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POLITICAL
MARKETING
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Poii1ici.xs increasingly behave like celebrities (Street I,,,; :oo; Higgins :oo8)
appearing on TV programmes such as Richard and Judy, Have I Got News for You,
Parkinson, etc. and a plethora of spin doctors advise politicians on their interactions
with the media. Political actors need to be telegenic (Newman I,,: I,); how politi-
cians look is as (if not more) important than what they say. This emphasis upon image
and media management form however, just one part of a broader set of strategies,
referred to within the academic literature as political marketing.
Political marketing, while played out in and reliant upon a media environment,
is not simply about media management strategies. Political marketing is something
which has become much more than a trendy buzzword; it has become an inte-
gral part of the practice of contemporary politics. Labour and the Conservatives
routinely and extensively employ marketing in their electioneering and as Newman
observes, in the current environment, the question becomes whether it is conceiv-
able for a candidate not to adopt a marketing perspective (Newman I,,: :I). In
this sense, it is important to establish not only what political marketing is, what
it does, why and how it has become so prominent but also what the implications
of the application of marketing to politics might entail. The aim of this chapter
is to provide a critical historical overview of political marketing, what it is, how

I would like to thank: Lee Marsden, John Street, Mick Temple, Colin Hay, and the handbook editors,
Matthew Flinders, Andrew Gamble, and Mike Kenny and the anonymous reviewers for their
constructive and insightful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
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and why it has developed as both a set of political practices and as an acad-
emic discipline. It will also highlight the tensions and areas of contestation in this
development, particularly in respect to the potential impact upon the democratic
process.
Broadly speaking political marketing is informed by a set of assumptions and
models derived from management, which start from the premise that parties can
be conceived of as business and voters as consumers. This fundamental premise
has given rise to a divergent set of literature which details contemporary elite-
level political behaviour, largely, but not exclusively in election campaign practice.
The term political marketing is used in this chapter to detail this use of business
assumptions, models, and practices in politics as both (a) a set of practical strategies
used by political actors, and (b) an academic literature which has charted these
developments.
As a literature, political marketing draws from communications studies, political
science, and management marketing literature (Scammell I,,,), and has been able
to capture and describe the changing nature of electioneering. This literature has
proliferated, with a wealth of books, articles, and a specialist journal (Journal of Polit-
ical Marketing) which detail, describe, and analyse contemporary elite-level political
behaviour. This has also meant that alongside traditional election studies such as the
Nueld series, elections for more than a decade have also witnessed both books and
special issues of journals (e.g. European Journal of Marketing; Journal of Marketing
Management) devoted specically to political marketing.
As will be noted below, however, this literature has not only described campaign
practice, but has been used by some, prescriptively as justication for norma-
tive claims about the benets to (a) political actorsthat marketing is a nec-
essary template for electoral success (e.g. Kotler and Levy I,o,; Egan I,,,) and
(b) that it enhances the democratic process (e.g. Harrop I,,o; OCass I,,o; Lees-
Marshment :ooIa; :ooIb). One of the main points of critique within this chapter
is the extent to which the more prescriptive literature commits a logical fallacy,
conating evidence consistent with its models as evidence of its normative contri-
bution to political practice
I
and the potential problems this raises for the democratic
process.
The chapter proceeds by placing the growth and use of political marketing, in
literature and practice, in its broader communications context. It then provides a
historical overview of the trajectory of political marketing, as both political practice
and as a disciplinary subeld. Attention is then turned to the specic models and
concepts, derived from business, which underpin and inform this development, and
illustrates how these have been used to both describe and prescribe practice. The nal
section places political marketing in its broader context and explores its structural
1
Paradoxically, given the empiricist/positivist nature of the more prescriptive literature, and yet the
positivist emphasis upon observer neutrality. For further discussion of this point see Savigny :oo,.
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basis. Throughout, the underlying assumptions are teased out (which have often been
uncritically accepted within much of this literature), and key areas of contention and
debate will also be highlighted.
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Political marketing has informed and inuenced election campaigns in the USA, UK,
Austria, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada (Bowler and
Farrell I,,:; Lilleker and Lees-Marshment :oo,), Australia (OCass :ooI), Sweden
(Nord :ooo; Strmbck :oo,), China (Sun :oo,). For some, marketing strategy lies
at the heart of electoral success (Kotler and Kotler I,,,: ). Commentators suggest
we have also reached an era of the permanent campaign (Blumenthal I,8o), and so
in turn, political marketing has been viewed by some, as a method of governance
(OShaughnessy I,,o; Newman I,,; Lees-Marshment :ooIa; for a more critical
account see Needham :oo,).
