Election and finance, especially money, have been dominating in the recently conducted elections globally. This can be witnessed during campaigns and election periods where billion of funds are spent by the candidates themselves to prove their chances. Thus, this report provides an evolution of the electro effects of Incumbent wealth and the reasons behind parties depending on wealthy candidates precisely on Indian elections. It draws facts that in the 2014 countrywide elections, the candidates conveyed a median capital of Rs 23.8 lakh, which is twenty seven times the nominal per capita income in the Republic of India between 2014 and 2015 which was Rs 88,533 (Sircar).

The methods of analysis employed included analytical methods where surveys and questionnaires were offered to various individuals. Additionally, previous research and related research materials were employed to understand this phenomenon happening in India, which represents the most average and glowing economies and countries globally. The research findings indicate that self-financing candidates and dependence of wealthy individuals is a concern as only a subset of the population can be in a position to hold office (Sircar) realistically. Furthermore, the finding depicted that the legislators elected are less familiar with the citizen, leading to less representation of the general public, especially the weak and needy in society.

Thus, the report finds the prospects of the study indicating that the wealthier and money used by an individual during elections their more significant chances of winning. Additionally, the incumbents are the most beneficiaries as they enjoy significant returns on their assets (Milyo and Groseclose). As a result, the recommendations due to the result include having limitations and control by the respective governments in order to control how much a candidate or a part can spend during elections. Additionally, more focus should be made on equality, making sure that all individuals can be able to complete family and financial analysis to candidates in order to understand and identify their source of finding during campaigns and elections in order to prevent and mitigate investment by malicious individuals who are after profits after their preferred candidate is elected in office.

Furthermore, the research investigates the fact that the analysis conducted had limitations such as lack of sufficient previous research on the matter, lack of cooperation by some of the individuals involved, and finding the key reason why Indian parties truly depend on wealthy individuals. Additionally, data limitations were evident as the current economic times have been affected by the pandemic; thus, more focus has shifted on the pandemic rather than elections and such occurrences.

The rise of wealthy candidates has long been driven by the weak representative role of the elected politicians in India who have discouraged quality governance and will continue to do so. The resulting outcome is elected leaders and politicians viewing their political bids and campaigns as an economic investment in the future. Furthermore, aggressive demonstrations by wealthy candidates have increased in the high-level world of elections and campaigning in the last decade (Koerth). Globally, candidates of elections have been spotted dishing out cash handouts to their supporters to convince them to vote for them.

Despite money playing an essential and significant role in the majority of the elections globally, Indian’s political parties’ reliance on contenders with a significant private wealth is fairly an exclusive phenomenon. This is because this is contrary to many longstanding democracies. In such cases the most campaign funding is highly regulated by the government and the Lion's Finance Share is sourced from the various respective parties of the candidates or at times third party sources including corporate actors and as a result the candidates’ wealth is often less critical.

This research took massive use of a quantitative research strategy in the sense that numerical data and quantitative data were produced. For this research, three essential research methods were employed. This involves using previous data and research on the topic and combining the two classic social sciences research tools, questionnaires, and surveys. The questionnaires were distributed among random individuals within the school, especially students affiliated or of Indian origin. This was aimed at sourcing data and information from natives as it would provide a more accurate data result as compared to other individuals. Online Surveys were conducted.

It contained survey questions that were easily deployed to respondents online, and this was don't through various social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram. Online surveys were necessary as they are easier to design and deploy, and thus as the answers are anonymous, the respondents will most likely give unbiased responses. Previous research involves using the internet to search for a similar or related topic, with the main topic focusing on peer-reviewed documents to have credible results for the research. Due to time and geographical areas' limitations, the research mainly relied on online published articles and previous research online.

Despite India being a struggling economy and a third-world country, its elections are the most unique. There is a greater likelihood of upcoming candidates depending on Incumbent individuals; however, why are Indian political parties becoming highly reliant on wealthy candidates?

To respond to this hypothesis, one must first comprehend how candidates are chosen, especially in the policy-making position of legislators in the Indian political system. In India's parties, "intra-group democracy" refers to the fact that decisions within a party are often taken by a tiny coterie of party elites (Sircar). Furthermore, in the absence of a functional democratic mechanism, the tickets released by a party are traditionally circulated and at times sold by those insiders.

