Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing

Jennifer Lees-Marshment

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136597435
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

With the Obama campaign universally acknowledged as the most successfully marketed presidential campaign of all time, the future of political marketing is fiercely contested, provoking a wealth of high quality scholarship from across the globe. This work provides an accessible introduction to the field, international in both content and authorship, which will set the direction of future research.

Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing contains cutting edge contributions written by academic experts and informed practitioners but will also have a cohesive structure, containing emerging areas and authors alongside established ones. The handbook addresses the practicalities as well as the broader impact of political marketing on politics including its' role in the changing relationship between political leaders, parties and voters. With each chapter providing a comparative and carefully structured discussion of a key topic, the handbook examines issues within the following broad themes:

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• Understanding the market, gathering ideas, and debate

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• Product development, branding and strategy

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• Internal Marketing

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• Communicating and connecting with the public

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• Government Marketing - delivery, policy and leadership

With each chapter written to a common template presenting new research and contemporary case studies, the handbook combines a succinct presentation of the latest research with an accessible and systematic format that will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners alike.

1 Introduction Political Marketing in the 21st Century

Jennifer Lees-Marshment

DOI: 10.4324/9780203349908-1

The Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing offers cutting-edge, fresh perspectives on how politicians, parties and governments can use political marketing to develop a more productive relationship with the public. Each chapter outlines a different topic, previous research in that area, presents new research, and then reflects on what works, the impact on politics and democracy and the way forward for research or practice. The chapters are written by leading and emerging scholars around the world, ensuring that the content is international in outlook. Aside from the worth of individual chapters, collectively this produces advice for practitioners, considerations for academics, and a sense not just of the field’s progress to date but how it may develop in future. This provides a flagship work in the field that will not only be an accessible introduction to the field but will set the direction of research in the years to come.

The Handbook was guided by an editorial board whose role was to provide input such as suggestions for topics and authors, and to review submissions. They were selected because of particular expertise in a particular area of political marketing, to ensure a broad geographical spread, and their ability to provide constructive critique:

• Dr Ken Cosgrove (Suffolk University, US)
• Dr Nigel Jackson (Plymouth University, UK)
• Dr Alex Marland (Memorial University, Canada)
• Dr Roger Mortimore (Ipsos Mori, UK)
• Dr Robin T. Pettitt (Kingston University, UK)
• Dr Claire Robinson (Massey University, New Zealand)
• Dr Khariah Salwa-Mohktar (USM, Malaysia)
• Professor Jesper Strömbäck (Mid-Sweden University, Sweden)

Their expertise spans market research, branding, political parties, political communication, candidate electioneering, market orientation, journalism, e-marketing, public relations, political advertising and Asian political marketing. I would like to express my thanks to the board. Not only did they read and comment on the first draft of the chapters submitted for review, but their contribution to the framework for the book, the open call for contributions, and their suggestions of topics and authors contributed significantly to ensuring that the handbook was groundbreaking, rather than just a summary of previous research.

All chapters in this book went through three processes: submission of an initial outline, the first draft of the chapter in October 2010, and the second draft at the end of February 2011. Authors were both invited individually to submit an outline, and to respond to an open advertisement via Professor Phil Harris’s mailing list and the Political Marketing Group. Initially over 30 chapters were invited to proceed to first draft, with the overall process resulting in 27 chapters. All chapters were required to follow the set structure, so that the sum of the book would be greater than the parts. I would like to record my thanks to authors for not only their hard work but the quality and originality of content, and their appropriate response to review comments.

I would also like to thank Routledge for the opportunity to edit this handbook, and for possessing a both practical and intellectual vision that now is the right time not just for a textbook such as Political Marketing: Principles and Application, but for a new handbook in political marketing.