The term political marketing has been more widely used ambiguously as a catch
all phrase to characterize a variety of changes that have been taking place in the
practice and presentation of politics. For some political marketing is: smoke and
mirrors (Palmer :oo:); synonymous with spin (Jones I,,,); the packaging of politics
(Franklin I,,); and the professionalisation of political communication (Negrine
and Lilleker :oo:). This activity has also been described as representative of the
behaviour of a public relations state (Deacon and Golding I,,) or the workings
of a public relations democracy (Davis :oo:). This for some has come to represent a
crisis in public communication (Blumler and Gurevitch I,,,) and Franklin suggests
that this attention to presentation has been at the expense of political substance; and
has led to a dumbing down which sties democratic debate (I,,). Although in
contrast some suggest this enhances opportunities for political participation (Temple
:ooo; see also Brants I,,8). While this emphasis on professional media strategies
conforms to Panebiancos (I,88) electoralprofessional party, what is qualitatively
dierent in the contemporary environment is that the presentation of politicians and
policy has become at least as signicant for political actors as the policy content. As
Gaber notes, a spin doctor for New Labour was quoted after the I,,, election saying:
communications is not an afterthought to our policy. Its central to the whole mission
of New Labour (I,,8: I,).
While media and communications do play an integral role in the marketing
process, political marketing is, as the term suggests, extensively informed by mar-
keting. What dierentiates political marketing (in the academic literature) from
other analyses of the relationship between politicians and the media, or election
campaigning per se, is the explicit emphasis upon marketing; that is the explicit
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acceptance and usage of assumptions, methods, and practices developed within and
associated with both business practice and the academic management marketing
literature. Thus the chapter proceeds by detailing the use of political marketing in
practice, in order to provide the historical context from which the academic literature
has developed.
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If political marketing in practice is about the art of persuasion then it could be
argued that this goes back to the days of Aristotle. Its historical antecedents are
widely noted; for Harris (:ooI) these date back to Machiavelli. Wring charts the
historical developments of marketing techniques in Britain back to the early twentieth
century (Wring I,,o: Io:). In its contemporary form, however, the development and
renement of marketing in practice can be located in the USA, with Britain following
closely behind. Maarek argues that while political marketing is entirely rooted in
the history of political communication in the United States (I,,,: ,) its modern
manifestation coincided with the emergence of television, when Eisenhower became
the rst candidate to make use of this technology as a means of persuasion (I,,,:
,:I). Shama describes how, in the early I,oos, political campaigning was: viewed
and practiced as the selling of candidates (I,,o: ,o,8), but in the USA, it was the
Reagan campaigns of the I,8os that marked the wholesale adoption of marketing (as
pursued by commercial companies) (Newman I,,: :,).
The development of marketing in Britain closely followed the American lead. It was
the advent of Thatcher as Leader of the Conservative party, in particular the election
campaign of I,8,, which is generally regarded as changing the manner of British
electioneering (Wring I,,o: Io,; OShaughnessy I,,o: :I8). While the Conservatives
had previously employed advertising agents Saatchi and Saatchi (I,,,, Labour isnt
working) (Lock and Harris I,,o: :I), it was in the I,8os that marketing strategies
were used to determine which policies would be electorally unviable. Scammell notes
that: In I,8, . . . the manifesto and electoral strategy closely followed the analysis
of marketing research (I,,o: I:), and the Conservatives led the way on the use
of marketing to inform their market positioning. Labour followed and during the
leadership of Neil Kinnock the term marketing also became part of Labours orga-
nizational thinking (Wring I,,o: Io:; see also Gould I,,8). This recognition and
description of marketing as a set of practices employed by political elites is also par-
alleled by an academic literature, the origins and development of which are charted
below.
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The phrase political marketing was rst used by Kelley in I,,o, but it was the seminal
article by Kotler and Levy (I,o,) which marked the origins of the embedding of this
term as a feature of contemporary academic discourse and the foundation for the
subeld. Kotler and Levy argued that marketing could be extended to other areas of
endeavour whose primary aim was not the making of prot; that marketing could be
extended to services/persons and ideas (I,o,: Io). Indeed, their words seemsomewhat
prophetic nowthat managerial thinking and marketing has become a feature of many
areas of public life (for example health and higher education).
Kotler and Levy argued that marketing is not something that is conned to business
practice, but political contests remind us that candidates are marketed as well as
soap (I,o,: Io). For some, the use of these strategies is a response to the context
political actors nd themselves in. Proponents suggest that there is a similarity in
political and commercial contexts, as political actors nd themselves in an electoral
market place where they have to sell their product to a consumer. As such they
assume that business managers and political campaigners face similar challenges, in
a similar context (of a market place) and therefore similar responses/methods are
appropriate (Reid I,88; Newman I,,: ,; Butler and Collins I,,o). The acceptance
of the assumption that politics is as amenable to commodication as any other kind
of commercial product has profound implications, not only for the reshaping of
the way in which politics is conducted, but also raises broader issues about the
role and function of democracy. Does it matter, for example, if all citizens do not
participate in formal politics, as long as enough of the product gets sold in order
for politicians to win elections? As will be evident from the discussion below, while
some of the literature espouses the benets to politicians of adopting marketing, these
more fundamental normative questions are only just beginning to be addressed.
