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Q: How much ∂o you think can advertising campaigns influence voting decisions?
A: I can’t predict the efficacy of an advertising campaign during an election as India as a Nation has multitude of diversity by language, by regional uniqueness, by religion, by caste, etc. In other words, there are many imponderables and for one unique proposition across the country and across media platforms is a challenging task for any creative person.
Having said that, a campaign can at best be a claim by a party, but it’s the ground-level actual work which would make the real difference. A party in power would have an edge over competitors as they would have empirical evidence to support their claims. A voter can’t check all facts claimed by each party and the complexity for voters to decide get compounded due to manufactured facts. In today’s pervasive media noise (including deepfakes), it’s difficult to sift facts from fiction. And to that extent, I feel an advertising campaign would have minimal impact, given the challenges in India. So kya mumkin hai or not, can’t be easy to predict. No advertising can deterministically influence voters’ behaviour.