Testing a Predictive Model of Voter Behavior on the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election

Abstract

Utilizing a predictive model of voter behavior, this study identified the motivations behind a sample of voters who cast a ballot for George W. Bush and AI Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign. The motivations of the voters were differentiated on the basis of the “value” they sought in a president. In other words, just as companies in the “commercial marketplace” have to create value to attract customers, so does a candidate in the “political marketplace” who is seeking to carve out a niche for himself that separates him from his competition. Pairwise discriminant analysis is used to identify the motivations behind the choice behavior of voters at both the candidate and party level. The results reveal the complimentary roles that the political party and each candidate's campaign organization played in their respective marketing strategies.     

New Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the use made by political parties of branding, as a means of establishing party values and winning political support. It looks in particular at the way in which political parties use communication to create, build and maintain political brands.

The paper involves an examination of the recent history of the British Labour Party. After a long period in the political wilderness, the party re-branded itself as “New Labour” in the mid-1990s, and-as New Labour-swept to power in a landslide election victory in 1997, under their new leader, Tony Blair.

Using media coverage and material written by some of the architects of New Labour, the paper will describe the creation of the “New Labour” brand, and look at how it was developed and used to generate political support. The paper will also consider the evolution and development of the brand, as the substance underlying the stated brand values has come to be questioned, not least by so-called “Old Labour” supporters of the party.

The paper will draw conclusions regarding the successful management of a political brand, pointing in particular at the need to ensure that the performance of a party espousing a particular brand supports and reinforces communicated brand values and the brand itself.     

Political Marketing and Professionalized Campaigning

Abstract

During the last decade a number of scholars have argued that political campaigning has become professionalized, and that political marketing has become the new dominant campaign paradigm. However, the conceptual relationship between political marketing and the professionalization of political campaigning is unclear. Furthermore, the distinction between political marketing, market orientation, and marketing techniques is often blurred. At the same time, most of the literature is dominated by either an American or British perspective. This makes it unclear as to whether these concepts should be viewed as general concepts, or as concepts relevant primarily for countries that share some specific set of political institutions.

In this backdrop, the purpose of this article is to analyze (1) the conceptual relationship between political marketing, market orientation, marketing techniques, and professionalization of political campaigning, and (2) whether contemporary concepts of political marketing and the professionalization of political campaigning are equally applicable to all modern democracies regardless of, for example, political system and other country-specific factors. It also outlines a theory of strategic party goals for multiple arenas.     

Branding in Politics—Manifestations,Relevance and Identity-Oriented Management

ABSTRACT

In contrast to classical marketing, previous research on political marketing has barely considered the branding aspect. This is all the more surprising, given that on the one hand, political parties and their key representatives presumably fulfil the main criteria of an impact-oriented brand as a firmly anchored, consistent perceptual image in the minds of voters. On the other hand, there are many indicators that political brands are of considerable significance for voting decisions. In essence, the importance of brands for voting decisions on the part of the consumers derives from their branding functions, such as orientation aid in the form of an “information chunk” or risk-reduction function in the sense of a confidence surrogate. Based on the hypothesis that brand management thus constitutes a central challenge for the marketing of political parties, it is appropriate to investigate what approach seems best suited to managing political brands and how these should be formulated.     

Conceptualizing Usage in Voting Behavior for Political Marketing: An Application of Consumer Behavior

Political marketing has borrowed and adapted many terms from mainstream marketing, such as image management (segmentation, targeting, and positioning) and consumer (voter). In marketing, the terms “user” and “usage” have been established, yet their application to political marketing is less clear. This paper analyzes the feasibility and usefulness of usage in the political context. Drawing from the literature on usage, a model is developed and applied to four voting environments: Britain, Australia, Russia, and Belarus. One critical factor that emerges is the concept of choice, whereby the voter may chose to indicate their preference for one party yet be forced to use a different party as chosen by collective choice. Another issue is the potential for habitual voting behavior to limit decision making. It is concluded that usage needs to be contextualized specifically for political marketing.     

Not Big Brand Names but Corner Shops

ABSTRACT

Does New Labour's model of a centrally orchestrated and national-centric political communication strategy effectively engage the electorate? Drawing on interviews with those active in politics “on the ground,” this paper argues that the centralised party model has become unpopular. Furthermore, as these activists tell us, the model is also causing the electorate to reject the democratic process and become apathetic about the political system. Many in Britain, therefore, look to a more locally focussed model, one that has proved successful for the Liberal Democrat party. This model allows communication to be managed at the local level and for the candidate to interact with the local context. An effectively marketed, locally contextualised strategy allows politics to connect with the electorate and, we would suggest, will become more widespread with the realisation that top-down politics does not engage with voters.     