The Handbook is divided into five sections (see Figure 1.1). Part I, on understanding the market, gathering ideas and debate, discusses a range of market research methods, including polling, focus groups, segmentation, voter selection and targeting, but also deliberation and co-creation; more importantly, how they are or could be used in politics. Part II, on product development, branding and strategy, explores market orientation, niche marketing and political branding. Part III, on internal marketing, considers relationship marketing and direct marketing to members and volunteers, marketing fundraising, and the role of party officials in political marketing. Part IV, on communicating and connecting with the public, explores changes in marketing over time, the branding and positioning of candidates, populism and marketing, political communication in elections, how leaders can interact with voters, political public relations, and short- and long-term online relationships. Part V, on government marketing – delivery, policy and leadership, discusses delivering in government, how governments use public opinion research, the use of marketing by interest groups, branding public policy and making space for leadership. The concluding chapter sets out new directions in political marketing practice, discusses political marketing and democracy, and outlines future trends in political marketing research and practice.

Figure 1.1 Topics in the Routledge Handbook of Political Marketing

Part I Understanding the Market, Gathering Ideas and Debate

2 The role of opinion research in setting campaign strategy

Alexander Braun

DOI: 10.4324/9780203349908-2

The Topic: Opinion Research-Based Strategy

Should our candidate focus on healthcare or on education in next week’s televised debate? Campaigns have to consider and decide myriad such questions every day. This chapter is about how good campaigns find the right answer to that question.

While the question seems simple and straightforward, answering it immediately requires answering a host of other questions first. Should the candidate participate in the debate at all? How will the debate fit with what voters think about the candidate and with the image the candidate wants to project? Should the debate be used to explain the candidate’s positions or to point out opponents’ weaknesses?

There is no way a campaign can afford the time to start deliberating about each of these issues from scratch as they arise. Rather, campaigns rely on a number of assumptions and prior decisions that all stem from an overall strategy. All decisions in the campaign, from messaging to scheduling to resource allocation, should be based on a core strategy plan. Such a plan is simply the blueprint that lays out the route to victory for the campaign, but it can be successful only if it is based on good information, rather than assumptions. A campaign plan based on instinct and anecdotal evidence is likely to fail.

That’s why research should play a crucial role in good campaigns. It minimizes guessing and provides answers necessary for campaigns to effectively create strategies and keep them on track. Research also raises the alert for possible risks and opportunities, and provides answers to questions where campaigns simply don’t know or opinions differ. Good campaigns use the acquired knowledge to develop the right message that reaches the right target though the right vehicles. This chapter argues that voter research is an indispensible tool for creating an effective campaign strategy, and explains the different methods and approaches available and how they can be used most effectively in politics.

Previous Research on Opinion Research-Based Strategy

Surprisingly, there is relatively little focused academic research on the use of market research in politics, although its normative impact on politics has been debated significantly (e.g. see Savigny 2008) and it increasingly plays an important role in political marketing models (for example Lees-Marshment 2001). One reason for that may be that polling is usually one of the most closely guarded secrets of campaigns and political parties, and as such is generally unavailable for closer academic scrutiny. There is non-political marketing literature on which we can draw, such as those who discuss polling in campaigns from the practical perspective (Stonecash 2008; Thurber and Nelson 1995), work on the methods and science of opinion research (see Fowler 2002; Schuman 2008), and insider accounts such as Gould (1998) and Morris (1995). One thing all this literature has in common is agreement on the importance and power of research. For example, Stonecash notes how without research,

campaigns become guessing games. Campaign managers and supporters are reduced to speculating and arguing about what is important, but with little basis for assessing where the race stands, what issues are important, and what strategy they should follow to win a race. With information, a politician can formulate a plan.

(Stonecash 2008: 11)

Research is used to create the strategy and campaign plan, and as Shea and Burton (2001: 100) note, ‘polling has become the most efficient means by which campaigns come to understand the hearts and minds of voters’. This chapter will draw on some of this work, as well as practical experience, to provide an informed explanation of the different forms and uses of opinion research.

New Research: Explaining the Utility of Opinion Research in Strategy Development

While research in campaigns is most useful to inform communications and understand who the voters are, its utility extends well beyond that and can be useful for virtually all aspects of campaigns.

Positioning

The most important part of every campaign strategy, and one where research is indispensible, is the central positioning of the candidate or party. Positioning is the core rationale that the candidate will use to convince voters to vote for him or her over opponents. Will the candidate run mainly on left- or right-wing ideology, on the concept of change, or on a specific policy issue like immigration? Or will the positioning focus on the candidate’s personal ability to connect with voters or on their competency?