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In some senses, one of the many diculties for students of political marketing is in
delineating what it actually is, as there is no agreed denition for the term (Scammell
I,,,; OCass :ooI; Lock and Harris I,,o). Operating with an implicit commitment
to pluralism, the political marketing literature describes what politicians do to get
elected, but crucially this is through the use of strategies and techniques derived
from business. Consistent with the positivist thinking which underpins much of the
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management marketing literature, political marketing has been dened as the science
of inuencing mass behaviour in competitive situations (Mauser I,8,: ,).
The focus within the literature is largely upon election campaign practice rather
than electoral outcomes per se. Election campaigns are viewed as, in all its essentials,
a condensed consumer-product marketing campaign (OShaughnessy and Hen-
neberg :oo:: p. xi) and so methods and strategies from marketing are deemed
appropriate. Simply put, the existing research into political marketing highlights
where, why and how a party positions itself in the electoral market (Harrop I,,o:
:,,). This draws heavily on management marketing literature, where scholars dene
[m]arketing [as] the delivery of customer satisfaction at a prot (Kotler et al.
:oo,: ,). While there are a variety of denitions of political marketing within the
literature, all accept that marketing entails two actors (the organization and the
consumer) and the desire for the organization to achieve their ends (for non-prot
organizations this is to maximize utility rather than make a prot).
In this way, the political marketing literature dierentiates itself from other forms
of analysis of media and professionalized political behaviour, with its explicit empha-
sis upon marketing. That is, it accepts the fundamental principle of marketing that
the essence of marketing is reciprocity: consumers themselves bring something to
bear on the selling (OShaughnessy I,,o: :). The adoption of this central assumption
suggests that consumers (voters) are elevated frombeing passive recipients of a politi-
cal product to playing an interactive role in its production. This is achieved through
public opinion research (such as polls and focus groups) so that public opinion is
identied and fed back into, thereby shaping, the political product. In marketing
this same process takes place, in order that the business can then sell the product to a
receptive consumer and make a prot. In politics, the means are regarded as the same,
but the aim for the political party is simply viewed as winning the election (Lock and
Harris I,,o: I8).
Henneberg argues that a formal analytical denition of political marketing is that
it seeks to establish, maintain and enhance long term voter relationships at a prot
for society and political parties. So that the objectives of the organisation are met
(Henneberg :oo:: Io:,). In politics, this translates into a focus upon the strategies
and techniques employed by political actors in a competitive (and minimally spec-
ied) context to achieve their goal: electoral victory. Although, as will be discussed
later in the chapter, it is worth noting that the key point here is that relationships with
voters are viewed as instrumental and necessary insofar as they enable organizations
to achieve their goal (Wring I,,,: o,:; see also Sackman I,,:). As such this assump-
tion introduces a tension between on the one hand, the idea of a voter as a citizen,
informed, engaged, and playing a participatory role in the political process, and
on the other, functioning instrumentally simply enabling political actors to achieve
their goal.
The basic premise within these denitions, and accepted by the more positive liter-
ature, is that candidates and/or parties can be positioned and marketed in a manner
analogous to that of businesses in the commercial sector. Policy content is formulated
and communicated within an assumed political market place (e.g. Newman I,,;
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Worcester and Baines :ooo). This analogy is extended and the ontological and analyt-
ical supposition is that political parties can be conceived of as businesses and voters
as consumers, who purchase (exchange their vote for) a political product (party or
candidate) on the day of the election. This simplistic starting point clearly resembles
that of Downss (I,,,) spatial model of electoral competition. The economic roots of
Downss model are acknowledged within the literature (Mauser I,8,; Newman I,,;
Wring I,,o; Butler and Collins I,,,: ,,; Scammell I,,,: ,:o, ,,,; Lees-Marshment
:ooIb: o,) and while for some political marketing is viewed as a contemporary
variant of rational choice theory (Savigny :oo) others claim that political marketing
goes beyond Downs, through the detailing of how parties identify voter demands
(Lees-Marshment :ooIb: o,).
