Marketing in Politics

When a book is written on this election, it should not be titled “The Making of a President” but “The Marketing of a President”- these lines quoted from Harvard Business Online, underline the marketing excellence of Obama’s campaign. The viral marketing campaign is considered as one of the most innovative uses of marketing for political purposes and has earned much acclaim.

Not taking anything away from the sheer brilliance of the campaign, I would like to dispel, in this article, the popular myth that Marketing is new to Politics. In fact, a study of the evolution of Politics suggests that Politics has been the earliest adopters of the innovations in marketing. Just like any other FMCG company, the rules of the game have changed from a pure “sales” focus where the only important target was to get “votes” to long-term relationship building. Segmentation, Positioning - name any marketing terminology and it has been used in some form or other by the various political parties around the world. However, there are serious implications of these applications and hence, a clear demarcation of boundaries and limitations of Political Marketing is required.

Political Marketing - Meaning

Political Marketing is defined as “a set of activities, processes or political institutions used by political organisations, candidates and individuals to create, communicate, deliver and exchange promises of value with voter-consumers, political party stakeholders and society at large.”(Andrew Hughes and Stephen Dann).

Thus, Political marketing seeks to establish, maintain and enhance long-term voter relationship at a benefit for society and political organisations so that the objectives of the individual political actors and organisations involved are met. This is done by mutual exchange and fulfilment of promises (Henneberg, 1996; O’Shaughnessy, 2001). The political “product” may include party policy, leader image, promise, or references to past performance of a political entity (O’Shaughnessy, 2001).

From this perspective, the political marketing completely fits the bill of an oligopolistic FMCG market. However, the application of the marketing concepts to politics is not without some serious ethical implications, especially in case of multiparty system like India.

Ethical Implications – Indian Perspective

“MNS Chief Raj Thackeray Asks North Indian Taxi and Auto Drivers to Learn Marathi or Leave Maharashtra Within 40 Days”- this is the other “ugly” side of influence of marketing over politics. This kind of misuse of marketing techniques are usually observed in multiparty political setup where political parties serving only the interests of certain “target segments”

(segmented on the basis of geography and religion), commit such despicable acts to create “PRO”-segment positioning for themselves.

This is where a clear line has to be drawn between politics and marketing to avoid the drastic consequences of a political system having marketing deficiencies. However, this is often not possible despite the frequent interventions of the Election Commission. The cause of this is the “thin but dangerous” line between marketing and politics that the constitution makers probably failed to see. Having said that the multiparty system is indispensable in a diverse country like India to avoid the parties serving only to the “mass market” i.e. majority in this case. The solution to this can also only come from developments in marketing. Development of an effective system to curb “Competitive Advertising” is what is required so that it can be replicated in the multiparty political system.