Soho Square launches book on BJP's election campaign

'The walk to the capital' is a documentation of the hard work and creative process that went behind creating BJP's brilliant election campaign for 2014.

BJP's historic win gave rise to many a debate - both political and otherwise. In the creative industry too, the BJP campaign was the topic of many a discussion. Putting all doubts to rest, Ogilvy Mumbai launched 'The Walk to the Capital' as a biography of the historic journey of the campaign.

The campaign pitch was similar to any other, but after Soho Square won the account and started working on it, day and night became the same as the whole team toiled for days together to come up with a communication that reflected the society. According to 'The walk to the capital', "a large pat of the team from Soho Square Mumbai had to relocate to New Delhi for the duration of the campaign".

The campaign strategies have been described in the book with simple text, and full page images. For example, the fact that the team decided to go against the tide of political campaigns where several political leaders could have their mugshots featured in the posters. Instead, a single picture accompanied the now famous couplet - Abki baar, Modi Sarkar'. The couplet was itself styled in the doha form, rhyming sentences keeping in mind India's love for poetry.

Speaking about the launch of the book, Piyush Pandey, executive chairman and creative director, Ogilvy, South Asia said, "The intention was never to publish a book or come first to tell the story. But it is was a historic moment, a historic campaign. And we needed it to be documented, for ourselves and for the sake of letting others know."

Pandey did accept that it was very different from working on a corporate campaign. For this, the team did not know the expectations or the risk appetite. The sheer scale of the campaign as well as the logistical challenges, of segmenting viewers according to cities was massive hurdle that they crossed altogether smoothly.

"One of the early media reports referred to Soho Square as a'little known WPP agency'. Looking back on the last one year, I think we have come a long way. We managed to pull-off a multi-media campaign without a hitch," explained Samrat Bedi, head of office, Soho Square.

Anuraag Khandelwal and Satish deSa, ECDs and creative heads, Soho Square added that everywhere in India, people were familiar with the work they had created. Added to that Modi's victory speech which said 'Acche din sane waalen hain', gave them a sense of the impact of their campaign.