Politics and Marketing: An eerie resemblance

There has been a lot of aversion to politics lately. It is portrayed by the newspapers that the middle class of India is sick and tired of the politics and wants a clean administration. However when we examine the behavior of politicians we can find that there is a clear method to their apparent madness. Much of their behavior can be examined by using the fundamental principles of marketing. "Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning".
India is a vast nation with diverse cultures and traditions. It is impossible for a single ideology to appeal to everyone. So you have to "Segment" the market. The market in this case is the vote share. So the segmentation is done by Region, Caste, Religion and in a few cases ideology. Segmentation works when there is clear division between the so called segments. In India although there are differences between the castes and religions, the differences are in many cases very superficial. Those differences need to be amplified or else there will not be effective segmentation. So our politicians try to amplify existing differences and always emphasize "social justice" and "aspirations of the people". So in effect you are advertising the differences and creating a market segment.

After you create a "segment" you need to target the segment properly. That involves identifying issues that really matter to the segment and identifying issues that define the identity of that particular segment and then linking both the issues together. For example, poor education, poverty and lack of opportunities is a problem for one of India's minority community. However there are strong identity issues related to that community. So our "netas" link the identity issue with the problems and make it appear that the problem is mainly caused due to the identity and suggest that if you somehow solve the identity issue all these problems will just melt away.

Now we come to "positioning". Each political party tries to position itself as a "pro-poor", "secular" and so on. The basic premise of such a thing is that it clearly identifies which segment it cares about and positions itself to cater only to that segment.

(More to follow.....)