Political Marketing Planning Process

2188 Words9 Pages
Political Marketing Planning Process (Baines et.al.) A large number of political parties are now beginning to understand the requirement of a proper marketing concept in political and electoral planning and are constantly bringing in more and more marketing firms to assist them in running their political campaigns. Emergence of Political marketing: An efficient political marketing planning strategy was earlier believed to be just a communication process between voters and political firma and it neglected all organizational components involved in political marketing. But with the advent of time, political marketing planning has included functions such as voter segmentation and voter targeting and also suggested adoption of a political marketing…show more content…
Political communication consisted of the entire marketing process, from preliminary market study to testing and targeting. Political communication comprised mainly of image-making campaigns and election campaigns run by the various political parties. It was aimed to address the diverse voter needs and concerns t make the most appropriate and satisfactory decisions. It used to follow a transactional model of information exchange between political parties and voters. Mainstream & political marketing: the increasing importance of political marketing can be reflected by the adoption of the word “ideas” in the definition of marketing by AMA (American Marketing Association). Now, the term political marketing refers to the penetration of political arena by marketing. Differences between mainstream and political marketing: there are basically 5 differences between the two:- 1. All the voters make their choice on the same day in case of political marketing. Also, the surveys in this case include surveys based on hypothetical questions. 2. No direct or indirect individual cost in involved in making voting…show more content…
Organization- It includes dependence on volunteers and the negative perception of marketing. 3. Market- It includes voters who are ideologically charged. 4. Process characteristics- it includes issues such as style v/s substance, news & media, polls and advertising. Political communication guides Political Marketing on how to improve negative perception and to make its outcome more substantial to voters to improve its standards and attract media attention. Over the years Political Marketing has made a drastic shift from a set of theoretical and practical tools for conducting election campaign to a permanent strategic element of governance. How Negative advertising works (John Quelch) In the political marketplace, distinct choices are available to the voters to attract their attention to a category, involve them and increase the chances that they make a purchase, similar to product marketing. The level of choice and the uncertainty about who will win attracts heavy media coverage and grassroots activism that add to voters’ interest. Often trailing candidates become desperate and flood the media with negative ads about other candidates. These ads ask us to vote against someone, and not in someone’s favour. This strategy mostly works against new candidates who haven’t been able to establish a support base among voters. The various strategies used for negative advertising are fear appeal, guilt by association, roll-your-own ads and policy comparisons. Companies hardly run negative

More about Political Marketing Planning Process

Open Document