For those who advocate political marketing as practice, as well as an academic
literature, there is the claimthat it provides parties and candidates with a method that
facilities the ability to address diverse voter concerns and needs through marketing
analyses, planning, implementation and control of political and electoral campaigns
(OCass I,,o: 8). There are two aspects to this process: the rst is concerned with the
techniques of marketing which include e.g. advertising, market research, and media
management. The second is at the level of strategy, and as leading marketing scholars
note, in order for an organization to be successful a marketing mindset must be
adopted (Kotler and Andreasen I,,o: ,,). That is, management marketing includes
prescriptive tenets: marketing is not only about a set of tools and techniques, but a
way of thinking. The ultimate philosophy for organizational success is claimed to be
marketing (Webster I,,:) and electoral success has also been linked to adherence to
marketing ideals (e.g. OCass :ooI; Lees-Marshment :ooIa; :ooIb). The diculties
with this are discussed later in the chapter.
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In simple marketing terms, what distinguishes marketing fromselling is the emphasis
upon the consumer. For example, while Labours I,8, election campaign might have
been regarded as highly professional, according to marketing scholars the distinction
was that the emphasis was upon selling, whereas the Conservatives placed greater
emphasis upon the marketing, that is a response to public opinion and the suc-
cessful communication of that response (OShaughnessy I,,o; Scammell I,,,). One
framework that is widely used, in the academic literature, to describe this organi-
zational transition from selling to marketing, is Keiths three-stage evolutionary
model (I,oo). Keiths model claimed that rms went through three interlinked stages:
product, sales, and market orientations. These stages overlapped and, Keith argued,
that once a rm reached market orientation, that is it adhered to the marketing
concept (detailed below), and placed the consumer at the centre of the product, it
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would be successful. What this model highlights is the diering stages of uidity in
the process: in the selling stage, public opinion is thought to be malleable and subject
to persuasion (through for example, advertising); in the marketing stage however, it
is the product that is thought to be malleable, responsive to public opinion.
This three-stage model of evolution has been widely used and adapted to describe
and analyse how political actors have moved towards and employed marketing in
election campaigns. The literature uses these stages to reect diering points of
emphasis. In marketing accounts, the descriptor is the managerial product, sales and
market orientation of parties/candidates (Shama I,,o; Smith and Saunders I,,o;
Newman I,,; Lees-Marshment :ooIa; :ooIb; see also Mauser I,8,). In accounts
which privilege communications and technology, the media provides the context
to describe development from premodern to television revolution and then as a
telecommunications revolution (Farrell I,,o); for Norris (:ooo) these stages are
characterized as premodern, modern and postmodern. Wring combines these dif-
ferent aspects with internal organizational learning, dening these stages as the pro-
paganda, media and political marketing phase (I,,o; :oo,). Despite diering foci of
analysis, what the application of this model highlights is the way in which political
marketing is conceived of as a process implying continuance over time, rather than
a static, one-o phenomenon. This three-stage approach highlights historical, tem-
poral, and contextual factors; electioneering being inuenced by both endogenous
factors (such as organizational learning from electoral successes and losses; party
leaders and members) and exogenous factors (such as a densely populated media
environment; behaviour of opposition parties; a changing societal base; advice from
strategists from sister parties such as the USA and Australia).
|.,.: The Marketing Concept
As management guru Peter Drucker argues the aim of marketing is to make selling
superuous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well
that the product ts himand sells itself. Ideally, marketing should result in a customer
who is ready to buy. All that should be needed then is to make the product or service
available (Drucker I,,: o,). At the heart of this lies the marketing concept, which
is premised on the notion that the consumer, not the company, is in the middle
(Keith I,oo: ,,). While its utility has been debated (see e.g. Houston I,8o), the
marketing concept is used within the political marketing literature to suggest that the
consumer [voter] is at the centre of the process. As such, parties/candidates listen to
[targeted] public opinion, and provide the electorate with a product that they want,
in order to achieve electoral victory (Mauser I,8,; Reid I,88; Shama I,,o; OCass I,,o;
Egan I,,,; Lees-Marshment :ooIa; :ooIb).
These concepts, however, have been employed as more than heuristic devices.
In practice, advocates argue that adherence to the marketing concept enables
parties/candidates to nd out who the voters are and what they want the candidates
to stand for. Candidates can then feedback to the voters the ideas that they know will
sell in the marketplace (Newman I,,: Io). From here, once voter preferences have
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been identied, advertising, and other promotional strategies then form part of the
marketing process of both relaying the rened product to consumers, and seeking
to persuade them that their wants have been incorporated into the product.
Labours electoral victory in I,,, provides a clear example of this process in prac-
tice. Labours use of opinion research to inform their repositioning meant that focus
groups became a key element in the planning of electoral strategies and assessment
of policy proposals (Gould I,,8). Extensive opinion research was undertaken which
enabled Labour to identify Tory switchers, particularly in marginal seats, who were
necessary for a Labour victory (see Gould I,,8: :o, ,:,, ,,o). The emphasis upon the
importance of both the perception of the electorate that their wants had been accom-
modated and the demands of a densely populated media environment are highlighted
by Mandelsons statement that: If a government policy cannot be presented in a
simple and attractive way, it is more likely than not to contain fundamental aws
and prove to be the wrong policy (I,,,, cited in Franklin :ooI: I,I). The appearance
of responsiveness to public opinion has been evidenced more broadly, with strategies
such as Labours Big Conversation; the Conservatives Listening to Britain; the use
of newmedia technologies such as blogs and petitions on the Downing Street website.
