The Hindu : `The catchphrase came from an advertisement'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 03, 2004

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National

`The catchphrase came from an advertisement'

NEW DELHI, FEB. 2. The elegant catchphrase `feel good', which the BJP plans to use as its mascot in the coming Lok Sabha elections, was inspired by a prominent garment company advertisement, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, revealed today.

The origin of the now-famous party slogan goes back to an awards function at Mumbai three months ago. Mr. Advani was the chief guest at the Economic Times Awards ceremony during which a Raymonds advertisement showed a man wearing a suit being asked: "How do you feel?" The man replies, "If it feels heavenly, it must be Raymonds," recalled Mr. Advani, who was impressed by it.

"If you ask anybody in the country how he feels and the answer is he is feeling great, he is talking about India 2003," Mr. Advani quipped. The "feel good" is the response of ordinary Indians across the country today, he said while inaugurating Elecrama 2004, an international exhibition of electrical products, here.

The `feel good' slogan came as an accident, not by design, he said. In every election, there is some catchphrase, some punch line, slogan, which becomes a focal point of the whole debate. Reminiscing about the times when the BJP was in the Opposition, he said the party had given the slogan, `Remove Indira Gandhi' when she was the Prime Minister. "But she effectively countered our plank by giving the slogan `Garibi hatao.' It had all the trappings of a phenomenon and we were floored by it."

UNI

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