Knowing answers to these questions is critical, because while voters have views on most issues, they care meaningfully only about some fraction of them, and base their voting decisions on even fewer of them. Basing a positioning on a concept that voters agree with but don’t find particularly relevant to their needs will result in a losing campaign. Similarly, a positioning that voters care about but don’t find believable when delivered by a particular candidate will not result in success on election day. Constructing an effective positioning depends on the ability to gauge and quantify voters’ basic attitudes, and to put them in the right context of the race and candidates.

Good voter polling does exactly that. One of the first areas on which voter research measurement focuses is people’s general disposition and the most basic campaign communications archetypes. Do voters think that the country and economy are on the right or wrong track? Are they looking for a change or do they just prefer building on the current course of things? Are they looking for strong leaders or for candidates who easily connect with regular voters? These questions provide the broadest framework within which voters might think about the election.

The next area that positioning research covers is the political actors, whether they are individual candidates, current politicians, parties, other institutions, or all of the above. What, if anything, do voters already know and think about the candidate? How does that perception compare with that of the opponents? What attributes do voters associate with the candidate? Do they like the leader better than the party, or vice versa? These questions help to narrow down the possible options for positioning to those that are actually applicable to a given candidate.

The third area of research focus is the issues. With what are voters satisfied and with what are they dissatisfied? What issues do voters care about the most? Do they care more about a specific issue or about the state of politics in general? Do the candidate and opposition have a particular strength or weakness on some of these issues? These questions help with calibrating the actual content of the positioning.

It is important to keep in mind that positioning never exists in a vacuum. It will always be evaluated not only on its own but also in the competitive context of the race. This means that a candidate’s positioning is not just his own, but is also measured against other candidates’ positioning concepts, and also has to contend with voters’ general lack of attention to politics. Joel Bradshaw nicely summarizes the characteristics a good positioning should have (Thurber and Nelson 1995: 43). It needs to be:

• clear, to be easy to communicate and understand;
• concise, to reach voters in the short time they might pay attention;
• compelling, to have a sense of emotional urgency;
• connected to voters to reflect their needs;
• cre...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• 1 Introduction Political Marketing in the 21st Century
• Part I Understanding the Market, Gathering Ideas and Debate
• 2 The role of opinion research in setting campaign strategy
• 3 Political marketing and segmentation in aging democracies
• 4 Strategic voter selection
• 5 Government public opinion research and consultation Experiences in deliberative marketing
• 6 Co-creating the future
• Part II Product Development, Branding and Strategy
• 7 Political party market orientation in a global perspective
• 8 Niche marketing the greens in canada and scotland
• 9 Political branding in the modern age Effective strategies, tools and techniques
• 10 The politics of hope The Democratic Party and the institutionalisation of the Obama brand in the 2010 mid-term elections
• Part III Internal Marketing
• 11 Internal party political relationship marketing Encouraging activism amongst local party members
• 12 Party members as part-time marketers Using relationship marketing to demonstrate the importance of rank-and-file party members in election campaigns
• 13 Yes we can (fundraise) The ethics of marketing in political fundraising
• 14 Political parties and direct marketing Connecting voters and candidates more effectively
• 15 The party official as political marketer The Australian experience
• Part IV Communicating and Connecting with the Public
• 16 Campaigning in the 21st century Change and continuity in american political marketing
• 17 Selling Sarah Palin Political marketing and the ‘Walmart Mom'
• 18 Populism as political marketing technique
• 19 Something old, something new? Modelling political communication in the 2010 UK general election
• 20 Interacting leaders
• 21 Underused campaigning tools Political public relations
• 22 Political marketing in an online election environment Short-term sales or long-term relationships?
• Part V Government Marketing – Delivery, Policy and Leadership
• 23 Delivering in government and getting results in minorities and coalitions
• 24 Advocacy coalitions strategies Tensions about legitimacy in environmental causes
• 25 Branding public policy
• 26 The use of public opinion research by government Insights from american and canadian research
• 27 Making space for leadership The scope for politicians to choose how they respond to market research
• 28 Conclusion New directions in political marketing practice, political marketing and democracy, and future trends
• Index