Positioning Political Parties: The 2005 UK General Election

After identifying the paucity of positioning research relating to political marketing the construct is defined and practical examples of its application in politics provided. The analysis of the 2005 election starts by considering the long term framing of political issues and concludes that this, overall, provided Labour with a competitive advantage. Next the positioning dilemmas facing the three national parties in British politics at the start of the campaign are highlighted. Using a basic positioning model, the positioning strategies followed during the campaign itself are then discussed, both in terms of policies and image/emotional positioning approaches. The attempts by the opposition parties to reposition Labour and the latter's defensive reactions are discussed at this point. Then, the way the wider positioning of the parties was targeted at electoral segments is considered. The paper concludes with an attempt to explain the election result in terms of the relative success or failure of the positioning strategies adopted.     

An Exploration of the Advertising Ambitions and Strategies of the 2001 British General Election

This paper reports on one element of our wider study investigating the 2001 British General Election national advertising, and the attitudes and perceptions of the young British electorate to the campaigns. The discussion presented here explores the strategies and ambitions of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats' 2001 national advertising campaigns. Our analysis is based on indepth interviews with key members of the three parties advertising agencies; content analysis of the national posters, press and party election broadcasts; and secondary source information e.g. coverage in the marketing and advertising press, newspaper, radio and TV reporting. A number of issues emerge including the key role of the advertising in agenda setting and agenda control, evidence of media misrepresentation of the central advertising themes, the poor use of the Internet, and the rather limited ambitions for the advertising itself.     

Political Marketing Funding and Expenditure in the UK General Election Campaign of 2005.

The 2005 UK General Election will be the second for which detailed data will be available from the Electoral Commission. Whilst this will not be published until 2006, it is possible using 2001 data and participant accounts to identify the overall funding patterns of the three major party campaigns and changes in the way that was spent. In broad terms, funding and expenditure changed little in money terms from 2001 to 2005, largely due to the impact of financial constraints and regulation on the parties. However, in 2005 for the first time, both the Labour and Conservative parties made significant use of direct marketing methods, notably telephone and direct mail to communicate with target voters in closely contested constituencies. The financial constraints on the parties and the strict restrictions on donations have put the question of significant state funding for political parties back on the agenda. The paper summarises the UK regulatory framework on electoral expenditure and political donations and considers the arguments for and against expanding state funding.     

Labour,Political Marketing and the 2005 Election: A Campaign of Two Halves

Labour's 2005 election campaign was extensively underpinned by political marketing. This resulted in a campaign of unequal halves; generic and populist at national level; focused and individualised at local level. This article describes the text of Labour's campaign, and its response to its environment, focusing upon its image management strategies in response to the political and media environment within which it operated. This also included the Conservatives and an increasing overlap between politics and celebrity culture. This campaign saw a continuation and sophistication of marketing strategies and technologies, enabling parties to target individual, strategically important, voters. A specific personalised message was presented to 2% of the electorate, while a broad image was promoted to the rest of the populace. With an election focused on a targeted minority of the electorate, it is argued that far from being a force to enhance democracy, marketing at the 2005 election challenges the ideals upon which the democratic process of politics is premised.     

Fear,Negative Campaigning and Loathing: The Case of the UK Election Campaign

Fear has for some time been used in marketing communications particularly in social and health marketing. This paper explores how fear was used in the General Election Campaign and uses Aristotle's concept of rhetoric as a basis for understanding how messages are conveyed to the electorate. It argues that fear appeals are resonant with one particular type of voter but alienates other segments.     

The Exporter - Import Agent Contract and the Influence of Cultural Dimensions

This paper examines the relationship between an exporter and an import agent in an international marketing channel using agency theory and cultural dimension frameworks, and proposes a research agenda with five testable propositions from this literature. Agency theory provides a way of forming an efficient exporter-agent contract and suggests that efficient contractual conditions are likely to provide the basis of a successful negotiated outcome. Cultural dimensions are elements that are likely to create obstacles to an efficient contractual outcome. This paper presents the concept of the dimensional gap that exporters may need to bridge in order to form an efficient contractual relationship. We suggest that in a cross cultural encounter, a divergence of cultural dimensions between the parties to the contract will impact adversely on agency costs and lead to contractual inefficiencies. By identifying gaps in the cultural dimensions between contractual parties, and taking steps towards reducing these gaps, the potential for such inefficiencies can be reduced, improving the chances of successful contractual outcomes. The dimensional gap considers the influence of four cultural dimensions on contractual efficiency. This paper presents five testable propositions suggesting that cultural gaps within power distance, individualism and masculinity, can be bridged through greater flexibility and adaptability in management decisions acquired through experience and learning, whereas gaps in long term orientation and uncertainty avoidance are less likely to be influenced by such behaviour. Where the latter condition exists, it is proposed that the potential of high transaction costs will result in exporters by-passing intermediaries and using more integrated forms of entry.     

