Boman Irani may have pulled off the role of two estranged brothers dying to erase a wall between their families, but little did he know that, years later, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) would completely re-imagine the decade-old Ambuja Cement commercial, as part of poll-time battle on social media.
“Such is the impact of humour, which not only works well with audiences, but is also an active and third component of the AAP’s social media plan ahead of elections,” explains Ankit Lal, a senior member of the party’s IT Team.
In the AAP’s spoof of the commercial, the two brothers have been assigned identities of Kejriwal’s two arch-rivals in Delhi – the BJP and Congress. The family members of the two estranged brothers become party workers, who unsuccessfully try to ram a huge tree trunk and even plant explosives, all in an effort to break the great deewar (wall) that separates them.
Except, in the AAP spoof, the tree trunk symbolically represents the L-G (read Kejriwal’s many allegations of the Lieutenant Governor acting at the Center’s behest) and the explosives represent CBI raids.
In the end, as the younger Boman Irani – his face blackened from the failed explosion – asks why does this wall not break, a ‘voice of God’ narrator says, “Tutegi kaise? sacchai aur imaandari se joh bani hai (How can it break when its made from a mix of truth and honesty?)”
Caught off-guard by AAP’s spoof video, the Congress, too posted its own version. To which, the AAP replied “well tried.”
At the Cost of BJP’s ‘Many CM Candidates’
It’s not just the Ambuja commercial, the AAP has also been using memes to hit the Delhi BJP where it hurts the most – reported infighting among its chief ministerial candidates and the lack of any clear face.
So, Who Dunnit?
It would be a mistake to assume that these humorous polemics are the handiwork of one person, says Lal. Across the country, the AAP has a base of 5,000 active volunteers who come with punny content for social media. In Delhi, the party presently has about 2,000 volunteers monitoring conversations around elections on social media.
“The Ambuja cement idea was conceptualised by three people from Delhi team, and one of them is a Mass Communication student from Maharashtra, who’s come to help us here,” adds Lal.
Apart from memes, AAP’s social media team regularly puts out what they call ‘1X1 videos snippets’ from Arvind Kejriwal’s many speeches. It also goes live on Twitter with speeches and programmers of party leaders.
Lal feels that while door-to-door campaigning on the ground is equally important in making people aware of the party’s work in areas in education, health, electricity and transport, it is social media that helps in sustaining these conversations.
Meanwhile, the BJP has been conducting door-to-door campaigns and its major focus has been the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. But this does not figure into AAP’s strategy, says Lal.
“The BJP tries to impose national issues in state elections. That’s what they did in Maharashtra and Jharkhand. We are not actively focusing on CAA but if there’s any query, we’ll be happy to address that,” he says.
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