Download Political Marketing 2006: Direct Benefit, Value and

Political Marketing 2006: Direct Benefit, Value and Managing the Voter Relationship
Andrew Hughes, Stephen Dann, The Australian National University
Abstract
In 2004, the definition of commercial marketing was changed radically. In light of the revised
definition, does political marketing need to modify, adapt, adjust or start again from scratch to
keep up with the parent marketing paradigm? This paper explores the definitions of political
and commercial marketing to see just how and where the two fields merge, and what issues
have arise from the new commercial marketing definition that can be addressed in our current
knowledge, and what needs to be further explored. Further research is required to address the
interaction of political marketing and stakeholder benefit, as traditional commercial
stakeholder theory is not applicable without modification. Overall, the paper finds that political
marketing has potentially benefited from the new commercial marketing framework, with
certain elements of political marketing now more closely aligned to commercial marketing than
with the previous definition.
Introduction
Academic discourse on the definition and parameters of political marketing between 1985 and
2004 is inexorably bound to the shared understanding of commercial marketing being 'the
process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of
ideas, goods, and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational
objectives’ (AMA, 1985, p. 2). When the AMA revised the definition of commercial
marketing in 2004, one of the many consequences was the need to revisit earlier work in
marketing’s sub disciplinary fields which had been based on the AMA (1985) definition of
marketing. This paper sets out to examine a range of political marketing definitions from 1990
to 2004 in light of the new commercial marketing framework, to assess the compatibility of the
older research with the new framework.
Political Marketing: Definition Issues
Political marketing, which is effectively the application of commercial marketing to the
political process has been defined in numerous ways by a range of authors over the past two
decades, including the works of Gronroos (1990 in O’Shaughnessy, 2001), Harrop (1990),
Clemente (1992 in Butler and Collins, 1994), O’Cass (1996a, 1996b), Lock and Harris (1996),
Kotler and Kotler (1999), Newman (1999 in Newman 2002), Lees-Marshment (2001),
O’Shaughnessy (2001) and Henneberg (2004). With approximately fifteen years of definitions,
a paper such as this would ordinarily attempt to draw together the commonality of themes,
ideas and content to forge a new definition of political marketing from the shared ground.
However, the revision of the commercial marketing definition presents the opportunity to
analyse the existing definitions against the component parts of the AMA (2004) definition of
commercial marketing. This process is twofold – first, assessing the current definitions of
political marketing against the core definition of the parent discipline serves to maintain the
relevance of political marketing discourse. Second, as political marketing exists as the
adaptation of commercial marketing, the opportunity exists to propose a revised political
marketing definition built upon the common grounds of the AMA (2004) definition, and the
previous decades of political marketing research.
Commercial Marketing: 2004 to Present
Commercial marketing is “an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,
communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in
ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders” (AMA 2004). Marketing has the
twofold factors of organisational function and organisational processes, whereas it was
previously perceived predominantly as a process. This represents the growth of dedicated
marketing functions within organisations, and also demonstrates the broader acceptance of
marketing as an equal to accounting or research and development. Second, the new definition
no longer explicitly recognises the marketing mix, and instead focuses on the concept of "value
creation" for the firm, and for the customer.
Gone is the explicit focus on creating exchange as the core of the marketing definition – value
is now the core of marketing. In addition, the notion of satisfying individual and organisational
objectives has been traded for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the
organisation and its stakeholders. Broadly speaking, the revision of the definition moves
marketing away from the shorter term transactional-exchange orientation and into an area
which has a greater emphasis on the longer term relationship, value and stakeholder benefit.
This represents a fundamental shift in the methods of marketing thought and strategy –
marketing is now a relationship, based on the creation of value for customers and benefits for
the organisation and stakeholder.
Defining Political Marketing: Prior to the 2004 Definition Reboot
The evolution of the definition of political marketing begins, from the point of view of this
paper, in the 1990s, although it is recognised that political marketing as a social influence
predates this first definition. However, for the purposes of this analysis, the first definition of
political marketing comes from the works of Gronroos (1990 in O’Shaughnessy, 2001) who
defined political marketing as “seeking to establish, maintain and enhance long term voter
relationships at a profit for society and political parties so that the objectives of the individual
political actors and organisations involved are met”. Clemente (1992 in Butler and Collins,
1994), defining political marketing as “the marketing of ideas and opinions which relate to
public or political issues or to specific candidates. In general, political marketing is designed
to influence people’s votes in elections”. O’Cass (1996a, 1996b) sought to portray political
marketing as “the analysis, planning, implementation and control of political and electoral
programs designed to create, build and maintain beneficial exchange relationships between a
party and voters for the purpose of achieving the political marketers objectives.”.
