The Marketing Concept in Political Marketing

The Marketing Concept in Politics

Topic: Applying the marketing concept to political parties and electoral campaigns; explores whether political parties exhibit a marketing orientation and how the marketing concept can be understood, adopted, and its influence within a political organization.
Author and context: Aron O’Cass; article in European Journal of Marketing (1996). Case study of a major political party in Queensland, Australia.
Research questions addressed:
- What is the expressed understanding of the marketing concept within a political party?
- What attitudes do party members have toward the marketing concept and its applicability to politics?
- What is the influence and applicability of the marketing concept within the party?
Rationale: Traditional marketing theory emphasizes customer (voter) orientation; applying marketing to politics may yield new insights into party behavior and performance, but empirical evidence on adoption by political parties is limited.
Core idea: The marketing concept centers on identifying and satisfying the needs of customers (voters) and aligning organizational activities to deliver value profitably or effectively in political terms.

The Marketing Concept and Marketing’s Domain

Marketing concept as a general management philosophy: needs of consumers (or voters) are primary; organization should be customer-oriented; aim is to satisfy identified needs and achieve organizational goals (profit in business, electoral success in politics).
Foundational thinkers and definitions:
- Drucker (1954): early expressions of the general management marketing concept.
- Kotler and Levy (1969, 1973): broadening marketing beyond private sector; marketing as a domain that includes non-profit and public sector; exchange extends beyond economic transactions.
- Levitt (1960, 1984); Kotler (1972, 1986); Wensley (1990); etc.
Key normative claim: marketing is a useful philosophy for both profit and non-profit organizations; the core task is to identify and satisfy needs with an organized, coordinated set of marketing activities.
In politics: applying the marketing concept requires understanding voters’ values, needs, and criteria; voters exchange time/support for political services (governance) after elections.
The generic concept of marketing extends to all organizations and their relationships with any public; political processes fit within marketing’s extended domain because voting is an exchange.
Houston’s interpretation (1986): marketing concept as a managerial prescription to achieve entity goals under defined market conditions; success comes from understanding potential exchange partners, their needs, costs of satisfying them, and designing offerings accordingly.
The marketing concept does not demand differentiating every product for every segment; even undifferentiated offerings can be appropriate if they are well understood within market response and cost structures.
Marketing concept and politics: if a party’s product (policy package) aligns with voters’ values and needs, voter satisfaction should increase; the party should deliver value efficiently and effectively to create exchanges with voters.
The marketing concept is argued to provide an integrating mechanism across organizational functions; marketing success requires customer-centeredness, research reliance, segmentation, broad view of competition, and coordinated use of the marketing mix.
Diversity of applications in politics is underexplored; existing literature has largely focused on general marketing or political marketing in a limited set of contexts.

Applying Marketing to Politics

Conceptual linkage: many marketing concepts and tools (branding, messaging, segmentation, promotion) can be applied to political actors and campaigns.
Key voices: Kotler (1975, 1981), Mauser (1983), Shama (1973), Nimmo (1970), Posner (1992), Niffenegger (1989) argue that politicians and parties resemble consumer products in some respects and are shaped by market-style campaigns.
Core challenge: translating marketing into the public sector and politics is difficult when organizational orientation is more about internal processes and ideology than about voters’ needs.
Organizational orientation debate:
- Kotler and Andreasen (1991): public/nonprofit organizations struggle with being organization-centered rather than customer-centered.
- Marketing orientation requires customer-centeredness, heavy reliance on research, segmentation, broader competition definition, and full use of the marketing mix.
Marketing as an integrating, purposive set of tools: to be truly marketing, organizations must apply the full, synergistic set of marketing functions; adopting only single elements (e.g., advertising) is not marketing.
The literature highlights a gap: diversity of political contexts and applications is not yet well captured; empirical work in politics remains limited.

Research Method

Design: two-stage case study in Queensland, Australia.
Stage 1 (qualitative): in-depth interviews with seven state party executives (executive management). Data collection via tape-recorded interviews; analysis involved categorization and identifying similarities across interviews.
Stage 2 (quantitative): a mail survey with a 68-item Likert-type questionnaire assessing: the marketing concept, market orientation, political product, party marketing activity, and effectiveness. Four decision-making categories were targeted: state executives, state candidates (1992), state campaign director (1992), and branch chairmen.
Rationale for case study method: appropriate for critical/revelatory cases and to explore pre-paradigmatic phenomena; allows exploratory and descriptive analysis within the same study (Patton, Yin, Parkhe).
Sampling and design specifics:
- Purposeful, stratified, disproportionate sampling to ensure representation of relevant subgroups with expected parameter differences.
- Sample frame details (Table I):
- State executive: frame 29, sample 29
- State candidates 1992: frame 105, sample 58
- State campaign director 1992: frame 79, sample 35
- Branch chairman: frame 105, sample 28
- Total: frame 318, sample 150
Response rates and triangulation:
- Stage 2 mail survey initial response: 44%
- Follow-up random sample of non-respondents: 20% (to reach 100% within non-respondents for a total of 100% of that follow-up group)
- Final combined response rate: 54%
Overall: findings from stages 1 and 2 are congruent; triangulation yields high convergent validity.

