7 Storytelling Secrets for CEOs from the CEO of India Inc,
Mr Narendra Modi
When you have a logo successful track record to back up
your stories, you can be more than a storyteller, you can
rather be an inspirational storyteller. Mr Modi has walked
his talk already as CM of Gujarat, so he need not weave
imaginary stories, rather he can inspire through actual
stories of achievement and thus inspire the nation. Let us
see how he used inspirational and brand storytelling to his
advantage and rocked the nation with an amazing election
victory.
Mr Modi who was earlier known as the CEO of Gujarat, is
now getting rebranded as CEO of India Inc . Yet only time
will prove whether the rebranding was correct and
whether Gujarat model could be successfully replicated
across India.
Brand Namo (short for Narendra Modi) has become so
powerful that Ahmedabad based, has filed dozens of
applications on various versions of the name in Hindi and
English including Namo, Namo Lekh, Namo and a sketch of
a lion with the tagline – The Lion of India, Namo Mantra –
Taking India Beyond and Namo Mantra – The Turning
Point.
Communicating our ideas and strategies in a memorable
and catchy way is helpful and I appreciate the 3S model of
Narendra Modi viz Skill, Scale and Speed, to put his
Maximum Governance, Minimum Government into practice.
Government of India under his leadership plans to revive
Brand India too with a 5T approach viz. Tradition, Talent,
Tourism, Trade and Technology.
Interestingly I realized that the seven secrets of
storytelling used by Mr Narendra Modi can also be
expressed as 7E model or 7 Es of Storytelling / Brand
Storytelling, to make it memorable. Here is an explanation
of the 7 Es and how they were powerfully and successfully
used in his election strategy:-
1) Empathy-I always emphasize in my training and public
talks, “Storytelling and Empathy are soulmates. Great
Story creates empathy and empathy creates great story.”
When the opposition highlighted that Mr Modi was a tea
vendor, he created empathy for himself among millions of
poor and turned the tables by saying that it was the
greatness of the citizens of this country who wish to
make a humble tea vendor as PM of the country.
‘ Chai pe Charcha’ became a powerful program to further
extend this empathetic storytelling and use it to form an
emotional connect with voters.
(To find out more about power of empathy in storytelling
read, "")
2) Emotional connect- The campaign title “ Ab Acche Din
Aane Waalein Hain”, made a huge emotional connect with
the citizens as they were getting tired of price rise and
corruption. The campaign indirectly implied that though
people were living and suffering the bad days yet they can
be optimistic about good days in future. The campaign
connected with the unemployed by promising them
employment, with women by promising them safety and
with poor by promising them welfare.
In fact, Mr Modi got the idea of ' Achche Din ' from Dr
Manmohan Singh’s speech to NRIs about better days
ahead. Like all great storytellers, Modi has the reputation
of being a good listener and got the inspiration for his
campaign from his competitor Dr Singh . Here is the .
(To find out more about, how stories make you fall in
love, watch this PPT, "")
3) Edutainment -Great storytelling is edutainment or
education plus entertainment. The war of words between
Mr Modi and Mr Rahul Gandhi about toffees and balloons
was good edutainment for the Indian public. Rahul Gandhi
had made a statement that land was given to few
industrialists in Gujarat at throwaway prices like toffees.
And therefore Gujarat model of development is toffee
model and balloon model (as it was unsustainable)
Hitting back at Rahul Gandhi for dubbing Gujarat
development model as a 'toffee model', Narendra Modi
called Rahul Gandhi childish and said the word 'toffee' has
caught his fancy and he was not discussing serious issues.
He further added, "On the other side, there is a player
whose mind doesn't move away from childishness. Such an
important election about the country's future but for ten
days, a word that gripped him was 'balloon'. For ten days
he kept repeating it. However, children don't stick to a
toy for too long and now he has caught the word 'toffee'.
"Now you tell me what to do. I am not of an age where I
can play with balloons, It was for the people to decide
whether or not they wanted those who play with balloons
and crave for toffees.”
He concluded in his speech that as a child who sold tea, he
had not got toffees but had his sights set on trophies.
(To find out more about Storytelling as Edutainment tool,
read )
4) Evocation -A great story evokes feelings. A great story
makes people laugh and cry. The campaign addressed the
issues people were most touchy about; from women safety
to price rise to corruption. Anna Hazare’s movement had
already done a kind of groundwork for BJP’s anti-
corruption plank. While some of the BJP state governments
have also been accused of corruption, Modi’s government
in Gujarat has been corruption free and development
oriented, which gave credibility to the campaign.
(To find out more about evocation, read "")
5) Eloquence -Right choice of words and right amount of
words creates an eloquent speaker. When Mr Modi spoke,
“Mother Ganges (Holy river of Hindus) has called me” to
start his speech at Varanasi, it was the most powerful
expression to connect with the the voters of Banaras.
The eloquent expression has to balance the personal brand
with organisation brand, which was successfully done by
BJP and Soho Square agency in several ways. All election
campaigns had Modi as a face and BJP logo 'Lotus'
highlighted along with the message of vote for BJP. Of
course the campaign did not ask to vote for Modi, it asked
to vote for BJP because BJP had the strong and capable
administrator Modi as its chief.
“ The people at BJP are extremely focused and astute.
None of the work we did would have been possible without
their spot-on brief and research done by the BJP ”. says
Anuraag Kandelwal, Executive Creative Director and
Creative Head, Soho Square (part of parent company
Ogilvy). Ogilvy captain Piyush Pandey wrote ' Abki Baar
Modi Sarkar' and Anuraag Kandelwal & Nilesh Jain wrote
'Achche Din Aane Wale Hai' .
(To find out more about aligning personal brand with
organisation brand, read "")
6) Energizing- The publicity material to back Modi’s
campaign was highly energizing. Look at this video.
The video talks about all issues from water and electricity
to welfare of the poor. In fact the video starts with sad
faces and the impact of price rise on the life of the poor.
The video then tries to shift the mood by promising good
days by bringing Modi at the helm. The despondent mood
then turns into joyful as the video moves on to promise
that the country will be rewarded and all promises will be
kept.
(To find out about the power of high energy words and
inspirational storytelling, read, "")
7) Engaging on multiple platforms -Different people have
different learning styles. Some prefer audio, some visuals
and some audio visuals. Hence a campaign must use trans
media storytelling to reach out to all sections. From rallies
to Youtube videos, from TV interviews to ‘Chai Pe
Charcha’ (Talk over tea), from newspaper to online ads
the campaign engaged with people in different ways,
across different platforms, thus making it holistic and
appealing to all sections of society. To engage with the
target segments, Mr Modi especially highlighted that his
government would focus on the youth, women and the
poor.
Catchiness of the slogans help in involving people initially
and the involvement can be retained by making the
campaign engaging and participative at every level. “ Abki
Baar, Modi Sarkaar” (This time Modi government) was a
powerful punchline from that point of view.
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