Criticles
PM Modi: Salesman of the Year?
Achhe din are here again. In case you missed it – chances of which are slim given the media blitz – Reliance Jio has latched on to the most awesome brand ambassador ever: India’s model Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On Friday morning, readers of Times of India and Hindustan Times in Delhi and Mumbai were greeted with a picture of a Narendra Modi sporting his Mona Lisa smile, wearing a sleeveless jacket in Jio blue, splashed across the front page.
ToI subscribers in Chandigarh and HT’s Jaipur readers also woke up to this ad. Curiously enough, no edition south of the Vindhyas was part of this promotional campaign.
Many on Twitter saw this as a problem. Including, of course, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
But where others see a problem, we at Newslaundry see an opportunity.
Move over, Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. The Prime Minister is here, and there’s nary a slogan that he can’t embody perfectly.
There is, of course, a caveat. According to Section 3 of The Emblems And Names (Prevention Of Improper Use) Act, 1950, no one can use, “for the purpose of any trade, business, calling or profession, or in the title of any patent, or in any trade mark or design, any name or emblem specified in the Schedule or, any colourable imitation thereof without the previous permission of the Central Government or of such officer of Government as may be authorised in this behalf by the Central Government.”
Section 9A of the Schedule places restrictions on the use of the “name or pictorial representation of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj or Mahatma Gandhi or Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Shrimati Indira Gandhi or the Prime Minister of India except the pictorial use thereof on calendars where only the name of the manufacturers and printers of the calendars are given and the calendars are not used for advertising goods”.
Considering the fact that they went with full page ads using the PM’s portrait and a shoutout to the prime ministerial Digital India campaign, and the front page of the newspaper is not a calendar, one can safely assume Mukesh Ambani’s company obtained the necessary permissions.
What does warm the cockles of our heart is the Reliance Jio campaign could well bring the Prime Minister closer to the public like never before. A bill that seeks to amend the Consumer Protection Act is expected to be passed in the next session of the Parliament. One of the provisions is to make brand ambassadors accountable for the products they endorse. Which basically means each time any Jio subscriber’s call drops or data blips, they can hold Modi responsible.
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