Findings: Understanding and Attitudes (Stage 1)

Understanding of the marketing concept:
- Stage 1 interviews indicate highest-level decision-makers have minimal understanding of the marketing concept.
- Example: Interviewee 4 described marketing concept as “essentially finding out what people want and then telling them what they want to get elected.”
- Table II (interview data): 6 of 7 interviewees expressed no understanding of the term; only one expressed a minimal understanding, which was not aligned with literature.
- Conclusion: managerial body within the party generally lacks understanding of the marketing concept.
Attitudes toward the marketing concept:
- Attitudes were generally neither strongly positive nor strongly negative after exposure to a basic definition and objectives.
- Some interviewees believed the concept could move the party away from its ideological commitments; negative in terms of long-term fit; mixed views about short-term usefulness if it helps elect candidates.
- A recurring theme: employing marketing as a manipulative tool (“flight to the middle ground,” telling people what they want to hear) could be viewed more positively by some if it helps electoral success.
- Overall, attitudes tended toward skepticism about suitability, with reservations about governing well if adapted too rigidly; some openness if it aids electoral success.

Findings: Concept Dimensions, Adequacy, and Influence (Stage 2 Part A)

Part A assessed marketing concept objectives, adequacy, and influence.
Key findings:
- High level of agreement that the marketing concept objectives are valuable; even when framed in political terminology, there is strong support for the concept’s objectives.
- However, there is perceived potential conflict: voter needs may conflict with political objectives, potentially undermining implementation.
- The majority (67%) believed the marketing concept would be useful for the party; respondents were split between agreeing and disagreeing that political objectives would override voter needs in case of conflict.
- Survey results aligned with interviews in showing limited actual influence or adoption of the marketing concept within the party.
- A notable contradiction: 74% of stage 2 respondents believed the marketing concept, expressed in political terms, would work if adopted. This contrasts with interview findings suggesting reservations about suitability; explanation includes:
- Respondents in Stage 2 received political-term definitions that were more applicable to their context than the interviewees.
- Stage 1 interviewees had deeper awareness of internal constraints that might impede adoption.
Conclusion from Stage 2 about influence and applicability:
- Marketing concept has had little influence within the party to date (both in interviews and surveys), but there is notable support for its normative value if defined in political terms.
- Normative redefinition to politically framed language improves perceived applicability.

Market Orientation Findings (Stage 2 – Part C)

Market orientation framework (Jaworski & Kohli): three pillars – (1) organization-wide generation of market intelligence, (2) dissemination of intelligence across the organization, (3) organization-wide responsiveness to it.
Findings for the party:
- Low voter focus: little emphasis on understanding and prioritizing voter needs.
- Low research emphasis: research activities are minimal and often post hoc; decisions frequently precede research.
- Intelligence gathering is weak; dissemination and responsiveness to gathered information are negligible.
- Overall: the party does not demonstrate a genuine market orientation; decisions are not systematically informed by voter insights.
Qualitative corroboration: Interviewee 7 notes that research is often limited, with restricted circulation and little dissemination beyond election time.

Conclusions and Implications

Key takeaways:
- There is a substantial gap between the marketing concept being academically celebrated and its understanding/implementation within the party’s leadership.
- Attitudes toward the marketing concept among non-top-management levels tend to be positive in normative terms, but top management often views it skeptically in terms of practicality and ideological compatibility.
- The semantic redefinition of marketing for politics (political terminology) increases acceptance of the underlying principles, suggesting the need for industry- or sector-specific language to facilitate adoption.
- The marketing concept, when expressed in normative political terms, tends to receive higher acceptance, indicating a path toward practical adoption if terminology and objectives align with political realities.
Barriers to adoption identified in the study:
- Misinterpretation of the marketing concept as merely a selling technique rather than an integrated, customer-centered philosophy.
- Internal conflict between voter needs and political objectives; short-term political pressures undermine long-term marketing orientation.
- Management values and perceived importance of voter input in developing the political product.
- The public-sector/public-interest nature of politics makes it difficult to implement marketing in a way that is truly customer-centered, requiring a shift from organization-centered thinking to a marketing mindset (Kotler & Andreasen, 1991; Webster, 1992).
Theoretical and practical implications:
- Marketing has the potential to serve as an integrating mechanism across organizational functions in politics, guiding product (policy) development, communication, and governance in a way that better meets voter needs.
- A marketing orientation can improve understanding of voter needs, build brand loyalty among voters, and create repeat exchanges, though it cannot guarantee electoral victory.
- The notion of political marketing must move beyond a selling or promotional mindset toward a holistic, customer-centered orientation that coordinates product development, pricing (costs and benefits to voters), distribution (information and governance), and promotion (communication).
Recommendations for politics:
- Use politically relevant language to express marketing concepts; adapt definitions to political objectives and governance outcomes.
- Develop and institutionalize market research focused on voters’ needs and preferences; disseminate insights across the organization; build responsiveness to those insights.
- Align political strategy with voter needs while maintaining ideological and parliamentary constraints; avoid a “flight to the middle” that damages long-term credibility.
- Encourage leadership to endorse a marketing orientation and implement cross-functional marketing processes rather than relying on isolated promotional activities.

