Two print campaigns of Loksatta, the Marathi daily owned by the Express Group, have won bronze medals at Goafest creative Abbys this year. Goafest is the country?s largest advertising festival, organised by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Ad Club of Bombay.
Conceptualised by advertising agency Leo Burnett, the ads, part of a three-series campaign pitched as the ?Indian Political League?, were launched before the Maharashtra state elections in 2009 and focused on three major political parties in the fray, the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the NCP.
?Through our campaigns we wanted to convey that we would be covering the elections extensively and scrutinising the parties in our campaigns?, said Pavita Puri, group head, brand, marketing, the Express Group.
?We wanted to communicate to the voters that know the party well before you vote, as your vote is important,? she added. The agency used the parties? election symbols as platforms to portray their history and background. Accordingly, Lotus was used for the BJP, palmistry for the Congress and clock for the NCP. Sujit Sawant, creative director, Leo Burnett, said, ?The task was to visually translate Loksatta?s in-depth political analysis. So, we used metaphors according to the political connect.? For example, in the ?palmistry? ad, the palm lines depicted the Congress? strengths, such as the ?heart line aka Rahul Gandhi?, ?head line aka Sonia Gandhi? and ?Pratibha Patil?s girdle of play?.
Likewise, in the Lotus campaign, the ad used parts of the flower to describe the strengths and weaknesses of the party. For example, the stem was captioned as ?stemlar for robust growth? and petals were used to give out interesting facts about the party. Similarly, in the clock ad for NCP, the parts of a clock were used to describe the structure and other facts about the party. ?Then everybody was doing political ads and most ads were extremely copy heavy. We did not go that way. I think a simple idea with a differentiated artwork pulled it off and gave the campaign an edge over the others?, said Sawant.
Pointing out that political ads tend to be cliched and boring, KV Sridhar, national creative director, Leo Burnett, said: ?You will never see a political campaign crafted so beautifully, and which is why this ad caught everybody?s attention.?