The Problem of Political Marketing

Heather Savigny

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781441106346
• eBook ISBN: 9781441192028
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Based upon analysis of existing theoretical literature and current political practice this book addresses both the use of marketing and its impact (real and potential) upon democracy by answering the following:
* Why have politicians adopted political marketing? What are the contextual factors that have led to this?
* How does the political marketing literature model this activity?
* What are the underlying assumptions of these models
* How does political marketing affect democracy?
* How is political marketing best conceptualised and understood in light of this critical analysis?

1
Political Marketing: Literature and Practice

Introduction

Political marketing is the new black, or so it may seem at first glance. Widely accredited as contributing to ‘New’ Labour’s electoral landslide in 1997 and later victories, in 2001 and 2005 (as well as extensively employed by the Conservative Party), the activity of political marketing has already significantly reshaped the political landscape in Britain. Both of the main parties in Britain (Conservatives and Labour) have embraced political marketing. As Scammell argues it was political marketing that ‘provided rational strategies which helped Thatcher to become the only leader to win three successive elections [during the last] century’.¹ A detailed, proliferating academic literature has emerged as a response to these observed empirical tendencies. Marketing in political practice has become extensive and has been described in the successive US Presidential campaigns of Reagan, Clinton and Bush²; in British electoral campaigning³; and in the broader international arena.⁴

The political process is not static; politics takes place in a densely structured social, economic, political and technological environment. Political actors respond to changes in technology, adapting their style to developments in the media; politicians operate in both a national and international context dominated (certainly in the West) by neoliberal thinking both about the utility of markets and the way in which democracy and society more broadly is organised. Given this broader environment, it would seem a fairly logical response that political actors would adopt ideas and techniques consistent with this context that they are in. This includes applying marketing to the activity of politics. At the same time, these very actions serve to reconstitute and reinforce this social, economic and political context This state of interaction and reconstitution has a series of intended and unintended consequences. For advocates of marketing in politics these consequences are democratising and empowering. However, a critical reflection upon the use of marketing in politics reveals a series of concerns in relation to the character of contemporary democracy; not least, it is argued that marketing serves to depoliticise the process of politics and contributes to a sense of democratic ‘malaise’.

Political marketing is the application of practices and principles drawn from management marketing and applied to the theory and practice of politics. This is premised upon the assumption that political activity can be regarded as analogous to that of business. That is, political actors/parties/candidates are assumed to be operating in a ‘marketplace’. This analogy continues with the notion that consumers (voters) purchase (exchange their vote) for a political product (party) on the day of the election. As such, this concerns the use of business models and concepts to structure political practice. The political marketing literature to date draws upon communications and election campaign literature; however, the field of management marketing makes the most significant contribution.⁵ In 1969, Kotler and Levy’s seminal article advanced the view that the marketing concept should be broadened to include political candidates. Since then, this phenomenon has generated considerable research, and has emerged as a subdiscipline in its own right, crossing the boundaries of political science and management

The concepts and models that inform the political marketing literature have been used to describe contemporary political behaviour. However, they have also been used to support a series of normative and prescriptive claims: essentially that marketing is good for the activity of politics; it facilitates participation and engagement; and it should be used, both for these reasons, but primarily so that political actors might achieve their goal of winning elections. However, it is argued that the idea of a marketised politics itself serves to generate antipathy and is functioning to disconnect the electorate. While democratic malaise has been attributed to the media and the public, it is in fact crucial to restore political actors to the process and the contention here is that use of marketing is inconsistent with an activity (politics) which is not conducive to the process of commodification. In order to support the arguments contained throughout this book, this chapter sets out the central models and assumptions which inform the political marketing literature. The models, the claims and justifications made as a consequence of their usage are detailed, which in turn provides the opportunity to reflect upon why marketing may create problems for the activity of politics.

Background

Political marketing is a term which has been used to describe what politicians do in order to get elected. The phrase was first used by Kelley⁶ in 1956 to describe the practices of political persuaders. Since Kotler and Levy⁷ adopted the term in their seminal article, this phrase has become a common feature of political discourse and practice.