Lock and Harris (1996) went for a dichotomous version of academic political marketing
discourse as being “the study of the processes of exchanges between political entities and their
environment and among themselves with particular reference to the position of those entities
and their communications”, and a slightly more workable practical definition of political
marketing as an activity, where “it is concerned with strategies for positioning and
communications, and the methods through which these strategies may be realised, including
the search for information into attitudes, awareness and response of the target audience.”
Kotler and Kotler (1999) cite the similarity of commercial and political marketing, although
they see political marketing as campaign driven, drawing the comparison between the two
fields. “Political marketing shares much in common with marketing in the business world….In
[political] campaigns, candidates dispatch promises, favors, policy preferences, and
personality to a set of voters in exchange for their votes, voluntary efforts or contributions.
Newman (1999 in Newman 2002) brings political marketing back to the basics as “the
application of marketing principles and procedures in political campaigns by various
individuals and organisations”. Interestingly, the definition expands the procedural element of
political marketing as “…the analysis, development, execution and management of strategic
campaigns by candidates, political parties, governments, lobbyists and interest groups that
seek to drive public opinion, advance their own ideologies, win elections and pass legislation
and referenda in response to the needs and wants of selected people and groups in society
(Newman 1999). Lees-Marshment (2001) again brings the concept forward as an adaptation of
commercial marketing, arguing that “political marketing is about political organisations
adapting business marketing concepts and techniques to help achieve their goals…[to] conduct
market intelligence to identify the concerns of those they serve change their behaviour to meet
those demands and communicate their 'product offering' more effectively. O’Shaughnessy
(2001) brings three definitions to the debate, their own definition of political marketing as “a
structure of business derived labels to explain, map, nuance and condense the exchange
dynamics of an election campaign; offering the possibility for new perspectives for interpreting
elections”. They also raise the Gronroos (1990) definition cited above, along with Harrop’s
(1990) conceptualisation where political marketing was “essentially a form of services
marketing: marketing a party consists in projecting a belief in its ability to govern”. Finally,
Henneberg (2004) refines and reemphasises the exchange protocol with the short working
definition of political marketing as “facilitating the societal process of political exchange”.
Method: Mixing pop and politics
In order to compare the existing definitions of political marketing against the commercial
marketing definition, the AMA (2004) definition has been divided into six component
categories. “organisational function”, “set of processes”, “set of processes for creating,
communicating and delivering value to customers”, “set of processes for managing customer
relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders” and a brief overview of
“organisation and stakeholders”. However, whilst the components of a definition can be
isolated and analysed independently, the definition still remains a sum of the component parts,
and will be subjected to a final holistic interpretation to examine its applicability to the political
marketing process.
Political marketing: an organizational function
The organisational function aspect of the contemporary commercial marketing definition is
perhaps the least recognised component of the existing definitions. The definitions of Kotler
and Kotler (1999), Newman (1999) and Lees-Marshment each recognise the role of political
marketing as the application or adaptation of business practice, and by extension, could be
broadly understood to accept an organisational function role of marketing. Darroch et al
(2004) contextualised the component of organisational function in terms of marketing moving
from a managerial focus to a “whole of organisation” approach. Using the Darroch (2004)
understanding of organisational function also allows political marketing to draw on the
O’Shaughnessy (2001) ‘structure of business derived labels’ definition of political marketing.
That said, if organisational function is taken to imply a recognised or recognisable marketing
functional area, for example, descriptions and labels such as “marketing director” or
“marketing department, this may exclude political marketing from the broader commercial
domain (Dann, 2005). Overall, assuming an inclusive interpretation of organisational function
as the whole-of-organisation approach to marketing, existing definitions of political marketing
are mostly aligned with this element.
Political marketing: a set of processes
Political marketing as a set of processes is directly supported by Clemente (1992), O’Cass
(1996a, 1996b), Lock and Harris (1996), Newman (1999) and Lees-Marshment.
Understandably, this element of the revised definition is the least controversial and most
broadly applicable component of the AMA’s (2004) definition. Overall, the majority of
political marketing definitions either implicitly or explicitly recognise marketing as a set of
processes.
Political marketing: a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value
to customers
Value is a complex element of the revised definition, which, if defined along the narrowest
interpretation as “the power of any good to command other goods in peaceful and voluntary
exchange” (AMA Marketing Dictionary, 2006). Within this strictly narrow interpretation of
value, it is doubtful that many forms of commercial transaction would still count as marketing.
Applying the literal interpretation of value would automatically exclude all forms of political
marketing, and several forms of commercial marketing such as services and relationship
marketing. Consequently, using a broader interpretation of value, based on the older works of
Porter (1985 in Gabbot, 2004) allows for value to “what people are willing to pay” and “what
the consumer believes that they have gained from the exchange”. By using these two
components of value, the contemporary definition of commercial marketing can then be seen to
be the creation, communication and delivering of “what the consumer believes they have
gained from the exchange”. By use of this approach, exchange theory, which was previously
an explicit component of the marketing definition, now becomes an assumed element of
“value”. By holding to this logic of exchange as a component part of value, most of the
existing political marketing definitions in this paper can be directly incorporated into the
definition. In addition, O’Cass’s (1996a, 1996b) definition of the political marketing exchange
process to include “create, build and maintain beneficial exchange relationships” emphasises
the commonality of the political and commercial marketing process.
