Profiling voters’ requirements for effective political campaign: A case on Bangladesh

• Published date: 01 February 2022
• Author: Tamgid Ahmed Chowdhury,Shahneela Naheed,Farhana Habib Zinnia
• Date: 01 February 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2293

ACADEMIC PAPER

Profiling voters’requirements for effective political campaign:

A case on Bangladesh

Tamgid Ahmed Chowdhury | Shahneela Naheed | Farhana Habib Zinnia

School of Business and Economics,

Department of Marketing & International

Business, North South University, Dhaka,

Bangladesh

Correspondence

Tamgid Ahmed Chowdhury, School of

Business and Economics, Department of

Marketing & International Business, North

South University, Plot-15, Block-B,

Bashundhara R/A, Dhaka 1229, Bangladesh.

Email: tamgid.ahmed@northsouth.edu

Funding information

North South University Annual Research

Grants, 2017-18, Grant/Award Number: NSU/

MKT/CTRG/47

Despite the extant literature on what voters want from candidates and campaigns in

western democracies, there is little research available from democracies in South Asia

on this important topic. To address this gap in the research literature, we identify

voters’desired attributes of candidates and campaigns utilizing a face-to-face survey

(N= 2,357) of eligible voters in Bangladesh. A nine-dimensional 38-item model is

developed to discuss the varied preferences for campaign media and the desired

characteristics of candidates and campaigns. Results revealed significant variation

among different demographic groups, with one exception: nearly all appreciated

celebrities and national icons in campaigns. Media preferences also vary significantly

across demographic groups.

1|INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE FOR

THE STUDY

Electoral campaigning is the best possible means for the candidates

and parties to communicate the campaign promise they would like to

make to the country and a specific constituency (National Democratic

Institute 2017). As political campaign is one of the most effective

ways to build and strengthen relationships with the electors, a care-

fully crafted election campaign reflecting the requirements of the

voters can increase voter turnout rate (Solijonov, 2016), spread posi-

tive word of mouth communication in favor of the party/candidate,

and enhance likelihood of winning the election (Kramer, 2018). In this

paper, the idea of exploring voters’requirements came from the politi-

cal communication theory forwarded by Riker, Riker, Riker, and

Mueller (1996) who argued that “when one side (candidate) has an

advantage on an issue (dominance principle), the other side ignores it; but

when neither side has an advantage, both seek new and advantageous

issues (dispersion principle)”(p. 106). Therefore, we believe, in order to

highlight dominant or new and advantageous issues in the campaigns,

the first step should be identifying the key desires of the electorate.

Even though a good number of works (Denter, 2013) have been con-

ducted on Riker et al.’s (1996) proposition, surprisingly there is lack of

studies that go further and explore the desires of voters.

Lees-Marshment (2014) argued that political parties need to fulfill

diverse needs of the citizens. Moreover, expectations of the voters

evolve over time and differ due to their demographic standings

(a similar argument was made by Tinkham, Lariscy, & Avery, 2009).

Therefore, demographic composition of the constituency plays an

important role in the persuasiveness of an election campaign. For

instance, material motivations, such as money and muscle power, play

an important role in politics for the less educated and lower income

voters (IDEA 2015), whereas inspirational features such as values,

attitudes, and leadership qualities of the candidates are vital for the

educated electoral demographic in many countries (National Demo-

cratic Institute 2017). Again, expectations of the voters may differ

across globe. For instance, Vaishnav (2017) reported that Indian

voters prefer to elect candidates who have ongoing criminal cases. On

the other hand, electors of African nations favor educated candidates

with strong social and moral standings (Gbadeyan, 2011). Considering

the stated facts, Kam (2018) argued that political product is a complex

good and voters (especially floating ones) select a candidate and party

by taking many aspects of the campaign into account. Surprisingly,

there is lack of quantitative works on exploring the requirements—the

“black box”of opinion—of the voters with diverse demographic fea-

tures such as, gender, age, occupation, and educational qualification.

(also argued by Lau, Kleinberg, & Ditonto, 2018). We believe, pin-

pointing the desires of different demographic groups of electors can

help the parties to formulate customized and effective election cam-

paigns (also argued by Lipsitz, Trost, Grossmann, & Sides, 2005). The

current study intends to offer a method of identifying and prioritizing

Received: 29 August 2019 Revised: 13 April 2020 Accepted: 13 July 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2293

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https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2293