Interpreting discourse: a critical discourse analysis of the marketing of an extreme right party

Viewing marketing as an ideological discourse that places consumption in a central position in people's lives provides further insights into the construction of political marketing discourse. Politicians and political parties now follow the 'logic of the market' in their attempts to connect with voters. Critical discourse analysis can be used in general to study the nature of political marketing discourse and specifically to document the web of identities and power relations that this discourse reproduces. To illustrate this application of theory we examine the marketing of the Vlaams Blok, a successful Flemish extreme-right party. The Vlaams Blok provides a good example of how the adoption of a marketing approach is used in politics, especially in the way a political party communicates to a wide audience using market logic. The analysis echoes approaches used by advertising and marketing communications scholars and highlights the strategic use of lexical, rhetorical and other linguistic devices to brand, sell and differentiate the Vlaams Blok from other political products. The analysis demonstrates that the Vlaams Blok creates a ready-to-consume product that achieves success at the electoral 'checkout'. We set the stage for marketing scholars to help both further understand how marketing methods are deployed with increasing sophistication outside the traditional domain of marketing, and to consider the consequences of a marketing discourse in the civic sphere.     

JMM 25th Anniversary Editorial

This double edition is one of two quite distinct halves. The first is a collection of pieces that have a connection to the first edition of the Journal of Marketing Management, published in the summer of 1985. The connections exist largely through the authors, who appeared in the first edition and who have written again for the 25th Anniversary edition. Many of their themes are also related to those explored in that first edition, as are writing styles, methodologies described and methods used. The second half is a 'regular' edition, comprising five papers which reflect well the current preoccupations of those engaged in research into marketing management.     

Beyond matrices and black-box algorithms: setting marketing priorities with Marketing Strategy Conferences

With this paper, we introduce Marketing Strategy Conferences to set strategic marketing priorities effectively and allocate marketing-related resources accordingly. The system is based on managerial preference modelling with a decision model (analytical side) and communication-enhancing strategy conferencing (interactive side). After a review of alternative resource allocation frameworks, as rule-of-thumb approaches, matrix-based analyses, statistical analyses and management science models, we analyse existing analytical, behavioural and organisational impediments to effective marketing resource allocation. Addressing some of these impediments, this paper outlines two Marketing Strategy Conference cases, which we carried out for a pharmaceutical company, Schering Argentina.     

Drivers of sales and marketing collaboration in business-to-business selling organisations

This paper focuses on identifying and exploring the antecedents and consequences of collaboration between the sales and marketing functions within organisations and empirically tests the resulting model. There is evidence to show that collaborative sales and marketing functions have benefits to an organisation in terms of improved business performance, but many organisations have not yet achieved collaborative internal functions. The study identifies five antecedents to collaboration between sales and marketing and tests the proposition that greater collaboration between sales and marketing is linked to benefits in terms of improved business performance.     

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.     

Modelling Market Orientation: An Application in the Education Sector

This paper defines market orientation following a critique of existing literature. It then operationalises this definition via a model containing three behavioural elements (customer orientation, employee orientation, and organisational co-ordination) linked to a long term survival requirement.

The model is tested in the context of the development of market orientation in the further education sector (in which professional - rather than commercial - values have tended to dominate). This sector is characterised by dynamic change in both its social/demographic and economic circumstances as well as the impact of government policy initiatives - especially the Education Reform Act of 1988 and Local Management of Colleges.

The empirical focus of the paper is on three large FE Colleges in the English Midlands. It provides evidence to support the operationalisation of the definition of market orientation in the context of the management of change.     

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.     

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.     

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.