Although “communication of value” would tend to be interpreted as “informing the audience
of the value offering”, idea based products which are communicated, delivered and consumed
simultaneously are also capable of producing “communication of value” where value is derived
from the information exchange (Andreasen, 1995, Kotler Roberto and Lee, 2002; Andreasen
2006). For example, assuming brand identification, usually associated with commercial
entities such as Harley Davidson, is equally applicable in political marketing, basic
communications functions such as branding can create value for the consumer. The creation of
a strong political brand which communicates social reference information regarding the
individual as a result of their affiliation with a political party creates a value for benefit
transaction (Hughes, 2003).
Similarly, other aspects of idea product distribution previously regarded as promotional mix
elements can be incorporated into the value process, even the use of negative campaigning
which may present value for those oppose the person being discredited by the negative
advertising (Hughes, 2003). Publication of propaganda, political statements and “talking
points” which assist the individual voter in persuading others to support their position can
deliver value to that consumer. Consequently, websites such as TeamBeattie.com (Hughes and
Dann, 2004a) or celebrity endorsement of political parties (Hughes and Dann, 2004b) can
create value for the political consumer, who in return, by providing loyalty, support or votes
will create benefit for the political marketer.
Political marketing: a set of processes for managing customer relationships in ways that
benefit the organization and its stakeholders
Political marketing as a set of processes for managing customer relationships for benefit of the
organisation and its stakeholders is almost identical to the O’Cass (1996a, 1996b) definitional
element of “maintain beneficial exchange relationships between a party and voters for the
purpose of achieving the political marketers’ objectives”. Whilst the O’Cass (1996a, 1996b)
definition incorporates exchange, it is less aligned to the AMA (1985) notion of marketing as a
process “to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational objectives”. Under the
contemporary definition, the emphasis on exchange, with the requisite components of quid pro
quo value for value, political marketing was less suited to the process than the current idea of
“managing customer relationships for organisational benefit”.
In political marketing, the management of the “customer” is a complicated task, as the
“customer” of a political marketing campaign is almost as broadly defined as a stakeholder.
For example, customers can include those with a direct transactional relationship (voters),
active brand loyal supporters (party members), inactive brand loyal supporters (non party
members, non voters), media, and the broader community. When a political product is
produced for the open market, it is consumed by both the intended target market (potential
voters, actual voters), and the unintended market (opposing political parties, opposing voters).
Under the contemporary marketing definition, political marketing is required to manage the
relationship with their customers (eg voters, party members, ideologically aligned), where the
“relationship for benefit” can translate into a range of outcomes such as votes, public support,
ideological commitment, volunteering and / or financial donations to the party. In the political
context, benefit is a broad brush, and can is widely incorporated into a range of political
definitions (Gronroos, 1990; O’Cass, 1996a, 1996b; Kotler and Kotler, 1999; O’Shaughnessy
2001; Lees-Marshment, 2001; and Newman 2002).
Stakeholders to the Process
A core imperative to arise from the new marketing definition is the need to define the
organisation's stakeholders. As with relationship management for benefit, political marketing
was ahead of the curve with stakeholder management, as Gronroos (1990), Lock and Harris
(1996), and Newman (1999). However, even with the existing support of political marketing
for the management of the stakeholder process, further research is required to identify the
appropriate stakeholders to the political process. Given that stakeholder theory posits that
stakeholders may be as broad as "any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the
achievement of the firm’s objectives" (Freeman (1984) or as narrow as “shareholders,
stockholders or owners of the organisation” (Clement, 2005), selection and identification of
political marketing stakeholders will become increasingly important. The adaptation of
stakeholder theory to political marketing is the subject of a paper in its own right, and due to
space constraints, is not dealt with in this paper.
Conclusion: Political Marketing Redefined
Political marketing takes the principles of commercial marketing techniques to assist the
political campaign process (Henneberg, 2004). By examining political marketing in light of
the components of the commercial definition, it is possible to conclude political marketing is
compatible with the elements. Consequently, as test of the holistic interpretation of the revised
marketing definition, a new hybrid definition of political marketing is proposed: political
marketing is a political communications [organizational] function and a set of processes for
creating, communicating and delivering promises of value to customers and for managing
customer relationships in ways that benefit the political organization and its stakeholders.
At the core is the emphasis on the dual component of vote-for-support transactions, and the
management of party-voter relationships for the gain of the political party and its stakeholders.
In this manner, political marketing moves into the 21st century of marketing by recognising the
relationship marketing nature of the contemporary political process, whilst still focusing on the
core exchange of value to the vote in return for electoral support.
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