Neil Collins

Political Marketing: Structure and Process

Suggests that political campaigners are faced with marketing problems and opportunities. Acknowledges the increasing professional marketing activity in political campaigns. Examines the similarities and differences between elections and other marketplaces. In considering marketing in the political/electoral context, upholds the convention of examining the distinctive marketing features of the “industry”, and drawing out the management implications of these. Presents a model of political marketing in terms of structural and process characteristics. Structural characteristics include the nature of the product, the organization and the market; outlines the marketing management implications of these. Process characteristics are concerned with the procedures and systems which govern marketing activity and their implications; briefly proposes appropriate strategic responses for each.

Strategic Analysis in Political Markets

Applies an established strategic framework of competitive market positioning to political parties, suggesting that political scientists who are currently analysing political marketing without reference to the marketing discipline, could benefit thereby. If the marketing paradigm is to influence another discipline, it must first be tendered in broad, generic terms, and address matters at the strategic level. Presents examples from many electoral contexts (or markets). The analysis requires that political parties in a democratic system be regarded as analogous to commercial organizations in industrial markets. In doing so, it eschews traditional political ascriptions such as left‐ and right‐wing. The labels used to describe the parties are leader, challenger, follower and nicher. This framework offers a competitive positioning map of the market that will inform marketing and campaign decisions, and guide strategic direction. Shows how fundamental issues such as competitive analysis, party/candidate positioning, and relevant strategies are brought to the political marketing context.

Marketing public sector services: Concepts and characteristics

There is an ongoing debate on the relevance and role of marketing in the changing public sections of Western democracies. Public service organizations are increasingly turning to marketing professionab as “managerialism” takes over “administration”. This article argues that the marketing community must dearly conceptualize the public sector as a marketing context if it is to operate effectively within it. The distinctive aspects of the public sector which impact upon marketing are addressed by examining relevant structural and process characteristics. The structural characteristics include the nature of the product, the organization and the market; the marketing implications of these are outlined. The process characteristics are concerned with the procedures and systems that govern activity, and their implications. Appropriate strategic responses are briefly proposed.

Ballot Paper Photographs and Low-Information Elections in Ireland

In an attempt to facilitate greater voting participation in the Republic of Ireland, photographs of candidates have been placed on the ballot paper for local, national and European elections. Limited research undertaken in advance of the implementation of the photograph policy advised that the measure would assist people with literacy problems. However, social psychology research has long demonstrated that people are willing to make considerable judgements about a person when shown a photograph. The advent of ballot paper photographs allows candidates to be evaluated on the basis of their appearance. This article will explore how photographs could have become a factor in voter decision-making. Providing additional knowledge to encourage greater participation and engagement has introduced a possible new level of superficiality into the voter decision-making process.

Payment on delivery ‐ Recognising constituency service as political marketing

The notion that political marketing occurs only during formal campaign periods is discarded in the political marketing literature. Political campaigns, rather than being periodic, are “permanent”. Accordingly, the attention of political marketers must increasingly turn to the analysis of how and when politicians serve their communities or constituencies. Indeed, the kinds of services commonly associated with political influence and constituency activity indicate a convergence of politics and public sector service provision. In this essay, the nature and effects of constituency‐focused service delivery are examined as an integral part of political marketing.

Human Branding in Political Marketing: Applying Contemporary Branding Thought to Political Parties and Their Leaders

Political marketing advances by engaging with new and advanced concepts from both of its parent disciplines. One of the most recent fields of brand research—the study of the human brand—is taken into the political marketing arena in this essay. Human branding is an emergent topic in mainstream marketing. The value as a brand of a person who is well-known and subject to explicit marketing communications efforts is being investigated in many fields. The concept has clear prima facie value in political marketing, where the role of a political leader as part of the political marketing offer has been recognized extensively. Politics is also a unique context given the relationship between leaders and parties, each of which has some unique brand associations. The process of exploring the application of human branding in politics also provides a context in which some of the interactions among party and leader, human brand, and organizational brand can be explored and further developed. Among the conclusions are that political party leaders require brand authenticity as an advocate of the party policy platform and brand authority to command the organization and deliver on the policies being advocated. Implications for party and campaign management are outlined.

Theory-Building in Political Marketing: Parallels in Public Management

Abstract Political Marketing shares significant common ground with Public Sector Marketing, but this is not reflected in the current literature. These subdisciplines are developing in mutual isolation, thereby limiting their relevance and theoretical potential. The political marketing research literature highlights election campaigns and communications processes, even though marketing for most politicians involves being associated with actual public service delivery. The public sector marketing literature is both fragmented and heavily influenced by New Public Management which explicitly seeks to disconnect administration from politics, even though public sector managers are essential to political processes and not constrained only to the implementation of policy. The separation of these developing fields is influenced in part by the distinctive US experience of politics and administration; but that experience is untypical of other contexts and thus inclined to skew understanding and theory development. The welfare effects of marketing activity in the politics and public administration contexts are profound; an approach supportive of subdiscipline integration and development is critical.

Positioning political parties: A market analysis

Political parties enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the media. Like commercial organizations, parties must know where they stand in their “market.” Marketing is not an activity that political parties may indulge in at their discretion; it is a constant and necessary political function that they attend to implicitly or explicitly, successfully or otherwise. The concern of this article is to move the analysis of political marketing to the strategic level. Rather than analyzing parties in terms of ideology, historical origin, or policy platforms, we consider them in terms of relative market standing or competitive position.

Protecting the protected: The Greek agricultural policy network∗

Abstract This article employs the concept of policy networks to examine a major area of policy‐making and provide fresh insights into Greek politics. It questions the extent to which policy‐making in the Greek agricultural sector can be usefully typified as pluralist or corporatist. The authors conclude that the weakness and vulnerability of the state to the demands of the co‐operatives, in particular, suggests that the sectoral corporatist model understates the level of mutual dependency. The rhetoric of clientelism disguises the reality that the government no longer occupies a clearly superior position in the network but shares policy‐making powers with other societal institutions.

The Europeanisation of the British political marketplace

Abstract The coalition government that resulted from the 2010 general election represents a new scenario in the British political marketplace with implications for political marketing theory and practice. The modelling of political marketing in the UK has evolved in relatively stable market conditions in which majority governments are elected; the market restructure arising from the 2010 election outcome offers an opportunity for a revised understanding of the field. Political science has established an important and dynamic body of knowledge that explains the founding and operation of coalitions. A comparative appraisal of coalition government and commercial cooperative arrangements indicates some commonalities. Western European elections are characterised by multiple actors, regional preferences, smaller parties, cooperative distribution of power, and assumed negotiability of the offer. As the British political marketplace evolves to exhibit similar characteristics, insights from these markets are used to contribute to the more multifaceted, cooperative models of political marketing management required for the UK.