The lead campaign

What happens when the world’s largest democracy teams up with its expansive media to create and pick a leader? The Lead India Campaign is such an initiative. Conceived by The Times of India , the campaign was aimed at the objective of identifying India’s future leader.

As the contest got keener, a fair share of public discussion centres at who amongst the contenders would ultimately emerge as the one best suited to lead a nation. The choice, ultimately, was whittled down to RK Misra from Bangalore and Devang Nananvati from Ahmedabad, with the former eventually being declared the winner.

However questionable the ethics of tailor making a leader might be, the initiative however, was not purely about identifying a winner. It was more about providing every right-thinking Indian a chance to step out of the comfort zone of talking about progress and getting down to the job of actually stewarding a nation, something that the Indian people got behind very quickly. The general public feels that the political process in their country has been hijacked, and what exists today is a system based on caste and creed, and therefore intelligent and able people are not getting the change to come forward.

If Lead India has been a success, a lot of the credit has to go to the multi-media campaign that was used to generate awareness about the initiative across the eight main cities of India. The campaign strategy involved print and TV advertising, a reality show, it also had an online presence through blogs, and social networking sites as well as YouTube.

Now the same initiative has been launched in South Africa calling on all citizens to respect the country’s laws and lead by example. The Lead SA call to action is the brain child of Primedia Broadcasting and is supported by Independent Newspapers. It aims to encourage action with immediate effect and reminds every South African to challenge negative perspectives, follow the rule of law and help change the country.

This campaign is on paper a perfect marriage between the media and political change. Primedia Broadcasting CEO Perry Volkwyn said that everyone can do something “ I think that people can do a lot of little everyday things that make a difference and it has to start somewhere with the small stuff. Lead SA is following former president Nelson Mandela ‘s call to the citizens of the country to be proactive about improving their lives. The campaign includes like India’s, an official video as well as other new media mediums such as blogs, social networking such as twitter and facebook.

Although the message and tone of the Lead SA campaign came off as slightly authoritarian and at times dangerously dogmatic, the project also shows media companies taking on a more positive stance about the county’s state and mobilising SA for positive action.

Primedia’s Yusuf Abramjee said that response so far has been overwhelming. “The response from the public has been phenomenon, with more than 100 000 South Africans having viewed the Lead SA website on the day of its opening and responding with thousands of ideas and suggestions”, he says.

The success of this particular initiative, we will have to wait and see.