Another course is that the law effectively inhibits an elected representative despite getting elected in a seat from many policy-making roles. As a result, third-party actors have less incentives to invest, especially in specific candidates rather than the party itself, in such a scenario. As a result of having fewer opportunities to raise funds from outside sources, candidates have no choice but to finance their election campaigns massively.

As a result of the mentioned course of candidate funding their campaigns, it has naturally led to the development of the wealthy candidate's rise. This is because they are the kind of individuals who can fund their own political campaign endeavors. Based on the rescue findings between 2004 & 2014, self-reported candidates’ affidavits for the Lok Sabha election, the finding indicates a corresponding increase of approximately 330% in nominal terms. Additionally, despite adjustment due to inflation, the median wealth of candidates remained high, resulting in a 116% real-term increase.

Furthermore, candidates in the 2014 national election posted a median wealth of RS 23.8 lakh (approximately 32,742 dollars), which was roughly 27 times India's nominal per capita income between 2014 and 2015, making them considerably wealthier than the general population (Sircar).

The study aimed to establish and focus on money matter, how money has an influence and affects elections, and the reason behind parties depending on wealthy candidates during the election period.

Money, or rather the presence of finances, has massive influences on elections globally. In the past decade, a new and astonishing phenomenon has been identified in India. Rather than having the candidates funded by their respective parties, the elections are instead funded by few wealthy individuals in the society, or the elite and wealthy take part in the election as candidates. This indicates a lack of control, and as a result, the elective seats have been occupied by individuals who are materialistic as they are looking for ventures to invest their finances in order to scope profits (Potter and Morgan). However, despite this kind of system working in favor of some candidates, there has a significant retardancy in democracy growth, discouraging quality governance. The result is a struggling economy and the elites in the society being involved in policy-making procedures.

As a result, there has been a reason to worry about following the typical rise of “self-sponsored” candidates. Initially, the benchmark for one to contest in India's election is being a wealthy individual or having a wealthy individual behind you to inject funding and money into your campaigns. This leads to a small subset of the Indian population that has the capability of holding office. The results are a reign with congresspersons that have fewer in common things with the nation’s residents they are entitled to represent.

Another critical concern is that if the primary concern by political parties is seeking and reviewing an individual’s wealth instead of the expected characteristics, including quality due to education background and constituency service, the politicians who will be elected may become the worse at their representatives of the citizens and this will lead to failed government and democracy in general.

While it's clear that when self-financed campaigns are translated to poor leadership and democracy, it's uncertain the pursue of those leaders in terms of representation of their citizens rather than contesting as an investment relatively than a dashed cost. What follows is high levels of corruption in the office, mainly because such leaders will be moving to recoup the costs of contesting elections and replacing the finances used during the periods of campaigning.

"Money changes everything," according to philosopher Cyndi Lauper, and this metaphor has been taken to heart in today's elections, where billions of dollars are collected and spent under the assumption that money is a critical determinant of whether a candidate loses or wins an election. (Potter and Morgan). This literature proves that when a candidate is loaded with money and uses it during their campaigns and election periods, there is a higher chance that such a candidate will win the election. Money makes it possible for the candidate to visit as many individuals and states as possible, especially for a presidential candidate. Additionally, such candidates are able to afford state-to-earth services such as social media handlers; transport means the advertisement in the various broadcasting media including TV and radio.

According to the Wesleyan Media Project (2018) analysis in the 2018 election, there was increased advertisement mentioning the presidential candidates more than it had been experienced in the US elections' history (Baum). The former president Trump, at the time, was mentioned positively in 14.8% of the total federal election advertisements totaling twenty-seven thousand adverts in general in only two months. This suggests that India is not the only place that money rules the elections and that being well funded puts a candidate in the spotlight, translating to their win. But for India, they have taken it a notch higher as overdependence on wealthy parties and individuals has increased rapidly to the extent that it has been alarming the global fraternity.

