From 3% to Landslide Victory: The Marketing Strategy Behind Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s 2024 Election Victory in Presidential Election

76 years of the history of Sri Lanka, the first time the country's leadership transferred from traditional political parties to a new alliance by people's vote. Also, 42.3% believe in Anura Kumara Dissanayake and the rest believe in fractioned opposition. As we know AKD got only 3% vote in the 2019 presidential election. The journey from the 3% to 42.3% was full of lessons in marketing. Let's search what marketing principles they used with or without knowledge to get the country's leadership.

1. Identified the right target audiences

Lots of people think the right target audience for political marketing is the MASS AUDIENCE. The reason is that people who are in age 19 and beyond are eligible to vote. Also, some experts segment this audience into certain demographics (like age and gender) and geographically. However, these basic marketing segmentation are wrong in Sri Lankan political context. What is the right audience who will bring the victory to any political party? Analyzing every election from 2010 to 2019, we can see that political parties that won the hearts of middle class living in urban and suburbs won every election. Eventually, this segment becomes trendsetters. Let's evaluate how these seats are behaved in past presidential elections and this election.

Table 1:  Result percentages of swing seats in the last four presidential elections in Sri Lanka

You can see in table 1 how swing seats behave to win elections. 90% of these seats are considered urban or suburban. The highest population is living in the middle-class bracket in these seats. most of the professionals are living in these areas. As an example, engineers, marketers, accounting, finance, banking, doctors, pharmacists, SMEs, teachers, and ICT professionals live in these seats. Every time country's election winner won these seats as well. Also, left-wing seats where the majority of urban and suburban populations live are crucial for winning a presidential election. I will explain it below in the second segment.

The second important segment in political marketing is Left-wing seats and districts. These seats and districts are always go behind leftist presidential candidates even whether he or she won the entire country or not. In the last three elections before the 2024 presidential election, Rajapaksas, who represented the popular left-wing, won these seats and districts. Due to Gotabaya Rajapaksa's mismanagement of the economy and administration, Sri Lanka faced a huge dollar crisis which led to a shortage of fuel, gas, electricity, and medicine. Ques were everywhere and the voting foundation of Rajapaksa and their political party (Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna) had fallen. These massive left-wing representations become hopeless. Eventually, this segment will require a leader to lead them. So, NPP might wanted to target this audience to get power.

Table 2:  Result percentages of left-wing seats where majority of middle-class people living in the last four presidential elections in Sri Lanka

Table 3:  Result percentages of left-wing district people living in the last four presidential elections in Sri Lanka

I believe that people living in middle-class urban areas, suburbs, left-wing seats, and left-wing districts were the main target audience for NPP. AKD has won an average of 47% votes in swing seats, 54% votes in left-wing seats, and 46% from left-wing districts

According to the segmentation in marketing management, NPP has clearly segmented its potential audience to get the majority of votes.

Why middle-class segment is so important?

The middle-class segment is the one who suffered a lot from the economic crisis in Gota's time and the recovery period in Ranil's time. It is a fact that former president Ranil Wickremasinghe did a great job of recovering Sri Lanka from economic and political turmoil by implementing the tough decisions suggested by the IMF. Due to those steps taken, it will badly affect the middle class by reducing their spendable income. They are disappointed with the government and searching for a leader who can give proper solutions to their desired questions. Also, they are the ones who have the knowledge to drive Sri Lanka's economy to the next level. They want a leader to listen to their ideas and incorporate as much of them into a leader's political plan.

The first step of every marketing plan is to identify the right target audiences, In this political context a presidential candidate needs to get as many as votes. So, NPP broke down their target audience mainly the middle class in Sri Lanka, especially targeted areas where they are living in. A basic principle of marketing is to segment the market and identify the right target audience. I have seen many companies struggle to identify the right audience and put their effort into segments that do not produce any impact on their businesses. Anura Kumara Dissanayake's presidential campaign is the best example to how to identify consumer behavior and choose right target audience.

2. Positioning strategy to the right segments

This is the crucial part of every marketing plan 'How do you position into right target audiences?'. Once you select the right target audiences you can create a positioning strategy for them. what would be the positioning strategy for AKD and NPP?

The Answer is what the frustrated middle class living in swing seats, left-wing seats, and the district is demanding. Let's evaluate what this segment demanded in the last presidential elections.

In 2005, this segment's main topics discussed were the failure of the peace process, the domination of LTTE all around the country, and the national security. United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA)'s candidate, Mahinda Rajapakse, tactfully addressed these issues in every stage, and every advertisement and gathered intellectuals and influencers around him to express these opinions to the middle class. Apart from that United National Party's candidate Ranil Wickremasinghe talked about inflation, economic development, and power distribution.