In political marketing, political candidates and parties are now assumed to be operating in an electoral marketplace where they are seeking to ‘sell’ their ‘product’ to the electorate. Marketing for some, then, focuses attention upon political parties and their attempts to influence the behaviour of the electorate.⁸ It has become synonymous with spin⁹, the packaging of politics¹⁰ and broader media management strategies. This in turn has meant marketing has been characterised as the ‘modern publicity process’¹¹ which reflects a ‘crisis in public communication’.¹² This activity has been described as the behaviour of a ‘public relations state’¹³ or the workings of a ‘public relations democracy’¹⁴ where politics is ‘packaged’ for consumption.¹⁵ Political marketing has been used as a ‘catch all’ term to describe the professionalisation of political communications which have included the increased use of political consultants, negative campaigning, advertising (in both paid and free media¹⁶) and public relations techniques. Assuming that the ultimate aim of political actors is to win elections, attention is drawn to the techniques, strategies and practices informed by marketing thinking that are used in campaigns.

But marketing politics is about more than this. It not only relates to presentational or stylistic concerns in electoral campaigning but to the methods and ways of thinking about what politics is, how it is, and how it should be conducted. Within marketing, media and communications are important, but the driver of political change is viewed as the ‘campaigners’ strategic understanding of the political market’.¹⁷ This overt emphasis upon markets as shaping the activity of politics reflects a fundamental change in the conceptualisation of politics, what the form and function is, and what politics should be. This profound shift is reflected both in the academic literature and in political practice. In order to fully explore and understand how marketing is reconstituting politics, it is instructive to return to the basic principles which inform political marketing.

How politics and marketing have been linked

The central ideas and definitions of political marketing are imported from management marketing. Marketing is the application of techniques and strategies in order that organisations are able to make a profit. At first, this was connected with businesses whose primary objective was to secure commercial profit. Initially concerned to represent itself as a ‘science’ (consistent with the dominance of rationality and Enlightenment thinking), the management marketing literature suggested tried and tested rigorous techniques, which if applied as described, would, it was argued, lead to organisational success. Marketing scholars also proposed that the use of marketing need not be confined solely to the commercial arena and could (and should) be applied to many areas of public life, including services, people and ideas.¹⁸ The application of marketing for nonprofit organisations has been expanded upon significantly within the management literature.¹⁹ In their seminal article, Kotler and Levy advocated broadening the concept of marketing to extend beyond the product/profit-making arena, to include the marketing of services, persons and ideas.²⁰ Kotler and Levy argued that ‘marketing is a pervasive societal activity that goes considerably beyond the selling of toothpaste, soap and steel.’ Moreover, marketing, they argued, is not solely confined to the business arena: ‘Political contests remind us that candidates are marketed as well as soap’.²¹ In order to ‘broaden the concept of marketing’, they advocated the widening of the definition of a product, to move beyond a physical product, to also include: services (intangible goods); people (such as movie stars and political candidates); organisations (such as charities); and ideas (their example is the promotion of the idea of birth control).²² While widening the term marketing to include both for profit and nonprofit organisations, the fundamental principles remain the same.

This approach to marketing, explicitly located within managerial thought in respect of marketing, is underpinned by neoclassical economic assumptions.²³ As such, if this approach is applied to nonprofit organisations, this suggests that the term profit be replaced by ‘utility maximisation’. In this sense then, once the aim of the organisation is defined (in contrast to commercial organisations whose primary aim is to make a financial profit), it would appear that marketing scholars implicitly endorse this logic in their application of marketing to ‘nonprofit’ organisations. Not only has this occurred within academic literature, but marketing and managerial thinking have been employed in many areas of public life, from education²⁴ to health and broadcasting²⁵, from religion²⁶ to election campaigning. Marketing has been presented not only as the panacea to perceived organisational difficulties, but as a necessary condition of organisational thinking and behaviour. It has become conventional wisdom that campaign managers and political actors employ marketing strategies; these are regarded as a necessity in the contemporary environment.²⁷ The question that characterises much of the existing political marketing literature is not whether or not marketing should be used, but how it should be put into practice.

What is market...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Political Marketing: Literature and Practice
• 2 ... And Rational Choice Theory
• 3 Implementing Marketing in Politics
• 4 Ideology
• 5 The Language of Political Marketing
• 6 Marketing and Malaise
• Conclusion: Political marketing—a challenge to democracy
• Bibliography
• Index
• eCopyright