Role of Media in the Contemporary Marketing of Governments and Political Parties - Essay Example

Marketing of government and parties Role of media in the contemporary marketing of governments and political parties Newspapers and public speeches were the main means of spreading the political ideologies in earlier days. Now television and internet are extensively used along with the other Medias. The developments of new methods and technologies in the media industry, is been used judiciously by political parties to spread the achievements of governments and the political parties. In fact most of the political parties have their own television channels and internet portals to broaden their reach to the public. “Research into major party behavior in Britain from a political marketing perspective finds that political marketing is broad in scope and offers fresh analytical tools to explain how political organizations behave. It is nevertheless a marriage between political science and marketing. It borrows the core marketing concepts of product, sales and market-orientation, and techniques such as market intelligence, and adapts them to suit traditional tenets of political science to produce an integrated theoretical framework. A party that takes a product-orientation argues for what it stands for and believes in. A Sales-Orientated party focuses on selling its argument and product to voters. A Market-Orientated party designs its behavior to provide voter satisfaction. Exploring these three orientations demonstrates that political marketing can be applied to a wide range of behavior and suggests its potential to be applied to several areas of political studies”.( Jennifer Lees-Marshment ) Marketing of government and parties 2 The political parties are marketing their ideologies just like a business group marketing its product. The business group will teach the customers about the benefits of the product through intelligent ads. Same way intelligent political campaigners of each party will make use of the visual media and print media to their utmost utilization. In fact the public will be confused in taking a decision to which political party they must support. The smart campaigners will find logical reasoning for each and every misbehavior or inefficiency of the government and the party. The recent debate about the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal is one of the best examples for the political exploitation. Both in India and in United States, the political parties were of different views about the deal. In India, the ruling UPA government led by the Indian National Congress Party has supported the deal as they argued that this deal will be an answer to the power crisis of the country. At the same time the left parties opposed the deal simply because of their ideological difference with the United States. Lot of visual and print media campaigns were occurred in support and also against the deal in India. The intelligent political campaigners appeared in the TV and in the news papers put forward their arguments logically which confused the public a lot. Finally, after a lot of political dramas, though the left parties withdrew their support to the government, another political party which was against the government earlier came up with the support, to sustain the government. The recently concluded bi-elections confirmed that, it was the ruling government which was succeeded in marketing their strategies more convincingly than the opposition parties. Marketing of government and parties 3 Political marketing means activities in which organizations adopt marketing strategies, normally used in regard to products and services, to accomplish their goals.” (Kinga Wojtas) The main aim of political marketing is to satisfy their customers, the voters. For that the campaigners will approach the voters just like a business group approaching the consumers. The product manufacturer will always ready to modify his product based on the feedback from the consumers. Same way political parties will also examines the feedback they received from the voters and based on that they will modify their ideologies and stands towards issues. Based on the marketing strategy there are two kinds of parties: marketing parties and market oriented parties. “The difference between market oriented parties and marketing parties lies in understanding marketing parties as new subjects in political sphere which use marketing rules. Meanwhile, market oriented parties will be understood as already existing parties that begin to adapt marketing techniques on a high level. J. Lees-Marshment further distinguishes between the product oriented party and the sales oriented party” (Kinga Wojtas) The product oriented party always concentrate on the product they produced. They know very well that the customer requires the best product at a lower price. So their focus will be more on the product (political stances and manifestos) rather than the customers (voters). The sales oriented party concentrate more on selling rather than the product. So they know the consumers (voters) better than the product oriented party. They know the changing trends of the customers and based on that they will modify their products. Marketing of government and parties 4 “J. Lees-Marshment created an outline for describing the process of building the marketing oriented party:” 1. Marketing intelligence 2. Product design 3. Product adjustment 4.Implementation 5.Communication 6.Campaign 7.Election 8.Delivery (J. Lees-Marshment 2001: The marriage of politics and marketing, political studies, Vol.49, p. 497) (Kinga Wojtas) Marketing intelligence will lead to the product design usually the manifestos of the political parties.. Based on the feed backs the manifestos will be modified in the next step. After the modifications the manifestos will be submitted to the public for their approval. Communications with the voters and the campaign for the public approval for the product (manifestos) will be followed. All the efforts of marketing of the product will be finished by the election. Delivery of the offers given in the manifesto is the last step involved in the marketing campaign of the political parties. “Unless a party follows the general will as offered through polling research, it can have little or no success in general elections. Parties must create a brand for themselves, this links them to a product that is desired by the electorate and will be expected to reject ideological constraints in favor of electoral dividends. “(Darren G Lilleker). Marketing is found to be the core of any political campaign just like the marketing of a product. Those who excel in new marketing techniques will be the winners ultimately. Media plays a vital role in making or breaking a party. Neutral Marketing of government and parties 5 Medias are rare and hence most of the parties started their own media sources to attract and spread their ideologies to the general public. Marketing of government and parties 6 Sources 1. Darren G Lilleker – Marketing techniques and political campaigns: the limitations for the marketing of British political parties. Retrieved on 24/12/08 http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2002/lilleker2.pdf 2. Jennifer Lees-Marshment - The Marriage of Politics and Marketing – Retrieved on 24/12/08 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119015618/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 3. Kinga Wojtas – The “marketing party” as a model for the development of contemporary political parties – Retrieved on 24/12/08 http://www.cepsr.com/dwnld/wojt4.pdf Read More