I wanted to look at spends by the government towards propaganda (so that a positive image is formed about its governance) before the next general elections. Found this website of the government (DAVP – Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity) which lists quite a few interesting statistics of media spends.
There is a full list of ads, with costs given. Last year (2012-13) the government spent Rs.388,12,61,898 on print ads.
For the purpose of this post, I downloaded the statistics of print advertisements issued on the name of dead leaders named either Nehru or Gandhi during their birth or death anniversaries (The government has sort of made it its mission to name every scheme, airport and every road after these people so there decided on these).
Anyways, lets look at the data. The data is from 2008 onwards and has been downloaded on 13th Sept 2013.
Which year
Hmm… Was expecting the year 2009 to have a high amount of spend as it was the election year. But, it’s not the case.. However, there was a 35% and 39% growth in spends during ’09 & ’10. The spend growth came down to 19% in ’11 but still, a CAGR of 31% in print spends between ’08-’12 and Rs.26.4 crore at disposal on print alone is something only a marketer could dream of!
Which leader
Again, I was expecting Rajiv Gandhi to rule in terms of spends. But, hey, how can anyone forget Mahatma Gandhi! Still, with Rs.24.5 crore, spends on Rajiv Gandhi are as much as 63% of that of Gandhi. Nehru comes with 13% of overall spends comes way behind his grand son and daughter.
Birth or death
No issues here. With 72% of spends, birth celebrations rule – considering all the Gandhi’s were assassinated.
Whose (Birth or death)
Rajiv Gandhi’s death is more celebrated than Indira Gandhi’s death! Indira Gandhi gets as much spend on her death as her birth!!
In ’11, both Indira Gandhi & Nehru got more spends on death than on birth. Infact, Indira Gandhi got higher spend twice, in ’09 and again in ’11. Rajiv Gandhi got slightly higher spends in ’10 on death vs birth anniversary.
You can read about the significance and naming of each day here:
- Mahatma Gandhi: Birth, Death
- Jawaharlal Nehru: Birth, Death
- Indira Gandhi: Birth, Death
- Rajiv Gandhi: Birth, Death
Data here in a Google spreadsheet here. Enjoy!
