#BoycottMillennials - An analysis - Is this a PR Failure

This is not a political post, now that the issue is out of the way lets check if this trend #BoycottMillennials is a Public Relations failure of Indian Government.

The first term of Narendra Modis government got over with euphoria that a Nationalist government was in place, #Demonitization #GST #Petrol #Diesel price hike and #Rafale was all forgotten and forgiven. Then came the big victory for the second term, this promised to be a big reformist period where all problems will be solved. But recent days the events in public  domain makes me wonder does the Indian government has a PR department, do they advice MPs and Ministers to properly address the media. 

The most recent headline which caused a big backlash

"Millennial mindset of using Ola, Uber is adversely affecting auto sector: FM"  

It caused a  trend  #BoycottMillennials there was also another associated trend 

#SayItLikeNirmalaTai these trends are a PR nightmare, not only were they sarcastic about the current statement but also they linked all the past failures of the government.

• Aviation Industry crisis
• Real Estate crisis
• Parle G production shutdown
• Roti Namak in Midday meals
• Stock Market fall
• Unorganised sector job loss
• Highest Unemployment rate

A small glimpse of the various tweets, most of it is from users who are known for their satire but majority of the tweets with less engagement was from relatively unknown handles of common people. this is a huge PR disaster for  the government as the common man starts mocking because even they can identify the spin doctors.

There was around 61 news posts about this trend #BoycottMillennials and 371 posts on twitter around the time I created the tracker.

So I wanted to find if there is any related hashtag and when I checked the dashboard I got this a word cloud #SayItLikeNirmalaTai and some other tags. The essence is people correlate economic situation with a satire tweet trend which is not good for the consumer confidence.

The PR Failure:

I believe the public relations team of Indian Government has failed bigtime, when people are anxious about growth and jobs many ministers and MPs are shooting of their mouth and causing doubts whether this government is serious about addressing the economic crisis. The finance Minister was unlucky as the statement created a huge furore, but taking into account the past interactions of ministers with media and the callous manner economic questions were answered I can sympathise with the #Millennials as they feel angry. 

It is not a PR Failure:

So when I floated this idea that this social media trend is a PR failure, there was another contrary view presented by the alternate thinkers , government giving space to this trend itself is a diversionary tactic. The best way to hide a scandal is diversion by making an outlandish statement which diverts attention. This is also possible as every time there is a serious issue one outlandish statement will be uttered by the MP or minister and we would focus our attention over that. 

So either way this presents an unique chance for us to observe how PR is being managed by the  Indian Government and also analyse how people react and interact to these statements.

I have created a real time tracker for this trend so you can keep a view of this hashtag.