In 2010, the Presidential election was called six months after winning the 30-year war. The middle class was happy about the victory of the war. UPFA brought President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the opposition brought former army commander General Sarath Fonseka for the presidential election. More than talked about the country's future, the talk of the town was who get the credit for the victory in the war? UPFA well prepared and spread the message that without President Mahinda Rajapaksa the country could not win the war. Meantime, even though the opposition had the army commander who led the war to the victory as their candidate, they did not talked about much. Instead, their main topic was Rajapaksa's corruption and wasting public money.

In 2014, the middle class was frustrated about the management of the ruling party (Rajapaksas) and they were fed up with rumors about corruption and the waste of public money. Obviously, the main topic is to defeat these corruptions and establish law and order. The opposition candidate was the secretary of the ruling party Maithreepala Sirisena. He was really suitable for that context and he and the opposition always talked about how they liberated the country from the corruption and mismanagement of Rajapaksas.

In 2019, the main topics the middle class talked about were national security, political stability, and the Sinhala-Muslim conflict. The Pasku attack created a huge impact on this group. Also, political rivalries between President Maithreepala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe showed instability and people don't like that. Gotabaya Rajapaksa and SLPP address these issues and they promised to build a developed country as well. Meantime, the opposition did not have a clear strategy and they walked with internal conflicts in their party.

In mid-2021, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's popularity started to decrease. People trusted him as a savior of the country, Due to the rise of deaths of COVID-19 patients, people's trust in him had fallen. Even though a few popular media stations tried to enhance his image, people were frustrated. Issues after issue came (Fertilizer, a broken ship full of chemicals etc) and he could not manage them well. Gradually, people realize that he doesn't have the capability to bring the country to prosperity as he promised. This was the right time for opposition to emerge. Both SJB and NPP saw this vacuum and started their campaigns. Usually, SJB criticized the government in the parliament and media discussions.

NPP had a different approach. I assume that NPP identified the middle class as their right target audience. How did they approach them? In marketing management, we learned a theory called Diffusion of Innovation. According to the theory, if we promote our offer to our target audience, firstly category called innovators are the ones who use and feel the product. Then it goes to early adaptors. Both innovators and early adaptors play a huge role in every new product or service promotion. They are the ones who bring positive word of mouth about the offers. so, the question was how we identify innovators and early adaptors.

As I explained earlier middle class consists of lots of professionals, decision-makers, and businessmen. What NPP has done was organize gatherings with different professional groups and explain their plans for Sri Lanka's future. Also, they invite them to collaborate to prepare plans for Sri Lanka. They will conduct lots of seminars and gatherings targeting different sub groups in middle class. NPP published speeches of AKD and other thought leaders in their highly engage social media pages and channels. These speeches along with other speeches of AKD in the parliament got more engagements. This engagements drive get more views and more innovators and early adaptors engage via social media. Gradually NPP can fill the need for thoughtful leadership that people require at the moment. Innovators and early adaptors spread thoughts and positive word of mouth among rest of middle class.

From the beginning of 2022 economic crises come to the surface. Gas and petrol ques all around the country. People were frustrated on President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and the SLPP government. People gathered and started an uprising to remove Gotabaya from power. This situation help AKD to establish him as the economic savior for the country more. More people engage with their ideologies. Gradually their offer was accepted by the majority.

They use their promotional campaign wisely after declare the presidential election on July. They have place their advertisements in TV, Radio, Press and digital. They have used Google ads and Facebook ads to reach a maximum audience. They name their policy statement as " A Rich Country - A Beautiful Life". This is perfectly along with their positioning strategy. Also, they campaigned their theme As "The country to Anura". This creative strategy helped to establish him as the next leader in Sri Lanka. Similarly, BJP's campaign for the Indian general election in 2014 was "Time for Change, Time for Modi" as establishing Narendra Modi as the next leader of India.

What are the marketing lessons we can learn from NPP's campaign in 2024 presidential election?

first lesson is to identify right target audience. If you cant identify them correctly your might be invested more money without getting expected result. lots of research and data you will need to identify consumer behavior before you segment the market. Then, you can segment the market and select segment as target audiences.

Secondly, how the brand can be position itself is a challenge. Information from the research will help to identify more consumer insights. Using those consumer insights you can create a positioning strategy for selected target audience.

Finally, creative and promotional strategies have to along with positioning strategy to get maximum expected result.

I hope you get certain knowledge how Sri Lanka's political context works and how marketing help to win an election.

Chinthaka Wijethunga (Digital Marketing Professional)

https://www.digitalsrilankan.com/?m=1