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Literature Summary Topic Political Marketing
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A summary of the complete literature on the topic of political marketing, campaigns and voters.
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Literature Summary Topic PoliticalMarketing
Contents
Week 2....................................................................................................................................................2
2.1 The marriage of politics and marketing – Marshment, 2001........................................................2
2.2 Introduction: social media, political marketing, and the 2016 U.S. election – Williams................7
Week 3....................................................................................................................................................8
3.1 Rise of the Trumpenvolk: Populism in the 2016 election – Oliver and Rahn.................................8
3.2 A populist Zeitgeist? The communication strategies of Western and Latin American political
leaders on Facebook – Zulianello, Albertini, Ceccobelli....................................................................10
3.3 Donald Trump, Populism, and the age of extremes: Comparing the personality traits and
campaigning styles of Trump and other leaders worldwide – Nai, Martinez, Maier.........................12
Week 4..................................................................................................................................................14
4.1 Negative campaigning and its consequences: a review and a look ahead – Haselmayer............14
4.2 The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reassessment – Lau, Siegelman,
Rovner..............................................................................................................................................16
4.3 Reprehensible, Laughable: The Role of Contempt in Negative Campaigning – Roseman, Mattes,
Redlawsk, Katz..................................................................................................................................18
Week 5..................................................................................................................................................19
5.1 Striking a Responsive Chord: How Political Ads Motivate and Persuade Voters by Appealing to
Emotions – Brader............................................................................................................................19
5.2 Emotions in politics – Marcus.....................................................................................................21
5.3 It’s My Campaign I’ll Cry if I Want to: How and When Campaigns Use Emotional Appeals -
Ridout & Searles...............................................................................................................................24
Week 6..................................................................................................................................................26
6.1 Anxiety, Sophistication, and Resistance to Persuasion: Evidence from a Quasi-Experimental
Survey on Global Climate Change - Nai et al.....................................................................................26
6.2 Conspiracy Thinking in Europe and America: A Comparative Study - Walter & Drochon............28
Week 7..................................................................................................................................................30
7.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitiv Heuristics in Political Decision Making - Lau &
Redlawsk...........................................................................................................................................30
7.2 An Exploration of Correct Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections - Lau et al......................32
,Week 2
2.1 The marriage of politics and marketing – Marshment, 2001
Political marketing: is about political organizations adapting business-marketing concepts and
techniques to help them achieve their goals. It is not just about political communication, but a
‘marriage’ between political studies and marketing. These entities, such as political parties and
interest groups, use market intelligence to understand citizen concerns, adapt their behavior, and
communicate effectively.
In Defense of Political Science: Time for a New Lesson on Political Marketing
The ‘marriage’ of politics and marketing into political marketing has not been widely accepted and
not everyone in political science is happy with it. In defence of political science, the lesson has not
been that well taught:
1. Political marketers focus on PMC (Political Marketing Communication) and even where they
assert the wider potential of political marketing, this is not well demonstrated.
2. The power of the lesson is reduced because discussion about the influence of marketing on the
design of political behaviour is mixed with analysis of its presentation.
3. Research neglects comprehensive utilization of marketing theory. Covering empirical changes is
important, but it is imperative we supply theoretical frameworks to inform such analysis, so we
know what to look for and what to question.
The text defends political science in the context of political marketing, noting that political
marketing's broad scope hasn't been widely accepted. It criticizes the perception of political
marketing as mere presentation and emphasizes the need for a better-taught lesson. The discussion
highlights the focus on political marketing communication (PMC) and the lack of comprehensive
utilization of marketing theory in research.
Something Old: Lessons from Political Studies
Political marketing is portrayed as a marriage between two disciplines, incorporating elements from
marketing and politics. The article emphasizes the challenges of this transition, particularly because
political parties, as non-profit organizations, fundamentally differ from businesses. Traditional
political science literature is employed to comprehend the nature, products, goals, market, and
behavior of major British political parties.
Nature of the organization: Major political parties in Britain aim to participate in democratic
elections to hold public office. Electoral success the dominant goal and parties seek long-term
success by winning consecutive elections.
Market: The market for political parties includes voters necessary for electoral success. This
encompasses not only eligible voters but also influential segments of the population, such as
party members and even non-voters.
Product: The product of a party is its behaviour that encompasses various characteristics, is
ongoing and always offered, not only during elections. It includes aspects as leadership, MPs,
membership, staff, symbols, constitution, activities, and policies.
Approach to behaviour: political science offers various models to explain and analyse party
behaviour. Political builds on these models (especially Downs’rational choice concept), integrating
divers directions of marketing. This results in a more comprehensive understanding of party
behaviour, addressing weaknesses in existing models.
Something Borrowed: The Different School of Marketing
2
,Marketing is about how organizations plan and make decisions and aims to help an organization
compete with its rivals to obtain consumer spending. Marketing offers several orientations to explain
business behaviour: product, sales, and marketing-orientations.
