The triadic interaction model of political marketing exchange

Abstract

Non-commercial exchanges including social and political ones have become an accepted marketing explanandum since the broadening debate of marketing of the 1970s. In order to build a theory of political marketing, a rigorous understanding of the nature of the political exchange needs to be developed beyond the simplistic assumption of being synonymous with commercial exchange. The service characteristics of the political offering only make full sense if understood as being triadic interactions rather than dyadic exchanges. Thus, the presumptive effect of political services only comes to the fore if the interaction between candidates and voters (in the electoral market) is seen as interdependent with interactions between the candidates in the legislative assembly (in the parliamentary market) and between legislators and citizens (in the governmental market) as part of a wider political exchange system. This triadic structure of the political exchange nuances the current research focus by embedding the electoral interaction within a wider interaction system. Our article thus provides an initial attempt to develop a broadened concept on which further theory building as well as empirical analysis in political marketing can be based.

Strategy, market orientation and performance: the political context

“…= 1.28, skewness = 0.49, kurtosis = −0.41). Using a single performance indicator enabled us to model the results of three interactions involved in a single political exchange (Henneberg & Ormrod, ), and therefore, the three performance variables were equally weighted. Thus, for both of the strategy types, there was a positive perception of the performance of the party, with members of the Relationship Builder parties being more positive about the performance of their parties than the Convinced Ideologist parties.…”

“…Finally, members were asked to provide their perceptions of the performance of their party over the previous electoral period of the Flemish Parliament (5 years) on three criteria relating to the ability to influence public opinion, influence legislation and achieve party aims. These three questions reflect the three interaction markets proposed by Henneberg and Ormrod () that make up political exchanges, namely, the electoral market, the parliamentary market and the governmental market. Our selection of a period of 5 years was designed to reduce the risk that responses to the performance variables would be biased because of an imminent election during the data gathering phase; 5 years was considered suitable for the purposes of our investigation by the experts.…”

“…To date, performance data as dependent constructs have not been included in studies that concentrate on MO in the political sphere. In order to arrive at a suitable measure of perceived performance, we developed three performance indicators corresponding to the three main political interactions identified in Henneberg and Ormrod's () triadic interaction model of political marketing exchange, namely, the electoral interaction (influence over public opinion), the parliamentary interaction (influence over legislation) and governmental/oppositional interaction with stakeholders (implementing policies and achieving general aims). We asked the party members to state on 7‐point Likert‐type scales (from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’) their perception of the extent to which the party (i) had been able to influence public opinion over the preceeding electoral period, (ii) had been able to influence legislation over the preceeding electoral period and (iii) had achieved its general aims over the preceeding electoral period.…”

“…Marketing concepts can be used to explain political exchanges (Henneberg & O'Shaughnessy, ; Henneberg & Ormrod, ) and to optimise the political management of parties, candidates or governments (O'Cass & Voogla, ; Lilleker & Lees‐Marshment, ), for example, relating to strategic issues of positioning (Dean & Croft, ). For example, between early 2002 and mid 2004, the British Labour Party and its leader and Prime Minister, Tony Blair, changed their strategic posture with regard to political marketing, particularly how they related to public opinion and developed market offerings such as political stances, leadership characteristics and their political brand.…”

Stakeholders in the political marketing context

“…Various groups impact on the ability of political actors (e.g., parties, elected politicians, and candidates) to compete successfully in political marketplaces (Henneberg & Ormrod, ). These groups can be voters (e.g., Henneberg, ; Hughes & Dann, ), the mass media (e.g., Quinn, ; Strömbäck & Van Aelst, ), competitors (e.g., Bowler & Farrell, ; Cwalina & Falkowski, ), lobby/interest groups (e.g., Andrews, ; Gilens & Page, ; Harris & McGrath, ), public sector workers (Dean & Croft, ; Hughes & Dann, ), and even terrorist groups (Baines & O'Shaughnessy, ).…”