Agency Opinion Poll: ABP News polls media agencies on poll expectations

OMD and Lintas outline their poll choices on Day 2 of the media activation in Mumbai

Sohini Sen | Mumbai | November 11, 2013

Day 2 of ABP News' activation event in media agencies reached a new fervour as they took on two new agencies in Mumbai. ABP News crew visited OMD and Lintas offices on Friday, November 8, to find out what the nation thinks about the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The activation had kicked off on Thursday, November 7, with ZenithOptemdia and Starcom vying for honours.

"This is a very good initiative by a news channel to take the opinions of people at the media agencies and this level. Maybe more channels will get inspired and follow. It is essential since 90 per cent of the crowd in the agencies are the youth. Therefore, the future is probably what gets reflected here as well," said Ajay Varghese of OMD who is Head - Media Buying for Johnson & Johnson.

'Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri' or KBM was launched in 2005 when every channel stayed with reporting election news. The channel's foresight and innovativeness reached out to a million voices across the constituency and thus created history by launching KBM. Since then, KBM has been the No.1 programme across the entire election related programming on TV channels.

The format being the same for all agencies, the ABP News team went to the OMD and Lintas offices and distributed questionnaires to the employees. The questionnaires had five set questions –choice of the future prime minister, choice of the ruling party, choice of the popular leader, choice of government in Delhi, and choice of the main agenda for the 2014 polls. After a secret voting, much like the actual election process, the results were declared to the cheerful and anxious crowd of the two agencies.

"Kaun Banega Mukhyamantri has consistently rated well in television. The smart word play reminds you of 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' which makes it, as a brand, easy to remember. Personally I feel it is a fabulous initiative since it is the first time that the opinion makers' opinions have been taken into consideration and is being collated at the national level," applauded Dhirendra Singh, Associate Vice-President, Lintas.

With many people voting from OMD and Lintas, it was a well represented affair. Just like the day before, the agencies were unanimous in their decisions with the votes. Most people – 56% from OMD and 58% from Lintas – felt that BJP should be voted to power in the 2014 elections.

For the next question about the most favoured Prime Ministerial candidate, 89% from OMD voted for Modi, while 67% from Lintas voted for him. BJP emerged as the preferred choice for the governing party in the Capital after the state elections as well with 63% from OMD and 42% from Lintas voting for them. Kejriwal remained the most popular leader for the Vidhansabha elections with 59% from OMD and 37% from Lintas voting in his favour. Rising prices seem to be on everyone's mind as the key electoral issue for 2014 as 46% and 42% votes went for this from OMD and Lintas, respectively.

"From the content perspective, this helps people to make a smarter choice. It is obviously a good initiative and not a very common thing. It is an extension of what can already be seen on television, but this is taking us into account," added Dipesh Dadhich, Associate Media Director, OMD.

Sohini.Sen@BestMediaInfo.com

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