Political Marketing Models: The Curious Incident of the Dog that Doesn't Bark

Abstract

Contemporary politics has become dominated by the use of marketing strategies, techniques and principles. An academic literature has emerged in response to these empirical trends. Much of this literature is grounded in management marketing theory, and the contention of this article is that while this may provide a useful heuristic device, the models of political behaviour it proposes are seriously flawed by their assumptions of a passive or neutral role for the media. The intention here is, first, to restore agency to the media. This is achieved by highlighting their influence in shaping the political message, rather than simply disseminating it as implied by the management marketing models. Second, we draw attention to some of the key democratic implications of applying marketing to the practice of politics and highlight the potential role of the media as agents providing a corrective function to the democratic deficits we identify.

The use of blogs as social media tools of political communication: citizen journalism and public opinion 2.0

“…That said, this influence on the political agenda should not be considered to be generalizable. Despite the fact that blogs have taken on the role of the new media regarding politics (Savigny & temple, 2010;Donovan, 2012), attracting readers is proving a truly arduous task for a great number of webpages due to the competition which exists to rank highest on Internet search engine lists, and to this end even offering readers unique, interesting content (Drezner & Farrell, 2004) often proves insufficient. Normally, time, consistency and quality of content (Bigi, 2013), control of the message's emotional characteristics (Kim et al, 2015), the social propagation of these messages (to social networks or other similar platforms) and audience interactivity to acquire visibility and relevance regarding the object of interest are all required.…”

Political Marketing and the 2015 UK General Election

“…The accompanying editorial text is beyond the control of the spin doctors who may help writing the words spoken by the politician, but ensuring these are disseminated unchallenged is impossible, and for some parties it proves a greater challenge than for others. Hence media management is an important campaigning function, although one largely ignored within political marketing literature (for an exception, see Savigny and Temple 2010 ). This omission is somewhat bizarre given that in a political context the brand image, values and messages tend to mostly be translated to the wider audience via television and the press (Shehata and Strömbäck 2014 ).…”

Limitations and implications of product‐oriented, sales‐oriented and market‐oriented political parties: evidence for public affairs

“…Whereas voters and party members (Lees‐Marshment, ), and to a lesser extent competing parties (Ormrod, ), are afforded an explicit role in the three processes, critics have questioned the lack of emphasis on the role of the media (Savigny and Temple, ), especially in the communication stage (Temple, ), as Lees‐Marshment et al () argue that the media, although important, does not affect a party's choice of orientation. Indeed, there is a general lack of focus on the implications of a party's choice of orientation for stakeholders in general (Krogh and Christensen, ), despite Lees‐Marshment () underlining the importance of both society and the individual, and other authors identifying the importance of multiple markets (Mortimore and Gill, ).…”