Consistent with a permanent campaign approach to government, this process has
continued throughout Labours period in oce; Browns maiden speech as Prime
Minister reinforces this: As I have travelled around the country and as I have listened
and Ive learnt from the British people, and as Prime Minister I will continue to listen
and learn from the British people, I have heard the need for change (: June :oo,,
cited in Lilleker and Scullion :oo8: I)
The desire to present the appearance of a visible engagement with the voters, illus-
trates for some the centrality of the consumer (voter) to the political process. In this
way, advocates advance the normative claim that marketing ensures accountability
and responsiveness and is a benecial force for democracy (Shama I,,o; Harrop I,,o;
Scammell I,,,; OCass I,,o; :ooI; Kotler and Kotler I,,,; Lees-Marshment :ooIa;
:ooIb). Lees-Marshment observes that political parties in Britain no longer pursue
grand ideologies, fervently arguing for what they believe in and trying to persuade the
masses to follow them. They increasingly follow the people (:ooIa: I) and while this
is presented as evidence of the responsive nature of political marketing, some warn of
the potential for negative eects upon the political process. This is in terms of both
the dangers of populism (e.g. OShaughnessy I,,o; Scammell I,,,; Henneberg :oo),
and the anti-democratic nature of this method of listening to voters when necessary
for electoral victory rather than the polity as a whole (Savigny :oo,).
|.,.i Implementing Marketing
Once public opinion has been identied, according to marketing, and fed back into
the product, the next stage in the electioneering process is to sell the product to the
public, in an attempt to mobilize electoral support. One of the key ways in which this
is done is through market segmentation. First introduced by Smith (I,,o), the notion
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of market segmentation draws attention to the heterogeneity of the market place.
Acknowledging that political markets are not homogeneous (Butler and Collins
I,,o: ,,), and consistent with management marketing, voters are segmented into
target groups (in practice this has been evident in categories such as Mondeo Man or
Worcester Woman). Here, the assumption within the literature is that the electoral
market can be divided into subcategories building upon traditional variables such
as class and gender. Segmentation means that parties can identify voter attitudes
and beliefs, so in turn the message can be tweaked to t the prole of the voter
whose support is being targeted. It is also assumed that this enables parties to gain
a priori insights into voter behaviour (Smith and Saunders I,,o; Smith and Hirst
:ooI). Technological developments, renement of marketing strategies, advice from
international strategists, and greater availability of information about voters lifestyle
choices and consumer trends have meant that, in practice, voters are now segmented
into much smaller groups, leading to a much more specic individualized rening of
the targeted campaign message.
Segmentation, while detailed in the literature, has also been widely used in political
practice and, again, it is worth looking to the USA for some historical background.
Clinton, aided and advised by strategist Dick Morris, relied on opinion research, but
extensive voter proling enabled him to focus in an unprecedented way upon local-
ized markets (Newman I,,,: o,; see also Morris I,,,). Clinton bypassed traditional
media forms to communicate directly with the voters, for example through cable
channel TV shows, and employed researchers to provide detailed opinion research
based upon lifestyle analysis (Novotny :ooo: I8). American strategists Penn and
Schoen have also advised the Labour party, and so again there has been a transference
of American strategies and technologies to the UK.
In :oo,, both the Conservatives and Labour used comprehensive voter prol-
ing software. The former, following consultation with the (now former) Republi-
can strategist, Karl Rove, used US Republican software, Voter Vault; Labour used
the labour.contact database. This technology and collaboration with international
strategists enabled both parties to build up highly detailed personal proles of aggre-
gated groups (Wintour :oo,). Target voters were no longer identied simply by tradi-
tional demographic social class, but by much more distinct and discrete categories. In
I,,,, campaign resources had focused on ,o key seats (Seyd :ooI: ,). In :ooI, further
renement had meant that there were no key seats only key voters (Seyd :ooI) and by
:oo, over oI dierent categories were identied. Those targeted by Labour included,
symbols of success, upscaling newowners, and auent blue collar (Wintour :oo,).
This in turn led to highly individualized campaigning, according to voter proles and
their likelihood of impact upon the electoral outcome.