The most unfortunate thing is that a certain high percentage of the money used is from dark sources such as illegal activities and drug activities, as the money sources are never disclosed. According to Potter, T., & Morgan (2013), an estimated 6 billion dollars was used in the US Federal election of 2012, where 3.14 billion dollars was spent by the federal candidates and 1.034 billion by the political parties. This indicates the power money has in influencing elections and if the united states candidates can dwell in hefty sourcing and funding in election imagine what Indian leaders and candidates can do considering that there is deficient control of the amount and sources of funding of candidates to control their expenditure and funding in the Republic of India.

The research done focuses on portable wealth, which included possessions that can be mobilized swiftly for the purposes of campaigns. This is because such wealth can be nested into cash, deposits, vehicles, and jewelry, and jewelry is the most common as it's small and carries many financial values. As a result of India's eventualities, there is a significant growth as political parties are busily sleeting withier candidates rather than focusing on representing their citizens and offering the necessities to their citizens. There is a need for international bodies to intervene to stop this menace as its continuity will lead to bad governance, and India's economy will continue struggling, primarily due to the ongoing global pandemic that has crippled many economies globally.

Baum, L., 2018. GOP Praise Trump at Record Rates. Wesleyan Media Project. Available at: https://mediaproject.wesleyan.edu/aug-2018/ [Accessed March 14, 2021].

Koerth, M., 2018. How Money Affects Elections. FiveThirtyEight. Available at: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/money-and-elections-a-complicated-love-story/ [Accessed March 14, 2021].

Milyo, J. and Groseclose, T., 1999. The electoral effects of incumbent wealth. The Journal of Law and Economics, 42(2), pp.699-722.

Potter, T. and Morgan, B.B., 2013. The History of Undisclosed Spending in US Elections & How 2012 Became the Dark Money Election. Notre Dame JL Ethics & Pub. Pol'y, 27, p.383.

Sircar, N., 2019. Money Matters in Indian Elections: Why Parties Depend on Wealthy Candidates. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Available at: https://carnegieendowment.org/2018/07/26/money-matters-in-indian-elections-why-parties-depend-on-wealthy-candidates-pub-76926 [Accessed March 14, 2021].

Rational

Design and development of the marketing campaigns belongs to the highest level of art which has potential to promote the business growth. It concerns everything from selection of image, words, colours and symbols to influence on the customer’s mind (Wright, 2019). The companies usually want to be innovative and creative in the ad because the successful marketing campaign can contribute to the increase of their competitive advantage. The effective ad has potential for the attraction of the new customers, increase of the brand awareness and sales. It can be useful for the development of the long-term relationships of the customer and brand. Similarly, as the motivating ad can encourage the consumers to buy, the wrongful advertisement can undermine the reputation of the company and force the customers to reject the relationships with the brand. Badly developed marketing campaign delivers the wrongful messages to its customers. Sometimes the companies expect that their ad will be original, but the result is opposite. In this case I want to focus attention on the investigation of the marketing ad created by Hyundai brand that, in my opinion and based on the experts’ views, was one of the most unsuccessful examples in the history of the marketing campaigns in the automobile industry.

The paper deals with the investigation of the worst marketing campaign in the history of Hyundai brand. The company used the suicide topic as the main concept of its promotional campaign that has the unexpected consequences for the company including rise of anger among the public, and flow of critics to the brand that made the serious damage to the reputation of the company. The experts in the marketing studies state that the violation of the ethical principles and use of the negative associations will always have depressive consequences for the company. In order to promote its new model Hyundai developed the advertisement with unusual image which stand apart from the traditional stereotypes and clichés. However, the problem is that the company used rather unexpected topic for the ad. In the basis of its ad, the idea of suicide and wonderful saving from it due to the excellent properties of the car was used.

Hyundai’s speculation on suicide topic and attempt to laugh over it to be original almost cost it a lot of the customers. The public critic especially today in the world of Internet and social media has the capacity to spread very quickly that’s why the companies must be very careful when they design and create their ad.

The methodology of the study is based on the use of the primary and secondary methods of the research. The secondary methods of the investigation include the quantitative analysis for Hyundai’s sales rate before and after the marketing campaign in order to estimate how the flow of critics affected on the growth or reduction of sales. The data about company’s revenues will be collected from the official website of Hyundai and statistical sources. In the course of study, the author will also use the methods of analysis, comparison, juxtaposition, induction and deduction to investigate the public relations crisis management by Hyundai from the different sides, including from the side of the marketing efforts, financial impacts on the company’s activity, observance of the business ethics etc. The primary methods of research include the study of the theoretical concepts relating to the case. For this purpose, the author will use the scientific articles, Internet publications, social media networks, the website of the company and other sources where the specified problems were discussed.