Political Marketing and Propaganda: Uses,Abuses, Misuses

Although previous issues of well-respected marketing journals (e.g., Revue Française du Marketing, Psychology & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing) have focused on political marketing, and although there are now journals which regularly publish papers on political marketing including, of course, this one and the Journal of Public Affairs, none has focused exclusively on how the techniques developed for use in electoral and governmental campaigning, in lobbying and party fundraising campaigns, are now being used more generally in the military, in public diplomacy programs, and by companies, not-for-profit organizations, and even terrorist groups, with a focus on “winning hearts and minds.” The aim of this special issue is to seek to fill in this gap in our knowledge and encourage further research into the political marketing/propaganda interface. In this special issue, we seek to elucidate the meaning of propaganda and political marketing by exploring their parameters, both contemporary and traditional.     

The Politics of the Third Person

Abstract

Against the enthusiasm for dialogue and deliberation in recent democratic theory, the Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito and French philosopher Jacques Rancière construct their political philosophies around the nondialogical figure of the third person. The strikingly different deployments of the figure of the third person offered by Esposito and Rancière present a crystallization of their respective approaches to political philosophy. In this essay, the divergent analyses of the third person offered by these two thinkers are considered in terms of the critical strategies they employ. Contrasting Esposito’s strategy of “ethical dissensus” with Rancière’s strategy of “aesthetic dissensus,” it is argued that Esposito’s attempts to recruit the figure of the third person to dismantle the dispositif of the person are politically (if not philosophically) problematic, while Rancière’s alternative account of the third person is more promising for political theory and practice.     

Toward a Conceptual Framework of Emotional Relationship Marketing: An Examination of Two UK Political Parties

The purpose of this paper is to review the notion of branding and evaluate its applicability to political parties. As ideological politics is in decline, branding may provide a consistent narrative where voters feel a sense of warmth and belonging. The paper aims to build an understanding of the complexity of building a political brand where a combination of image, logo, leadership, and values can all contribute to a compelling brand narrative. It investigates how competing positive and negative messages attempt to build and distort the brand identity. A critical review of branding, relationship marketing, and political science literature articulates the conceptual development of branding and its applicability to political parties. The success or failure of negative campaigning is due to the authenticity of a political party's brand values—creating a coherent brand story—if there is no distance between the brand values articulated by the political party and the values their community perceives then this creates an “authentic” brand. However, if there is a gap this paper illustrates how negative campaigning can be used to build a “doppelgänger brand,” which undermines the credibility of the authentic political brand. The paper argues that political parties need to understand how brand stories are developed but also how they can be used to protect against negative advertising. This has implications for political marketing strategists and political parties. This paper draws together branding theory and relationship marketing and incorporates them into a framework that makes a contribution to the political marketing literature.     

Exploring the Consequences of Negative Political Advertising for Liberal Democracy

ABSTRACT

This paper explores existing thinking and research on the use of negative advertising strategies in political campaigning, and in particular examines their potential impact on liberal democracy. We ask what impacts negative forms of political communication may have on our system of government and democratic participation. Though political advertising makes up only a part of political discourse, an analysis of it is necessary given the increasing “marketisation” of political communication, coupled with concerns regarding the so called “democratic deficit.” In order to more truly evaluate its impact, the evidence pertaining to both the positive and detrimental consequences of employing negative ad strategies is examined. What emerges are some very real short-term benefits, some very real concerns over its use, and confusion over its “true” impact. Of particular note is the need for researchers and campaign managers to take a longer-term view of the potentially detrimental consequences of employing negative advertising strategies-to look beyond the short-term gains of winning elections and to consider the longer-term societal consequences of consistently employing advertising strategies characterised by the creation of doubt, fear, anxiety, violation and viciousness. We argue that the “winning” mentality of political ad campaigns needs to be balanced by a more “nurturing” orientation if the tenets of liberal democracy are to remain sustainable.     

Long-Term Performance of Political Parties

Abstract

Whilst politicians can “buy” votes in the short-term, most political parties are more interested in maintaining power over a period of years in order to implement their policies. This paper explores whether political parties can be considered to possess long-term competitive resources that sustain their competitive advantages. It employs the well-established strategic management concept of the Resource-Based View of strategy development for this purpose. Because such a concept has not previously been applied to political parties, the paper begins by considering the nature of the competition that exists between political parties and the role of resources in developing superior political performance. A series of theoretical propositions about why some parties maintain political power and influence for lengthy periods is then developed. We argue that the competitive resources of a political party such as its policies, leadership, organisational and communications skills require long-term investment and development, rejecting the notion that long-term electoral success is based primarily on the promises and resources deployed in the final election campaign.     

Is Political Marketing New Words or New Practice in UK Politics?

ABSTRACT

This review of the literature on political marketing and the party most associated with it in the UK, New Labour, suggests that the relationship is not straightforward. Politicians are, for example, hesitant to use marketing language in public. The relationship is problema-tised along the three dimensions of: partial or total import into some or all of politics; functional or instrumental use by leading politicians, and the roles of transformer of politics, or transfer agent for techniques. The results suggest two responses. The first is more fieldwork into political marketing outside of electoral campaigning and inside policy making. The second is a reconceptualising of the relationship away from the transformation or transfer dimension, and towards political marketing as a methodology for understanding a very different, and very separate activity, namely politics.     

