Marketing
Issue No. 36 - August/September 2007
Wiles of political marketing
by Dr David Corkindale and Dr David Corkindale
The term ‘marketing’ embraces a range of concepts and activities. The social researcher and author Hugh McKay once defined marketing as “giving people what they want and making them feel good about it”.
I think this somewhat jaundiced view came from his many years of exposure to the wiles of advertising agencies, but it is a view that political commentators and some voters share when it comes to political marketing during elections.
Promising people what they want and making them feel good about it can be seen as core business for a politician. Looking through studies of the use of marketing in politics over the last half century you can see how this has evolved.
Political parties initially adopted some of the tools of marketing practice but not the underlying principles. They used the mass media to make sure that the candidate - ‘the product’ - was widely known. Often this is quite sufficient: in a market where products are very similar, the one that is chosen by slightly more people will be the one that is more available, in the sense of mental availability, on the day.
Today, the past masters of this sort of political marketing are in the US where there are consultants who will get you elected, if you have enough money. It helps if the candidate is already well-known, attractive or has likeable features and is newsworthy: enter Maxine McKew, Nicole Cornes et al – personalities who have ‘cut through’.
Some traditionalists in political parties, like those in the UK Labour Party in the 1980s, disdained this approach and tried to persuade the electorate that what the party stood for was what the people wanted.
Comprehensive marketing is more subtle than that.
People and communities change, so a comprehensive approach must establish what people require or are looking for now. Then you adjust what your offering to suit - no persuasion should be required. It isn’t rocket science ...