The research question of the paper is as follows:

How the marketing campaign did influence on Hyundai’s operation and what reasons of the failure lay behind it?

The key topics discussed in the literature review will concern the introduction of the company’s activity and its place in the automobile industry; description of the marketing campaign which became the unsuccessful for the company; presentation of the different opinions about Hyundai’s marketing campaign.

Key words: Hyundai, marketing campaign, advertisement, customer, critic, business ethics.

Hyundai is the large South-Korean automobile manufacturer founded in 1967. It manufactures the range of automobile including sedans, buses, trucks, SUVs etc. Annually the company sells about 3.6 mln cars. The company has the wide network of dealers and today operates in about 186 countries worldwide.

The vision of the company is to grow in the world’s largest automobile company in the world. The vision of the brand is reflected in its mission statement that includes the global expansion of Hyundai form the South Korea to all countries of the world; provision of the customers with the safe and functional automobiles; creation for the consumers the emotional value and positive experience with the use of company’s products; changing the people’s thinking through improvement of their life with new technologies. The rapid success of the company is achieved due to its focus on innovation and implementation of the new technologies. Also the company pays mush attention to the development of corporate culture and attraction of the talented people to its company. The management of the company states that the company is not simple a car maker, it is passionate about change of the global automobile industry that is expressed through all its innovation and creativity contribution (Hyundai).

Hyundai’s marketing campaign which showed trivializing suicide was not well accepted by the public. Trying to demonstrate its social awareness the company launched the TV commercials which depicted a driver who committed unsuccessful attempt of suicide. The company wanted to emphasize that its cars are so safe that everyone who sit inside is in absolute safety that even suicide will not go well. This ad caused the range of negative comments against Hyundai (Wright, 2019).

*Source: Valdes-Dapena (Valdes-Dapena, 2013).

According to Jason Deans, the angered users of the mass media and social networks who saw the ad demanded from the company to apologize for the extreme offence to everyone for the description of people who commit suicide as complete losers. The company was accused in speculation of the topic like suicide which is not usually discussed in the society (Deans, 2013).

As claimed by Peter Valdes-Dapena, the ill-tempered ad was aimed to promote the SUV which runs on the use of hydrogen (Valdes-Dapena, 2013). It emits the water vapor that does not give the man an opportunity to kill himself. It should be noted that the ad was created by the professional European advertising agency Innocean Europe. After the society expressed the critic of the ad, the management of the company assured them that it did not approve the ad. However, it seems rather doubtful that the company could launch the advertisement which it has never seen. The attempts of the company to apologize in such naïve way impact the users of the brand even more because they feel themselves cheated. It is necessary to emphasize that the ad is a kind of coded message aimed at the achievement of the specific response in the customers’ mind. The target audience’s response usually depends on how each person understands and interprets the perceived symbols, words and images. For the adequate decoding, the advertising must be inscribed rightly in the cultural context of targeted society. It should rely on the positive spiritual and cultural traditions and take into account nationally specific norms of ethics, peculiarities of mentality, respect the system of moral values of representatives of other cultures. Advertising performs not only a commercial, but also a social function. Touching on important public issues, such advertising is a reflection of reality. Along with this, the ad itself forms the value orientations. For modern world society, the problem of ethics in the ad is especially important, since many former spiritual and cultural values and ideals have changed in the 21st century, and some of them have collapsed. New ideals are not recognized by a part of society. Therefore, it is very important what spiritual values and cultural standards are promoted by advertising that has a huge impact. Thus, according to Matthew Herper, there are always repeated suicides in the month after such stories. This serves the evidence that the effects of the ad are much bigger for the emotionally vulnerable people. The statistics shows that 17% overdoses increased in the week after the prominent overdose social ad on causality. In 1998 the media in Hong Kong reported about the heavy poisoning with the carbon monoxide after the similar story was shown on TV. Hyundai ad could become the trigger for some people with unstable psyche who do not capable to estimate the real and filmed world. In scholar’s opinion, such controversial and provocative images must be banned in the ad because their consequences are unpredictable (Herper, 2013).