Implications for Political Practice and Research

For practitioners:
- Consider reframing marketing concepts in language meaningful to political stakeholders.
- Invest in market intelligence on voters’ needs and ensure cross-departmental dissemination and responsiveness to insights.
- Acknowledge and manage potential conflicts between voter needs and internal political objectives; develop governance that supports customer-centered decision making where feasible.
For researchers:
- More empirical work on political marketing is needed to map the extent of marketing orientation across different parties and political systems.
- Future studies should explore how sector-specific adaptations of the marketing concept influence adoption and effectiveness in politics.

Final Observations

The study suggests that marketing concepts can offer valuable perspectives for politics, but successful adoption requires translating theory into political-operational terms, cultivating a genuine market orientation, and aligning organizational incentives with voter-centered objectives.
Marketing in politics is not merely about tactics (advertising, polling) but about an integrated approach to designing and delivering political products (policies, governance) that meet voters’ needs more effectively than competitors, while recognizing the unique constraints of political life.

References (Selected)

Foundational marketing works and cross-domain extensions: Drucker (1954); Levitt (1960, 1984); Kotler (1972, 1975, 1986); Kotler & Levy (1969, 1973); Kotler & Andreasen (1991); Kotler & Kotler (1981); Kotler, Levy, Zaltman (1971); Webster (1988, 1992); Jaworski & Kohli (1990, 1993).
Political marketing-related contributions: Arndt (1978); Glick (1967); Shama (1973); Mauser (1983); Nimmo (1970); Newman & Sheth (1985, 1987); Niffenegger (1989); Reid (1988); Posner (1992); Nimmo (1970).
Methodology and case-study references: Patton (1990); Yin (1989); Eisenhardt (1989); Parkhe (1993).
Note: The list above reflects major concepts and sources cited in the article; the full reference list includes detailed bibliographic entries for all referenced works.

Conclusions and Implications

Understanding Gap: There's a significant difference between the academic concept of marketing and its actual understanding and implementation by political party leadership.
Attitudes Vary: While non-top management often holds positive views on the marketing concept's underlying principles, top management tends to be skeptical, citing practicality and ideological conflicts.
Semantic Redefinition: Expressing marketing concepts in political terminology (e.g., voter needs for policy, electoral success for profitability) significantly boosts their acceptance and perceived applicability within political organizations.
Barriers to Adoption:
- Misinterpretation: Marketing is often seen as mere selling or promotion, not a comprehensive, customer-centric philosophy.
- Internal Conflict: Short-term political objectives frequently outweigh long-term voter needs, hindering a true marketing orientation.
- Management Values: The importance leadership places on voter input in policy development is crucial.
- Public-sector Nature: The public-interest nature of politics makes a purely customer-centered approach challenging, requiring a shift from organization-centered thinking.
Theoretical/Practical Implications:
- Integrating Mechanism: Marketing can unify organizational functions in politics, guiding policy development, communication, and governance to better meet voter needs.
- Improved Outcomes: A marketing orientation can deepen understanding of voter needs, build loyalty, and foster repeat exchanges (e.g., votes, support), though it doesn't guarantee victory.
- Holistic Approach: Political marketing must evolve beyond just promotion to encompass a holistic, voter-centered approach to policy design, benefits (cost to voters), distribution (information, governance), and communication.

Final Observations

Successful adoption of marketing in politics requires translating theory into practical, political-operational terms, fostering a genuine market orientation, and aligning organizational incentives with voter-centered objectives.
Marketing in politics extends beyond mere tactics (advertising, polling); it's an integrated strategy for developing and delivering political products (policies, governance) that effectively meet voters' needs, while acknowledging political constraints.