When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walked into Rideau Hall and asked Governor General Julie Payette to dissolve the Parliament on September 11, 2019 (Tunney 2019), he launched a 40-day electoral campaign filled with unique political marketing challenges – and opportunities – for all federal political parties and their leaders in Canada. Unlike the 2015 federal election when they were challenging Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) (LeDuc 2015), Trudeau and the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) were now the incumbents advocating for political continuity, defending their track record, and soliciting voters for a second term. Trudeau was faced with a particularly difficult situation. His celebrity-infused approach to politics, which was rooted in a personal brand emphasizing transparency, respect of the environment, “youth, athleticism, open-mindedness, interpersonal skills, and support of feminist causes” (Lalancette and Raynauld 2019: 900; see also Clarke et al. 2017; Lalancette and Cormack 2018; Marland 2018) was not adapted to political conditions on the ground. On top of no longer being the youngest candidate for prime minister in 2019, several controversies – including the SNC-Lavalin scandal – and policy decisions – such as the approval of the Trans Mountain pipeline project – tarnished his public image, perceptions of his leadership and commitment to specific policy causes, and his appeal among many segments of the electorate (e.g. Grenier 2019; Crabtree 2019; Kassam 2019). Developments on the campaign trail also hurt the credibility and effectiveness of his brand. Among them include the release of images and videos of him in blackface and brownface by national and international news media outlets as well as the positioning of the LPC’s electoral platform on different political and policy matters (e.g. CBC News 2019). Working to his advantage was the reality facing his adversaries.
Much like the LPC, other political parties and candidates had to address significant challenges requiring adjustments to their political marketing operations. The CPC and its leader Andrew Scheer were competing in their first electoral campaign in the post-Stephen Harper era which had lasted more than a decade. In order to distinguish themselves from Harper’s iteration of the CPC, Scheer’s Conservatives needed to break from the past and renew their political and policy offerings to the Canadian public. More importantly, they had to strategically position their electoral platform so it would compete efficiently with the positions of Trudeau’s LPC. In other words, they needed to provide voters with an alternative of interest in many spheres of governance, including the environment, healthcare, the energy sector, and the economy. Much like Trudeau, developments throughout the campaign damaged some facets of the CPC’s electioneering efforts. Among them include the reaction of a large swath of the Quebec electorate to Scheer’s personal views on abortion, which were discussed during the first French-language debate broadcasted on the television network TVA (Tasker 2019).
The 2019 electoral contest also presented Jagmeet Singh’s New Democratic Party (NDP) with a unique set of hurdles. First elected as NDP leader on October 1, 2019, Singh was the second youngest leader of a federal political party (behind CPC’s Andrew Scheer) and had uneven levels of name recognition across Canada (Bergeron-Olivier 2019). Furthermore, he was the first person who was part of a visible ethnic and religious minority to be the permanent leader of a major federal political party in Canada during an election. This demanded the development of innovative ways in which his candidacy would be presented to as well as perceived, and understood by different segments of the Canadian society, as evidenced by an NDP ad1 released in the province of Quebec as well as the interactions between Singh and some voters on the campaign trail (Connolly 2019). The NDP could also use this election to sharpen its appeal across Canada by tailoring its political messaging and outreach efforts to the interests, wants, and needs of specific slices of the Canadian society. In sum, it can be argued that they needed to renew the electoral successes of the era of its former leader, Jack Layton (McGrane 2019).
Finally, the 2019 federal election provided more regional, issue-based, and newer political parties opportunities to develop and roll out political marketing outreach and engagement operations adapted to their status as well as to the structure and priorities of the Canadian political electorate. For example, this electoral contest gave the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) – which was formed in September 2018 – and their leader Maxime Bernier to take several important actions. Among them include: (1) despite its leader being well known nationally due to his high profile ministerial roles in the Harper government, a large number of PPC candidates had low levels of name recognition and needed to be introduced to voters; (2) as the party was relatively new in the political landscape, it needed to build awareness for its priorities as well as its political and policy positions among the electorate; (3) the party had to strategically position itself and its offerings to its contenders (Gilmore 2019). After receiving only 19.3% of the Quebec popular vote during the 2015 Canadian federal elections, the Bloc Quebecois (BQ) needed to make important changes to its appeal in the province of Quebec (Massicotte 2015). The selection of a new leader – Yves-François Blanchet – on January 17, 2019 coupled with the evolution of the sentiments of the voting public on different issues provided the BQ with a unique opportunity to relaunch itself as well as regain momentum. Finally, single-issue political parties, including Elizabeth May’s Green Party of Canada (GPC) and Blair Longley’s Marijuana Party of Canada, had to adjust their political appeal to recent decisions of Trudeau’s government on matters related to their policy priorities (e.g. environment, drugs) as well as the shifts in the public’s opinions on different policy matters.
This edited collection comprises chapters taking a timely look at specific facets of the 2019 Canadian federal election from a political marketing communication perspective. As political marketing is a highly interdisciplinary field of research and practice, this book features in-depth analyses from an international group of scholars and practitioners with wide-ranging disciplinary and methodological specialties. Among them include political science, communication, research methods, and marketing. More importantly, this edited volume builds and expands on a growing body of academic works documenting and unpacking dynamics of political marketing and communication at the local, provincial and national levels in Canada. Alex Marland, Thierry Giasson and Jennifer Lees-Marshment’s edited volume (2012: xiii) published in 2012 explores subcomponents of political marketing in and out of elections, including “political advertising, opinion research, and electioneering.” More recently, Marland and Giasson’s (2020) edited collection on the 2019 Canadian federal election features contributions zeroing in on how certain categories of practitioners contribute to the electioneering efforts deployed by political parties and candidates during an electoral campaign. Many of the practitioners studied in this book work in fields directly or indirectly related to political marketing (e.g. advertisers, pollsters). Other authors have contributed to the study of political marketing in Canada over the last decade, including McGrane (2019), Montigny, Dubois and Giasson (2019), as well as Marland, Lewis and Flanagan (2017). From a broader perspective, several scholars have taken interest in how marketing is affecting electoral and governance processes internationally, including in the United States (e.g. Gillies 2017; Muñoz and Towner 2017), France (Baygert 2013; Jeandemange 2018), Pakistan (Ahmed et al. 2017; Yousaf 2016), and New Zealand (Cameron et al. 2016; Lees-Marshment et al. 2015).
In order to document and analyze dynamics of political marketing during the 2019 Canadian federal elections, contributors to this volume take two specific approaches. On the one hand, many chapters provide an analysis of particular aspects of the political marketing performance of specific leaders of political parties. Jennifer Lees-Marshment’s contribution echoes the challenges faced by Justin Trudeau and the LPC that were outlined in this introduction. Specifically, Lees-Marshment provides an assessment of the brand of a prime minister in the Canadian context. She...