Here the conation of analytical and ontological assumptions of voters as
consumers seems to be most obviously accepted in political practice. Indeed,
proling of voters through reference to their purchasing habits and lifestyle choices
suggests a perception by politicians that voters can be equated with consumers (for
further discussion of voters/citizens as consumers see Scammell :oo,; Schudson :ooo;
Lilleker and Scullion :oo8; and more broadly see Lewis, Inthorn, and Wahl-Jorgensen
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:oo,). Crucially however, and directly undermining the normative claims that
marketing benets democracy, this means that campaigning then becomes focused
on a small segment of the electorate. In :oo, only : per cent of the electorate
were considered strategically signicant (Wintour :oo,) as such; campaigning was
directed at them rather than at the electorate as a whole. In this sense, if only : per
cent of the populace were considered strategically signicant for elites to achieve
their goals, this potentially serves (a) to disenfranchise the broader electorate and (b)
to undermine the claims of the marketing concept that the consumer is at the centre.
|.o Tnv Bvoznvv Cox1vx1 ov Po::1:cz:
Mzvvv1:xc: L:1vvz1uvv zxn Pvzc1:cv
.............................................................................................................................................
While the political marketing literature draws attention to political actors and voters,
clearly they do not operate in this minimally dened context. Moreover, given the
prescriptive nature of some of the political marketing literature, this might suggest a
one-way relationship where marketers are able to inuence politicians and politicians
simply able to inuence the electorate. But politicians operate in a densely structured
context which aects the course(s) of action available to them(cf. Giddens I,8). This
is not to deny autonomy to political actors, nor deny their complicity in the marketing
of politics, but rather to suggest that they interact not only with the electorate, but
this is done via the media (who have their own agendas and constraints); in the
context of broader political structures and the rules of the electoral game. As has been
highlighted throughout, the international context is important, not only in terms
of electioneering strategies, but in terms of dening the parameters of possibility
of the promises that political actors may make (for example the constraints (and
opportunities) aorded by the inuence of institutions such as the European Union;
international agreements and (academically contested) processes such as globaliza-
tion). The same is true for the inuence of business (such as the relationship between
politicians and for example the CBI). The relationship between politicians and their
electorates is clearly not as straightforward as implied by the political marketing
literature, and so while politicians may respond to public opinion, there are other
constraints which mean that politicians cannot simply accommodate expressed voter
preferences into their product without consideration of potential loss of support
from, or opportunities to engage with, for example, the media, international leaders,
and/or business leaders.
|.o.: The Media
Indeed, the media are assumed to be so signicant that Harrop suggests the media
are the causal mechanisms for political marketing, making the use of marketing, in
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contemporary political practice, inevitable (Harrop I,,o: :8). Whether causality
for this phenomenon lies with the media, or not, here the political marketing litera-
ture departs with other academic literature which discusses the relationship between
politicians and the mass media in a democracy, both in terms of what that relation-
ship is, and, what it should be (e.g. McNair I,,,; Street :ooI; Lloyd :oo; Louw:oo,).
The media clearly are of key importance in the communication to masses of election
campaigns and political strategies. Labours experience of a hostile media environ-
ment, and their subsequent media-friendly behaviour suggests that they perceive the
media to have an enormous inuence on voting behaviour (irrespective of academic
debates, see for example Newton and Brynin :ooI). Clearly, too, so do the media. For
example, consider Blairs studious courting of Murdoch, and subsequent favourable
newspaper coverage, which led to Britains biggest selling newspaper to proclaim in
I,,,: The Sun backs Blair. This suggests that the media can become political actors
while at the same time setting the context for the conduct of electoral competition.
However, as has been observed the political marketing literature has yet to
acknowledge the agency of the media in the marketing process, assuming media
compliance when politicians present their message (Savigny and Temple :oo8). While
in liberal theory, the media in a democracy function to hold elites to account, this
would suggest that some scepticismwithin the media towards political elites and their
messages is to be almost expected. Notably however, the media do not hold businesses
to account in the same manner. In this way, politicians may also be responding to
the behaviour of the media. If the press and media are more favourably disposed
to business interests, is it a surprise, if in the pursuit of positive and favourable
media coverage (perceived by political elites as necessary for electoral support) parties
attempt to position themselves as businesses?
|.o.i Political Structures
Some suggest that marketing is ubiquitous in the UK, because, like the USA, there is
a two-party system (although more broadly it is recognized that this is debatable).
The rst-past-the-post system means that electoral competition occurs between a
number of key seats and marginal constituencies. In I,,,, Kavanagh concluded that
it was the strength of the British party system itself (in large part due to the nature
of party/candidate funding) which meant that pollsters and experts on public rela-
tions and communications still have an insecure relationship with the politicians,
preventing British politics frombecoming completely Americanized by the marketing
process (Kavanagh I,,,: ,). However, as marketers and marketing become increas-
ingly inuential, if both Labour and the Conservatives are employing marketing
strategies, then dierences between them become, almost by denition, stylistic and
presentational. Systematic studies have noted and debated the centrist tendencies of
electoral competition in the UK (see for example Hay I,,,), and if there is little
to distinguish political parties then party competition, problematically, potentially
becomes about who is the better at marketing strategies rather than about formal
political substance.