Measuring and Managing Employer Brand Image in the Service Industry

In competitive labour markets, the challenge for service-based organisations is to differentiate themselves in order to successfully attract and retain talented staff. Recently, the notion of branding the firm to potential and existing employees has been evoked in the marketing literature. In an empirical study, we measure aspects of this 'employer brand' image among potential recruits and recruiters during the recruitment process. The managerial implications of developing a more consistent employer brand image in the recruitment market are discussed. We conclude the paper by highlighting the contribution of our research, its limitations and areas for further research     

The Perils and Opportunities of Communicating Corporate Ethics

This paper examines critical success factors for ethics-related corporate communication with a view to helping companies communicate their ethical stance more effectively. We analyze this communication process from the company's point of view and discuss the implications of source credibility, attitude formation, audience involvement and media choice for image management. We argue that the ideal relationship between corporate ethics, corporate communication, and corporate image is a sequence of activities, with companies adjusting their messages as they change their business conduct. In this way, public perceptions are a fair reflection of corporate behaviour. This process should be a continuous, upward moving cycle that stops when the company's public image matches its desired image. We also point out the dangers inherent in communicating corporate ethics, including public cynicism and elevated stakeholder expectations.     

Branded lives: The production and consumption of meaning at work

Over the last number of decades, as a result of regulatory, technological and changing consumer dynamics, many service organisations operate in an increasingly competitive and dynamic external environment. These changes have led to service companies trying to both recruit and retain profitable customers. In order to compete effectively, do companies focus on transaction and relationship marketing activities only or on the balanced delivery of both? Apart from a small body of work (Brodie et al. 1997; Coviello et al. 1997; 2002), the literature has treated transaction and relationship marketing in an isolated and non-integrated fashion. In particular there has been limited consideration of the pertinent issues facing service organisations trying to integrate these two perspectives in practice. This article describes an in-depth study of a service organisation's transaction and relationship marketing activities. In this study theory was used in the development of a conceptual model. This model was used as a framework to guide the study and data collection using one retail bank case. The data were analysed in relation to the transaction and relationship marketing focus and activities of the bank. The findings indicate that resource investment in some aspects of transaction and relationship marketing activities, in practice, was unbalanced compared to the resource investment in a wide range of support activities. The study has implications for research and theory and to those attempting to deliver both transaction and relationship marketing in the context of dynamic and competitive environments.     

Grey Power,School Gate Mums and the Youth Vote: Age as a Key Factor in Voter Segmentation and Engagement in the 2005 UK General Election.

This paper seeks to examine attempts by the main political parties in the UK general election of 2005 to segment the electorate according to their age and position within the life cycle. Particular attention is given to product adjustments and the party campaigns for the votes of older people, the "grey vote", as the political market shifts profoundly driven both by demographics, the ageing of the population, as well as by electoral behaviour, the declining participation of younger voters. Consideration is also given to segmentation of voters in the first age, the "youth vote", and the second age, "Generation Jones" and "school gate mums". The paper moves on to discuss age and segmentation in the context of elections remaining essentially mass communications campaigns, and the responses within civil society to the apparent power allocated to sub-groups identified as priority targets.     

Entrepreneurial Marketing in the Public Sector: The Lessons of Headteachers as Entrepreneurs

This article argues that headteachers of primary schools have been at the forefront of the marketing/entrepreneurship interface since attempts to introduce competitive market forces into the maintained education system. It examines primary school headteachers' marketing strategies and compares them to those of owner managers of small firms. Case studies of ten schools illustrative of a variety of provision and market conditions provided the empirical data over a five year period. The headteachers shared many of the marketing problems of owner-managers of small firms. Headteachers found that the most effective marketing strategies consisted of: i) marketing to improve relationships with existing parents, staff and governors as an essential precursor to any external marketing effort; ii) parental involvement in the school which improved the likelihood of word of mouth recommendations; and iii) influencing such recommendations by marketing to improve parental and other involvement in the school. As word of mouth is also the most important source of new business for small firms, there are opportunities for lessons from the public to the private sector.     

From Cattle and Coke to Charlie: Meeting the Challenge of Self Marketing and Personal Branding

Since the late 1990s, self marketing and personal branding have become increasingly popular as subjects of self-improvement books, Web sites and consultancy services, especially in the USA. To date, little of this interest appears to have permeated the discipline of marketing, either in terms of formal research, textbook contents or academic curricula. This paper examines the theoretical basis of self marketing and personal branding, identifies some of the conceptual, practical and ethical problems it poses for the discipline, and points to some of the challenges facing higher education in attempting to create a curricular framework within which marketing professionals can learn how to market and brand themselves effectively.     

Marketing as Cooking: The Return of the Sophists

This literature-based paper is concerned with the range of marketing in general and the world of marketing practice in particular. It notes the ahistorical nature of much reflection on marketing, shifts to the characteristics of modern marketing management and then turns to the Ancients. The emergence and subsequent ebb and flow of rhetoric are covered briefly and then the case is argued that rhetoric should be a core concept for understanding and enhancing marketing practice. The location of rhetoric in the critical literature is acknowledged but the primary knowledge claim is that rhetoric as a framing device and as an instrument for managerial action is central to a full appreciation of marketing reality.     