Product-Oriented business: Focuses on producing the best product it can, efficiently and cheap
as possible. If the product doesn’t sell, the customer is deemed ignorant and lacks appreciation of
the product's value.
Sales-Oriented business: While still emphasizing product design, this orientation places more
effort into selling through techniques like advertising, aiming to create demand rather than
responding to it. The approach has a short-term time perspective.
Market-Oriented business: Designs products for consumer satisfaction, tailoring them based on
changing needs. This orientation is more likely to satisfy customers on a long term.
Political marketing, drawing direction from marketing, incorporates these orientations to
comprehend/study political party behaviour. Additionally, marketing introduces a process, often
termed the ‘marketing mix’ or "4Ps": product, pricing, promotion, and place, they portray various
stages within an electoral cycle. The process is adapted to suit politics, connecting activities like
market intelligence, polls, and communication, offering a theoretical framework for understanding
political behaviour. Party behaviour is called product to encourage parties to think about their
behaviour as a product to be given to voters. Pricing (like the cost for advertising) has less to do with
party behaviour, so it has been altered to product adjustment. Place is also discarded because it is
appropriate for the study of campaign organization, but less for party behaviour.
Something New: The Different Curriculum of Political Marketing
Political marketing is used to achieve electoral success, by altering aspects of their behaviour to suit
the nature and demands of the market/to appeal to voters. They can do this by being product, sales
or market oriented.
Product-Oriented Party: Stands firm on its beliefs, assuming
voters will recognize that its ideas are the right ones and will
vote for. They refuse to change, even if it fails to gain support.
Sales-Oriented Party: Focuses on selling ideas to voters, using
market intelligence (to understand voters’ response to its
behaviour) and advertising/communication techniques to
persuade voters of its position. It does not change to what
people want, but make people want what it offers.
Market-Oriented Party: Designs behaviour to satisfy voter
demands, using market intelligence to identify needs,
adapting its product to align with voter expectations. They
design a product that will satisfy voters: meets their needs
and wants, is supported/implemented by the organization
and is deliverable in government.
Figure 2: Political marketing activities
Product design
- Product and Sales-Oriented parties design behaviour according to what they think best.
- Market-Oriented parties determine behaviour in response to voter demands.
Market intelligence (Sales and Market-Oriented parties only)
- Informally, parties ‘keep an ear to the ground’, talk to party activists, meet with the public.
- Formally they use quantitative research (electoral results, public opinion polls and privately
commissioned studies) and qualitative research such as focus-groups.
3
, - Market-Oriented parties aim to discover voter demands in order to respond to them when they
design their behaviour.
- Sales-Oriented parties do this after deciding how to behave: they try to find out who does not
support the party but might and then target their communication efforts accordingly.
Product adjustment (market-oriented party only)
- It designs its product to suit the electorate at large and then needs to make sure it considers
other factors:
a) whether the product design is achievable: the party will not promise what it cannot deliver in
government.
b) Internal reaction: the party may alter parts of the design to ensure it will obtain the support
of enough MPs and members to ensure its implementation.
c) Competition: the party will promote opposition weaknesses and highlight their own
corresponding strengths; parties will not just become the same; differences will inevitably
occur as the party goes through part (b) above because each major party has a different
historical and ideological background
d) Support: the party will focus on winning the support of voters it does not have but needs to
win power; thereby using target marketing. A Market-Oriented party will not promise
everything to everyone (see Reid, 1988, p. 42) or seek the support of all the electorate; given
part (b), it may start from traditional supporters and move out, rather than jump directly to
the centre.
Implementation (market-Oriented party only)
- Findings from Stages 1–3 of the process for such a party must be implemented.
- Majority within the party need to broadly accept the new behaviour and comply with it
Communication
- This includes the so-called near or long-term campaign but also ongoing behaviour.
- All parties communicate their behaviour whether or not they design it carefully.
- Not just the leader, but all MPs and members send a message to the electorate.
- Sales and Market-Oriented parties:
a) Attempt to ensure that communication they have with the public helps them achieve
electoral success.
b) Attempt to influence others in the communication process, such as journalists and opposition
parties.
c) Use selling techniques such as direct mail and targeted communications.
Campaign
- The official election campaign period leading up to the election.
Election
- The general election.
Delivery
- If the party wins, they deliver the product in government.
The sales-orientation is focused on communication techniques and faces potential criticism for being
perceived as mere spin-doctors and sound-bites, but this party is likely to produce the most effective
presentation of the product. It is most amendable to normative criticism because they engage in
persuasion and try to make voters want what they offer.
The concept of a Market-Oriented party is controversial, as it challenges traditional political views by
suggesting parties should design their product to suit voters rather than argue their case (it is most
criticized because of that). This raises normative and non-normative questions about the feasibility
and implications of such an approach for party behaviour, the political system, and democracy.
4
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