Behind the unmaking and making of Brand Rahul

Many may wonder why this essay should be about unmaking and making of a “brand” at all. But that is because this person is special. He inherited a formidable legacy, fired the imagination of those around him, and then, presumably, let entitlement creep in. From allegedly staring at his beloved dog during critical meetings to being famously inaccessible, it was all about a person who believed he was born to lead. Just like many brands that come from sterling stables believe. What he didn’t realise was that India had changed, and the Indians had changed. Leader worship was slowly changing to leader disdain, and, to make matters worse, the perception about Rahul Gandhi was that he was not interested and was doing all of this more at his mother’s bidding than for any real reason of public service. Add to that both petulance and impishness — real, imagined, or perceived — and you had a brand that was easy to revile. From Rahul Gandhi, he went quickly to become Pappu, which, in the North of India, seems to suggest a blend of idiocy and worthlessness. This also served the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) narrative. They needed to destroy the Gandhi legacy if they wanted to destroy the Congress because the Gandhis and the Congress are intertwined. The Gandhis are the glue the Congress needs.
The Rahul Gandhi brand then was amorphous and directionless. It stood for many things and nothing. From tearing up an ordinance to hugging Narendra Modi in Parliament, it was as if Gandhi was catering to his Khan Market cohorts and seeking their approval, which he needn’t have done. Gandhi also misunderstood the concept of loyalty, and this was where he made the first mistake.
Brands serve well to make allies of even hesitant customers, but here was Gandhi who was downright rude and disdainful of those leaving the Congress. Great brands always keep the door ajar for those who leave to return. And brands are about benefits. You don’t buy a tube of Colgate toothpaste, but instead white and healthy teeth: It’s just that, in your mind, Colgate is best suited to deliver that benefit.
So, the question that begged an answer from 2014 to 2022, was, what did Rahul Gandhi stand for? Was he the angry young man? Was he a keeper of people’s aspirations? Was he the voice of the marginalised? Was he just an opportunist biding his time? This is where I believe his advisors went wrong. They played into the hands of the BJP, which went as far back as Jawaharlal Nehru to not only vilify but actually destroy a great legacy. In doing that, the BJP came across as divisive and not objective — something that most Indians detest.
It was in 2022 that Rahul Gandhi did what only he could have done. Being both youthful and impatient, he embarked on his Bharat Jodo Yatra. I wrote in October 2022, saying that from a marketing perspective, this brand was going through a makeover but needed to be consistent and focused on one key benefit. He morphed from one yatra to the other — from unity to justice — thereby stoking the imagination of many and also recognising that the average Hindu was not temple-proud but heritage-driven. The Hindu of this country would not sacrifice that secular streak — something that he kept repeating.
The fact that he did not score a decisive victory in the 2024 elections is not as relevant as the BJP would like it to be. Gandhi’s seeming arrogance was replaced by the BJP’s arrogance of ‘Abki Baar 400 Paar’ — a variation of ‘India Shining’ but with the same disastrous consequences.
And Rahul Gandhi began doing everything right even from an optics perspective. The counterpoint to a well-groomed Modi was this unshaven, T-shirt-wearing man of the people. Indians love the underdog even if that dog is pedigreed.
Today, as a brand, Rahul Gandhi wants to be the voice of the silenced, and for an Opposition leader, doing that is easy. You have to distract and destruct much like challenger brands do. They have no market share or category creation to worry about, and even unwittingly, they can re-position their competition. So, in a strange way, the poster boy of legacy and entitlement has become the voice of the poor and the marginalised, and a man who rose from the bottom of the barrel, Narendra Modi, is today seen as the entitled and the voice of those who are rich and influential. And for this re-positioning, you must give credit to Rahul Gandhi. To that end, he has crossed the first brand hurdle.
Pappu has been replaced by the people’s Gandhi, but it is still a work in progress. The journey towards being a person who can be counted on and is seen as an effective foil to unarguably one of India’s most astute politicians, Modi, has begun. What remains to be seen is whether Brand Gandhi will endure.
Suhel Seth is managing partner, Counselage India.The views expressed are personal