The Invisible Side of Political Parties: The Case of the PCdoB

The young Latin American democracies have been structuring their political parties for day-to-day management. In this context, it is important to understand how such structures could be affected by the so-called invisible side of organizations, which are composed of networks of relationships between elected politicians and then relationships between these and external militant groups, which can greatly influence the candidates’ performance and the very dynamics of the party. This article seeks to unravel some of these dimensions. We select for analysis the case of the PCdoB (Communist Party of Brazil), in the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The results show the nature of the embeddedness of these actors in the political system, highlighting weaknesses and possibilities.     

The Marketing Campaign: The British General Election of 2005

Political marketing was a key factor in the 2005 campaign, but more for its ineffectiveness than for its success. The use of marketing techniques such as segmentation and targeting was prolific, however the extent to which the parties adopted the marketing concept was limited. The impact of Labour's Big Conversation and 'Team Labour' campaign approach was always going to be hindered by Tony Blair's perceived dismissal of party and voter opinion on the Iraq War and top-up fees; appointing a marketing director to work on the presentation rather than the design of policy, combined with a highly negative campaign, was never going to win the election for the Tories. The lessons of electoral history – and marketing - were proved right once again: only if parties fully embrace the marketing philosophy and comprehensively design their behaviour by reflecting and responding to public demand. Nevertheless the key to future success for UK parties is to bring back ideology: market-oriented politics should also include using party principles and leadership judgement in order to be able to produce a distinctive response to the public concerns that is both popular and credible.     

Corporate Identity and the Advent of Corporate Marketing

This paper places corporate identity studies in a historical context with the writer arguing that there have been four distinct phases in the area's evolution. Currently, there is increasing international and interdisciplinary contact between scholars engaged in identity research. Recent developments have led the writer to postulate that the literature on corporate identity, organisational identity and corporate communication may be regarded as forming the basic building blocks of a new, cognate area of management which in time may be known as Corporate Marketing.

However, the marketing mix as applied to organisations in their totality will need to be rethought. In this paper the 4Ps are extended to 10Ps with philosophy, personality, people, performance, perception and positioning complementing the existing 4Ps. In addition, the author identifies nine key interfaces, which need to be examined by managers and consultants when reviewing an organisation's identity. Such interfaces represent 'moments of truth' for an organisation's senior management when evaluating their organisation's identity.     

Political PR in the 2005 UK General Election: Winning and Losing,With a Little Help From Spin

The public relations of the UK general election of 2005 is examined in the light of the active promotional culture of British politics, a culture that is especially active at election time. The PR or 'spin' can be seen as a presentational trellis offering to voters, mostly via the media, glimpses of policies and politicians which are favourable to the originating party. The purpose of the trellis for the parties is to maximise their electoral advantage and to minimise their disadvantage. The major obstacle to their success is the capacity of the media to brush aside the trellis and to report on the 'other side'. Whatever the benefits and costs for democracy of this tension between partisan presentation and journalism, there is little evidence that voter disengagement with electoral politics is caused by these public relations shows. Political PR is part of the UK's promotional culture; voter disengagement relates to other systemic and more causal features of contemporary British society. A small purposive (but unrepresentative) survey of campaign observers showed key features of political PR servicing the fundamentals of party, policy and personality.     

What Is and What Is Not Social Marketing: The Challenge of Reviewing the Evidence

This paper describes our experience in undertaking a review of the effectiveness of using social marketing to tackle nutrition problems. One of the biggest challenges was identifying programmes which could be genuinely defined as 'social marketing'. Here we describe how we applied and tested a framework for identifying and assessing legitimate social marketing research. Implications for both social marketing theory and practice are discussed.     

The meaning of commitment in professional service relationships: a study of the meaning of commitment used by lawyers and their clients

Several authors have identified the importance of commitment in successful business relationships. However, few studies have considered the meaning of commitment, especially within the context of customer-supplier relationships.

Most studies of commitment within the marketing literature use existing conceptualisations developed within the psychology and organisational behaviour literatures. The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of commitment in a customer-supplier relationship context, and to compare this with traditional conceptualisation of commitment.

This study investigates the meaning of commitment used by both lawyers and their clients, within the context of their relationship. The findings show that the meaning of commitment used in professional relationships may be more complex than its traditional conceptualisation and should be extended to include at least three additional components including: 'partnership commitment', 'impression management commitment' and 'personal commitment'. It is argued that it is inappropriate to 'borrow' the conceptualisation of the construct of commitment from other disciplines, without considering the market-based context in which it is used. Implications for professional service relationships include that professionals and clients would benefit from sharing a similar meaning of commitment and this meaning may be influenced by the culture, systems and processes of their organisation.