Anant Rangaswami called Hyundai suicide ad to be a suicide for brand. The company was blamed in the incapability to create entertaining and amusing messages and deliverer to the target consumers the negative statement. The scholar compares this image with advertising the rapes, murders, accidents or other crimes. This advertisement depicts people like beings with the lot of problems, full of fears and routine failures. Undoubtedly, this advertisement delivers the wrong motives to the target consumers. The advertisement must be positive and emotionally touching. It must encourage people to buy the product rather than to fear and think about death. Evidently, the image chosen by the company was absolutely wrong and attempts to be original have led to the damage to the company’s reputation (Rangaswami, 2013).

The reviews of the people were loud speaking. People wrote that they began to shake literarily when they saw that the person wants to kill itself. Some noted that they took the scenes so hard that they even put down there drink back on the table. The other started to cry and even wanted to call to the police and ambulance to help the hero of this sad ad. All these descriptions and many other reviews about the ad are full of terrible associations which Hyundai’s ad raised in people. It is obviously wrongful associations. The company expected that customers will laugh together with it over the unsuccessful attempts of the hero to commit suicide, while people trembled and cried watching it. I think such ad will be graved in their minds for long time.

The video ad of the company was much discussed in the social network and information about it quickly spread over the web. Hyundai expected to win the new customers due to the originality, but the attempt to distinguish itself played against the company. The decision of the company to create something original is clear (Edwards, 2013). Usually, the advertisements are full of traditional clichés. In the automobile industry, the clichés are extremely standard, e.g. open road, daytime or nighttime driving through the walls of the barriers or flames. Hyundai wanted to create the ad which would be not similar to the ad of its competitors. Obviously, it is difficult to be original when creating a video for a traditional target audience and in the traditional type of industry full of stereotypes and clichés. Original ad is a real kind of art. Therefore, the creative ad is highly valued because it can contribute to the development of the competitive advantage of the company. In fact, there are special ways to search for creative ideas, the most famous and widespread of which is the method of brainstorming, a collective search for ideas. Its principal features include criticism of the proposals expressed is excluded; participants facilitate the emergence and expression of the maximum number of ideas; encouraging proposals in the form of bold, unusual designs and free association; combining and improving the expressed thoughts. This method is especially effective when discussing the general idea, strategy and concept of advertising.

Having summarized the above-said, Hyundai’s advertisement belongs to the examples of the wrongful strategies for the creation of the innovative and original message for the customers. No one expected that the response of the audience will be angry. The company’s management expected that the images in ad will be interpreted in absolutely other way. Therefore, it again proves that the creation of the advertisement requires not only original ideas but following the moral and ethical principles too.

References Deans, J. (2013, April 25). Hyundai pulls attempted suicide advert. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/25/hyundai-pulls-attempted-suicide-advert Edwards, J. (2013, April 26). Here's The Full Story Of That Despicable Hyundai Suicide Ad Everyone Is Talking About. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.businessinsider.com/hyundai-suicide-ad-everyone-is-talking-about-2013-4 Herper, M. (2013, April 25). Update: Hyundai Apologizes For Car Ad Depicting Attempted Suicide. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2013/04/25/a-hyundai-car-ad-depicts-suicide-it-is-so-wrong-i-cant-embed-it-in-this-post/?sh=6dc11253554d Hyundai. (n.d.). Hyundai Motor In Brief. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from Hyundai : https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/company/newsroom/hyundai-motor-in-brief-0000001084 Rangaswami, A. (2013, April 26). Hyundai suicide ad is suicide for the brand. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.firstpost.com/business/hyundai-suicide-ad-is-suicide-for-the-brand-729863.html Valdes-Dapena, P. (2013, April 25). Hyundai pulls ad that plays suicide for laughs. Retrieved March 1, 2021, from https://money.cnn.com/2013/04/25/autos/hyundai-suicide-ad/index.html Wright, I. (2019, May 11). Worst Car Advertisements Of All Time. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://carbuzz.com/features/worst-car-advertisements-of-all-time

Cases in Marketing,

Ruslan Tsatiev.