Evaluating political party positioning over time: a proposed methodology

• Author: Alessandro Bigi,Michelle Bonera,Anjali Bal
• Date: 01 May 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1561
• Published date: 01 May 2016

■Academic Paper

Evaluating political party positioning

over time: a proposed methodology

Alessandro Bigi

1

*, Michelle Bonera

2

and Anjali Bal

3

1

Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Division of Industrial Marketing—INDEK, Stockholm, Sweden

2

University of Brescia, Economics and Management, Brescia, Italy

3

Babson College, Marketing, Massachusetts, USA

In this article, we propose a methodology in order to measure political positioning and constituent perception. Polit-

ical leaders should be able to effectively define the distinctive characteristics of their political brand and to subse-

quently utilize the most appropriate mechanisms of communication to promote an accurate perception of political

image in the market. The specific aim of this research is to explore interrelations between a political party’s positioning

in two different periods in order to discover possible discrepancies and changes over time. The official blog of a po-

litical party, containing both official communication and the people’s feedback, represents a perfect place in which to

observe the concepts and the values on which both the political brand identity and image are founded. Leximancer,a

content analysis tool, was utilized to analyze communications between a political party leader and his or her constit-

uents. Illustrating the methodology, the blog of Beppe Grillo, founder of the Movimento 5 Stelle is analyzed. Copyright

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

The popularity of the blog has grown exponentially

since its origin in the late 1990s. Increasingly, con-

sumers and constituents are trusting blogs more

and more as a location for relevant and trustworthy

news and political information. As of 2014, an as-

tounding 77% of Internet users read blogs online

and amazingly 81% of consumers in the USA trust

the information presented from blogs (The Blog

Economy 2014). Social media websites such as

Twitter and Facebook include blogs and microblogs

as means of allowing users to express themselves

and engage with others. While the popularity of

blogs is undeniable, there remain numerous

questions as to what a blog tells us about its creator

as well as how others might interpret meaning as

positioned in the blog. The focus of this article is to

propose that blogs can be utilized not only to

gage popularity i n political arenas but also to

measure political positioning and to help politi-

cians and political parties better represent them-

selves. Kotler and Levy proposed the possible

utility of marketing for politics for the first time

in 1969, arguing that marketing, hitherto confined

to businesses an d commercial organi zations,

couldbeextendedtoallorganizations.Themar-

keting concept, as a general manage ment philoso-

phy, has been noted as being useful and relevant

to both profit and nonprofit organizations (Kotler

& Zaltman, 1971; Brownlie & Saren, 1991), as well

as to a variety of other industrial contexts (Kotler,

1972; Wensley, 1990).

Kelley (1956) is generally credited with the first

usage of the term political marketing. In his view,

political marketing was virtually synonymous with

propaganda, as it was aimed essentially at persua-

sion. Gronroos (1990) defined political marketing

activity as ‘seeking to establish, maintain and en-

hance long-term voter relationships at a profit for

society and political parties, so that the objectives

*Correspondence to: Alessandro Bigi, Royal Institute of Technol-

ogy (KTH), Division of Industrial Marketing—INDEK,

Stockholm, Sweden

E-mail: abigi@marketingconcept.it

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 16 Number 2 pp 128–139 (2016)

Published online 14 May 2015 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1561

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.