“Market” Classification and Political Campaigning

ABSTRACT

There is an argument for a flow of logic from market structure to marketing strategy and performance. The nature of the political “market” and service-product constrains and dictates marketing strategy choices. Interactions between the voter, parties, and candidates in political campaigns could be likened to human services (Dickens, 1996) in commerce. However, parties and candidates operate in peculiar poligopolistic markets competing for the authority to deliver government services through an exclusive right of franchise bidding process similar to that in business-to-business markets. A structure-conduct-performance model is presented based on an analysis of political markets from consumer, industrial, and services marketing perspectives to provide strategic marketing insights. Political marketing is a hybrid subdiscipline of marketing incorporating characteristics from all three major marketing paradigms, with services marketing theory holding particular promise for future theory development.     

Leading or Following?

Abstract

While research exists on how political parties use political marketing instruments, there is a lack of emphasis on strategic marketing, especially with regard to theoretical frameworks of political marketing orientation. This can be seen as problematic in the development of political marketing research as a subdiscipline of marketing and political science. A concept is suggested that defines a party's orientation towards political marketing management using two crucial elements of strategic marketing theory regarding customer orientation: leading and following. Three generic types of political parties are characterised by their strategic postures using their stance on these two elements. The implications of strategic postures for the fulfilment of certain political marketing functions and organisational issues are briefly discussed. While traditional parties with a rigid content-based approach towards policy-making can be characterised as Convinced Ideologists, contemporary catch-all parties have moved towards being Tactical Populists.

Whilst both these postures are prone to being perceived as dogmatic or untrustworthy and fickle, a third posture, that of Relationship Builder, is proposed. This integrates leading and following, by using a relational approach towards marketing, as suggested in the evolving literature on strategic marketing and marketing orientation. This Relationship Builder stance constitutes a theoretical posture that needs to be clarified by empirical research in the political arena. Thus, to foster further empirical and theoretical research, several propositions have been derived in a process that is in line with the demands of theory-building and hypothesis-driven exploration as suggested for this comparatively new discipline of political marketing.     

Political Marketing Matters

ABSTRACT

The effects of political marketing are difficult to measure. This article contends that “multi-dimensional case analysis”-i.e., the comparison of similar elections across demographic levels and across time-can reliably assess the impact of political marketing on campaign outcomes. A multi-dimensional examination of Congressman Harold Ford Jr.'s sophomore surge demonstrates the potential impact of candidate positioning. Specifically, the congressman's shift to the center of his Memphis, Tennessee, constituency significantly enhanced his electoral performance. This substantive finding carries a methodological lesson: the evaluation of marketing effects is greatly improved through the use of a tightly structured research design that employs, not large-scale statistical analysis or controlled field experimentation, but in-depth, case-by-case investigation.     

An Insider's View of Athens Municipal Election Campaigns

Abstract

Political communications in Greece have developed over the last 20 years. Within this period, this development has been both rapid and “condensed.” The evolution between one election and the next is very obvious to the expert. The municipal elections, those “mini-confrontations,” became the testing grounds for techniques and methodologies to be tested before being used in national campaigns. Of those confrontations there is no more characteristic than those of Athens, the capital city of Greece in terms of political communications. Today, political communications in Greece have reached Western, European standards.     

Models of Voter Behavior

Abstract

This article reports on a test of a predictive model of voter behavior in Slovenia. The study is based on Slovenian parliamentary elections held on 15 October 2000. A survey was made in an electoral unit (“Vrhnika”). This is one of the tests that were simultaneously done in three countries-Poland, the US and Slovenia. The purpose of the test reported in this study was to test the model in a different cultural and political setting from the one in which it was designed, and also in a different electoral setting-in a proportional instead of majority system of voting. The model proved itself as working in Slovenia.     

Democracy Without Parties? Italy After Berlusconi

This article looks at the legacy of ‘Berlusconism’ for Italian politics. On the right, we identify a process of fragmentation. As a result of the personalised leadership of Silvio Berlusconi, where loyalties and ties were to il cavaliere as an individual rather than to a party or a political tradition, there is little by way of legacy on the right. Surprisingly, we find that Berlusconi's greatest legacy lies on the left of Italian politics, in the figure of Matteo Renzi. In his savvy manipulation of the media and in the careful construction of his own image, accompanied by a non‐ideological set of political slogans, Renzi has gone even further than Berlusconi. As a result, he may be the one to final bury Italian ‘party government’ and all its associated traditions and ideals.     

Mis-marketing the Conservatives: The Limitations of Style over Substance

Every Tory leader since 1997 has made significant attempts to use marketing; the most recent, Michael Howard, appointed the first ever UK party Marketing Director to head a specialised Marketing Department. However, whilst the Conservatives have made use of the tools of marketing (polling, focus groups, public listening exercises, communication) they have misunderstood the concept of political marketing, which is concerned with creating a unified political product that is responsive to voter demands. Political marketing has hitherto not worked for the Conservative party. This is because there is a lack of a supportive internal culture that accepts the party change necessary to produce a market-orientated political product including policy, leadership and candidates. If political marketing is only used to sell a product that the party elite rather than the British public wants, it will never help the Conservatives regain control of government.