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8Io uv.1uvv s.vicxs
|.o. Societal Structures
Whatever the debatepartisan dealignment (Sarlvik and Crewe I,8,) or realignment
(Heath, Jowell, and Curtice I,8,)clearly there has been a profound shift in public
behaviour towards formal political activity and parties are no longer able to rely on
high levels of partisan support. Demographic changes in voting behaviour have been
widely noted (e.g. Heath, Jowell and Curtice I,8,; Crewe I,8o; Miller et al. I,,o;
Franklin I,,:: I:I; Parry, Moyser, and Day I,,:; Dalton :oo). Party membership
has fallen. Estimates suggest decreasing Conservative party membership with gures
around :,o,ooo in :ooo (Helm :ooo). In July :oo, Labours membership gures
had also fallen to :Io,,, (The Guardian :ooo). This is consistent with the view of
the perceived decline of political parties as relevant vehicles of expression for public
interest (see for example Lawson and Merkl I,88; Webb I,,,). For some, marketing
is presented as a method to reconnect with this increasingly diverse and volatile
electorate. According to the literature, opportunities arise through the marketing
process to build brand loyalties (e.g. Smith and Saunders I,,o), to replace partisan
loyalties. This support is necessary within the marketing literature, because, without
it (returning to the denition of marketing), organizations (parties) are not able to
achieve their aims.
|.o.| Voters and Participation
Participation, according to the political marketing literature is assumed to occur
in two sites: where the public inuence the construction of the political product
and in the act of voting. In formal political terms, this implies a participatory
rather than representative form of democracy. This participation by voters is what is
assumed, within the political marketing literature, to keep political elites responsive
and accountable. But for this analogy to work, participation by the electorate is
crucial. However, the picture in the UK and other western democracies is one of
declining electoral turnout and increasing disaection and lack of trust in both in
politicians and the process of politics (see for example Dalton :oo; Newton :ooo;
Hay :oo,).
Advocates argue that marketing provides for increased responsiveness to the public
and hence enhances accountability (Shama I,,o; Kotler and Kotler I,,,; OCass
I,,o; Harrop I,,o; Lees-Marshment :ooIa; :ooIb). But the empirical reality is that
marketing has not provided a panacea to the diculties of mobilizing electoral sup-
port and arguably has contributed to a marketing malaise; a source of public discon-
nection from politics (Savigny :oo8). Despite, or maybe because of, extensive mar-
keting, the last two general elections show an alarming degree of non-participation.
Following the post-war record low turnout of ,, per cent in :ooI, turnout improved
only marginally in :oo, to oI per cent (compared also to ,o per cent in I,,,).
In some senses this changing electoral base conforms to the fairly negative view of
voters held within the political marketing literature. Voters are seen as fullling an
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instrumental function for parties, being the means through which politicians can
achieve their goal. In terms of motivation to vote and choices for whom to vote,
voters are not assumed to vote on the basis of party loyalty (Newman I,,: :,).
Voters are assumed to regard policy content as secondary; for some, it is thought
this is incidental (Harrop I,,o: :8o). Within the political marketing literature there
is the assumption that voters are unable to unbundle the electoral product oering,
the vast majority therefore choose on the basis of overall political package, concept
or image (Lock and Harris I,,o: I,). Indeed, as implied throughout this chapter, it
would seem, whether there is an awareness of academic literature on this topic or not,
that political actors do indeed behave in a manner consistent with this assumption of
voter behaviour.
OShaughnessy and Henneberg further argue that Political marketing works
because of the apoliticality of most voters who are cognitive misers and who are
thereby inadvertent consumers of political information (:oo:: p. xviii). This claim
would suggest that marketing is used because that is what the public want: that the
public are uninterested in the minutiae of policy detail and political debate, they want
their voices heard but at the same time want information relayed in a cost-saving
soundbite and an identiable brand or image. Despite the claimed centrality of the
consumer (voter), paradoxically, the voter has received little attention in the political
marketing literature apart from the instrumental role aorded to them as a means
through which organizations can achieve their goal. The assumption that the public
want marketing thinking to inuence their politics to the extent that politics needs to
be delivered in soundbites, images, or are simply disinterested, while a fundamental
supposition about how and why marketing should inform politics (both in literature
and practice) has yet to be rigorously either theorized or empirically tested.
|. Tnv Pvvscv:v1:ox ov Po::1:cz:
Mzvvv1:xc
.............................................................................................................................................
