General election marketing—selling a can of beans, building a favours bank or managing an event?

• Author: Nigel Jackson
• Published date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1464
• Date: 01 August 2013

■Academic Paper

General election marketing—selling a can

of beans, building a favours bank or

managing an event?

Nigel Jackson*

Plymouth Business School, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK

This paper applies three marketing approaches to identify a possible framework for analysing the 2010 general

election. The first approach to be assessed is transactional, which is the traditional view of political marketing. The

second approach is relationship marketing, of which there is some evidence that it has applied to politics. The third

approach, experiential, has not yet been applied to the political context. As this is an exploratory research project,

the data are collected from one small geographical area, Devon. Interviews were conducted with candidates in

the 12 seats in this county to identify which, if any, of these three marketing approaches might apply to UK

general elections. The article, argues that a hybrid approach to political marketing, drawing on all three

approaches can potentially offer researchers a framework for understanding general election campaigns.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

Election campaigns have been a major source of

political marketing analysis. Kotler (1975) suggested

that a candidate had to use marketing techniques,

and to understand voters, in the same way that

marketers sought to sell soap. At UK elections,

research has focused on whether the detail of

marketing has been applied during elections, so

Butler and Collins (1994) stressed the product,

Lilleker and Scullion (2008) viewed voters as

consumers and Lloyd (2006) addressed party brand.

Rather than addressing such microlevel issues, an

alternative is to consider at a macrolevel whether

marketing approaches can offer a framework for

understanding the value of marketing to politicians.

The first part of this article willassess the application

of three marketingapproaches to political marketing:

transactional, relationship and experiential. Then, we

will explain the methodology for assessing which of

these three marketing approaches had any impact in

the 2010 general election. Third, we will outline

whether in a pilot study in one geographical part of

the election, Devon; there is empirical evidence for

these approaches driving individual candidate’sactivity.

Lastly, we shall measure the application of marketing

approaches as a political marketing analytical tool.

MARKETING APPROACHES

Marketing is constantly evolving in terms of tactics

and strategies, what differentiates how one political

actor uses these can be influenced by the overall

principles underpinning them. These principles

can be codified within one of three main marketing

approaches: transactional, relational and experien-

tial. The transactional can be traced back to the

1940s and 1950s (McCarthy, 1960), relationship

marketing to the 1980s (Gronroos, 1994) and experi-

ential to the late 1990s (Schmitt, 1999). Sheth and

Parvatiyer (1995) suggest that marketing in the

industrial era relied on exchange and so stressed

*Correspondence to: Nigel Jackson, Plymouth Business School,

Plymouth University, Cookworthy Building, Drake Circus,

Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA, UK.

E-mail: nigel.jackson@plymouth.ac.uk

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 13 Number 3 pp 251–259 (2013)

Published online 27 May 2013 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1464

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.