home Marketing Basics of Marketing - Kotler Philip

Basics of Marketing - Kotler Philip

Marketing of political candidates

Marketing of political candidates has turned into a major branch of activity, requiring special specialization of all involved in it12. With a break of several years, the public constantly participates in numerous elective campaigns for positions in local, state and national institutions. The political campaign includes visits by the candidate to the market for voters and the use of marketing research and commercial advertising to ensure the maximum level of "buying" the candidate by voters.

Interest in the marketing aspects of the elections was warmed up by the rapid growth of political advertising, the spread of scientific methods for studying public opinion, computer analysis of the distribution of votes and the emergence of specialized firms in the management of election campaigns.

Handshakes, lunch for the purpose of raising funds on the ground, friendly tea parties, rallies, heads of polling stations and cavalcades of cars driving voters to polling places - all this has largely been preserved so far ... However, the recent campaigns put the whole process on carefully Coordinated basis, when all the traditional activities existed within the framework of a single consolidated plan. The main objective of the plan is to move away from the principles of activity, when hardly coordinated activities were conducted under the control of a candidate - often unintelligibly, in a flash - in favor of an accurately calculated, centralized "collective" strategic approach to winning or retaining an elected post. The distinctive features of the plan are its formal strategic program, the coordinated use of specialized propaganda techniques and a more skilful approach to measuring public opinion and manipulating this opinion. And although there is a huge difference between the candidate's requests and the stimulation of retail sales of soap or razor blades, some attributes of commercial advertising have become firmly established in the political process.