There is nothing new in the adoption of management literature to the practice of
politics. New public management informed many of the changes to public-sector
services in the I,8os (see for example Christensen and Laegreid :oo:) and other
literature premised upon rationalist economic assumptions, notably public choice
theory, has been heavily inuential in policy practice. This attempt to inuence the
political process is also evident within some of the political marketing literature,
where, for some scholars, marketing is not simply an analytic or descriptive frame-
work, but provides practical advice for political actors. Here, again, management
marketing provides the inuence. In management marketing the marketing concept
is not only a means to operationalize models, but also functions as a philosophy:
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8I: uv.1uvv s.vicxs
a template for thinking and guiding organizational behaviour (Kotler and Zaltman
I,,I; OLeary and Iredale I,,o). This prescriptive element has been accepted by some
within the eld of political marketing, and in turn analytic assumptions become
rendered ontological. OCass argues the marketing concept is both a philosophical
and practical guide for the management of marketing (I,,o: 8). Marketing models
and frameworks are regarded by some as pragmatic and realistic (Mauser I,8,: I)
which have practical utility (see also Reid I,88; Smith and Saunders I,,o: ,o; Butler
and Collins I,,o: :).
As Lock and Harris argue that political marketing has to develop its own prescrip-
tive and predictive models if it is to inform and inuence political action (I,,o: :,).
Lees-Marshment highlights how political marketing can enable us to observe how
organisations may lose touch with their market; maybe even to advise them how not
to do so (:ooIb: ,oo,). Political marketing claims to be able to show a political
party what they ought to be doing (OCass I,,o: ,o) to manage their campaigns
more eectively (Maarek I,,,). While Henneberg (:oo; see also Henneberg and
OShaughnessy :oo,) highlights the need for greater theoretical and conceptual devel-
opment within the eld, Butler and Collins argue that research into the eld of
campaign/marketing management must be dominated by questions of practicality
(I,,: ,:; emphasis added). Indeed this is nowhere more clearly emphasized than
in Egans view that politicians need marketing, lamenting the diculties in getting
politicians to accept the utility of such models in practice: Political marketers do not,
however, always have it their own way. Politicians have a habit of taking back the
reigns of electoral management particularly when things do not seem to be going to
plan. This is largely political arrogance (I,,,: ,o). This quote highlights both the
desire for marketers to inuence that which they describe; to have a direct inuence
upon the strategic behaviour of politicians. As Scammell notes as the techniques of
market research and market prediction become more scientic and precise, the
more inuential marketing and marketing experts are likely to become in politics
(I,,,: I,). However, to model and prescribe political behaviour from frameworks
and assumptions developed in management is to work within the constraints of these
management marketing assumptions, in eect, to subordinate politics to marketing.
For those concerned with the impact marketing has upon democracy, this is an
alarming trend.
|.8 Coxc:us:ox
.............................................................................................................................................
As the historical location of political marketing (as a literature and in practice)
suggests, for some, marketing represents a continuation of existing techniques and
practices, which are simply enhanced and rened in accordance with developments
in technologies. For others, while there is a historical component, the use of political
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voii1ic.i x.vxv1ixc 8I,
marketing also represents a fundamental change in party thinking. That is, while
parties may have adopted these strategies in the past, what is qualitatively dierent
is the extent to which marketing, as a set of guidelines, now dominates organizational
behaviour.
Some argue that, in practice, the UK is simply following trends in the USA, both in
the use of marketing but also as marketing has become entwined with a permanent
campaign approach to government (Sparrow and Turner :ooI), which could be
seen to reinforce the Americanization thesis (cf. Mancini and Swanson I,,o). But
the changing character of contemporary electioneering is not that straightforward.
Politicians operate in opportunity structures which both constrain and facilitate
action, and include: a densely structured media environment, which brings with it
a demand for twenty-four-hour news; a changing demographic base from which
to draw electoral support; and declining electoral turnout. Political marketing, as
practice, has been a method through which political actors have responded to, and
played a role in reconstituting, this changing environment.
As has been argued the political marketing literature is far from homogeneous.
Within this literature, diering starting points mean that some scholars focus upon
election campaign strategies (the external presentation of parties), while others draw
attention to the internal behaviour of parties and party membership. Some focus
attention upon the role of the media as driving this process, some upon the methods
of marketing and marketers, and others upon political parties themselves as agents
of change. Some see marketing as a positive phenomenon for politics, while others
adopt a more critical approach. What this fragmentation in the literature suggests is
the existence of a healthy debate around a set of ideas, practices, and techniques that
have extensively altered and reshaped the nature of elite-level political activity. This
not only relates to presentational or stylistic concerns in electoral campaigning but
also to the methods and ways of thinking about what politics is, and how it is and
should be conducted. Within the political marketing literature, the driver of political
change is viewed as the campaigners strategic understanding of the political market
(Scammell I,,,: ,:,). This overt emphasis upon markets as shaping the activity of
politics arguably, and problematically for some, however, reects a much broader
fundamental change in the conceptualization of politics, what its form and function
is, and what politics should be.
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