Modi specifically courting the digital forums of Google Hangout and taking questions from the public on live video chat.

The Congress has now awoken to the challenge.