Political marketing assignment

Therefore, the candidate should try to fit his voting strategy to efferent voter segments-?? that is, to find the best position for himself in each of them. Such a procedure requires marketing research, which is illustrated by the arrow in Figure 2. 1, connecting the four As marketing program with voter segments. This link is mediated by marketing research whose results, given to the candidate, show him what marketing mix he should use to be most successful. In political marketing, being successful mainly means expanding one’s electorate. Infringer described his concept using the example of the election committee in U. S. Residential campaigns. In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower staff 32 CHAPTER 2 first conducted marketing research in the form of preventing polls whose goal was to position the candidate. The purpose of the research was to define Eisenhower position relative to the position of his main rival, Dalai Stevenson. The research procedure was quite simple. First, the voters were presented with thirty-second political spots. Then, an interview was conducted to determine which problem presentation made the greatest impression on the voters. The interviewers could then predict the voters’ behavior by controlling the problems presented in the spot.

Preventing marketing polls very quickly began to be commonly used to position presidential campaign of 1968. They first tried to determine the voters’ ideas of the ideal U. S. President, and then the next step was to position, in such a context, the images of Nixon and his main opponents, Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace. Defining the differences between the image of an ideal president and his own, Nixon was able to determine which characteristics should be improved and presented in TV spots in such a way as to approach as closely as possible the voters’ expectations.

They were quick to spot that in his speeches, the Republican candidate was perceived as a political warmonger and as dangerous and uncaring. Instead of using the phrase the “ defensive position,” the candidate began to talk about the “ peace position. ” The “ armaments race” was replaced by the phrase closer to the image of an ideal president. He was perceived as a politician who would strengthen peace. The price of the product offered by the candidate refers to the total costs that voters would bear if the candidate were elected.

It includes economic costs, such as tax increases or budget cuts. Other costs listed by Infringer include national image effects: whether the voters will perceive the new leader as a strong one, someone who will increase people’s national pride, or someone who will be a disgrace to his compatriots on the international stage. There are also psychological costs: will voters feel comfortable with the candidate’s religious and ethnic background? The general marketing strategy for the price consists in minimizing the candidate’s own costs and maximizing the opposition’s.

Promotion consists, to a candidate, his program, and the campaign. Infringer distinguishes four fundamental promotion strategies: 1 . Concentration strategy-?? concentrating a disproportionate amount of money and promotion efforts on particular voter segments (for instance on regions or provinces); 2. Timing strategy-?? spending the heaviest promotion money and the highest promotion activity where it does the candidate the most good, thus forcing the opposition to increase their activity and thus deplete their resources; 3. Treated of misdirection-?? avoiding a frontal assault against a stronger opponent and trying to catch the opponent off balance to make her commit a mistake (this may be a particularly successful strategy for underdogs); and 4. Strategy of negative campaign-?? staging a direct or indirect comparative assault against the position of the opponent and/or her personal characteristics. Recognizing the reasons for his poor showings in political debates in 1980, during the next election Ronald Reagan decided to change the strategy he had been using and focus in his political spots on evoking positive emotions in his voters.

His spots featured sunrises, colorful parades, landscapes, and friendly faces. They contrasted with Walter Mandate’s spots, which gave rise to negative emotions by presenting the visions of atomic holocaust, starve- 35 Zion, and poverty. A detailed analysis of advertising strategies used in political managing will be presented in Chapter 6. Specific marketing programs based on the four As are prepared separately for different voting market segments.

A spectacular success in a given area may have a positive influence on the campaign in other areas. Infringer suggests that negative advertising be used only as a last resort because it might produce a backlash. Political campaign workers should also use the specific qualities and limitations of television to gain competitive advantage (e. G. , organize rallies or meetings that can make headlines). Despite the fact that it attempts to show the efficiency of using marketing strategies for political campaigns, Infighter’s concept of political marketing is in fact a copy of the concepts used in commercial marketing.

It seems, then, that it does not distinguish to a sufficient extent between consumer and political choices. Marketing the Political Product According to Reid David Reed’s concept (1988) is also an attempt to apply some concepts from mainstream marketing to political marketing. It focuses on this element of the voting process that refers to voting understood as a buying process. Reid stresses that by looking at the problem from a consumer perspective, a broader marketing approach could make a useful contribution toward a better theoretical knowledge of the “ voting decision process. The core of the buying recess involves the following stages: 1. Problem recognition. This stage refers to motivation, which triggers the recognition that there is a problem to be considered. In its essence, the process boils down to asking the voter the following question: “ Whom will I vote for? ” Recognition of the problem is determined by the voter’s needs, which, to a different extent, refer to the candidate’s voting problems. For instance, if the voter has problems finding employment, he will be sensitive to a program in which the politician stresses lower unemployment as one of her major goals. 2. Search.

It is presented by Figure 2. 2. Reed’s approach to political marketing corresponds very well to the marketing concept, which is the last stage of the evolution process in which presidential candidates have gone from campaign organizations run by party bosses a pretty accurate reflection of the concepts developed in mainstream marketing and used for political behavior. However, this approach excludes a number of specific characteristics both of the political market and of different strategies of running lattice campaigns.

Kettle and Jostler’s Model of a Candidate’s Marketing Map Philip Kettle and Neil Kettle (1999) present a six-stage process of marketing activities related to political campaigns. The analysis of these activities creates a candidate marketing map, presented in Figure 2. 3. A professionally planned political campaign consists of (1) environmental research, (2) internal and external assessment, (3) strategic marketing, (4) setting the goals and strategy of the campaign, (5) planning communication, distribution, and organization, and (6) defining key markets for the campaign.

At this stage of a candidate marketing map, the organizers of the campaign focus on analyzing the electorate in various districts. Some characteristics of the voters remain stable for a long time; however, other characteristics change from campaign to campaign. For instance, an attractive and active candidate planning new reforms may develop a new segment of voters and reconfigure the value they ascribe to the issues she aims to promote in her voting program. Organizers of political campaigns first define all the segments of the voters in a particular district, highlighting those who are intending to vote and those who are not.

Then the organizers try to divide the potential voters into particular segments for which they prepare a particular marketing strategy. For instance, the incumbent may seek to work with older, affluent, and conservative voters who supported her in the previous elections. A new candidate who is thinking about conducting fundamental reforms may develop a coalition with young and liberal voters who are open to changes, which requires strong identification with the issues included in his voting program as well as developing a new personality and identity on the political scene.

According to him, this process includes three stages: (1) the preparation process during which the candidate assesses his and his competition’s strengths, (2) the process of developing a strategy of influencing voters, and (3) the process of implementing the strategy. Lees-Martinet’s Theory of Comprehensive Political Marketing The comprehensive political marketing (CPM) described by Jennifer Electromagnets (2001 a, 2001 b, 2003; see also Women and Lees- Marshiest 2005) is also consistent with the development of the concept of product in economic marketing.