The late Hal Riney, one of advertising's most legendary copywriters, wrote the campaign for Ronald Reagan's re-election campaign in 1984. Apparently, President Reagan teared up when he saw 'It's morning in America' for the first time. Memorable political campaigns are a rarity, and working on a General Election campaign is even rarer. Jayshree Sundar was the branch head of Leo Burnett when her office got the chance to pitch for the Congress party's campaign for the 2004 General Elections. They assumed it to be a prank until they realized it wasn't. And life would never be the same again. "I just got by" Jayshree's early years weren't remarkable. In her own words, she just got by. But that was just a decoy for her later years which made up for her supposed lack of achievement in her early years. She went on to a top college and joined Lintas, which was and still is one of India's most renowned ad agencies. "We went with one idea and sold it" It’s hard to reconcile with the advertising era of the 80s and 90s when agencies were seen as partners of the clients and not mere vendors. Jayshree says they would go to meetings confidently with one idea, a solid strategy, and sell it. She also speaks fondly about her time at Lintas where she got to work in offices across the country - Kolkata, Chennai, and Delhi. Eventually, a slew of circumstances caused her to move on and join Leo Burnett. She describes the difference between the two agencies as one leading with strategy (Lintas) and the other being more creative focused (Leo Burnett). This allowed her to experience both ends of the spectrum. It was also here that she got to work on the General Election campaign for the Congress Party in 2004. “Politicians learn very fast" A political party isn’t your typical client. You are dealing with people who can shape policy and the direction of the country if elected. When I asked her if one needed to believe in the party before working on an election campaign, she says you need to be professional irrespective of political affiliation. In the course of the conversation, she says she dealt with Jairam Ramesh, Salman Khurshid, and Motilal Vora regularly. They were also tasked with proof-checking copy over and above the agency. For instance, Manmohan Singh (who would become Prime Minister after the election) would check Gurmukhi translation, Pranab Mukherjee (who would hold multiple portfolios like Defence, Finance and eventually become President of the country) would check Bengali translation. These things don’t happen on regular brand work, however big the brand. Another surprising thing was that contrary to perception, the politicians she encountered were always on time and it was the agency folks huffing and puffing to be on time to meetings. With the ‘Aam Aadmi’ campaign, the Congress party punctured the ‘India Shining’ campaign and the Congress, under the aegis of the UPA, came back to power. Months of sleeping for 3-4 hours a day culminated in victory. In 2007, Jayshree walked away from advertising to spend more time with family and also because of the changing nature of the industry where agencies were treated more like vendors. Today, Jayshree is an author, teacher, and raconteur of tales. In fact, it was a lecture where she was speaking about the 2004 election campaign that triggered this. She overshot the time by more than an hour but the class still sat in rapt attention. In an age where presentations give competition to sleeping ills in terms of putting people to sleep, her presentation was an antithesis. One day, I hope to sneak into a class where she is teaching and listen.
