Abstract
Marketing strategy for candidates running for public office differs from its commercial counterpart in a number of ways. But there are similarities, also. In this essay, I review the similarities and differences between the two contexts with a view to developing a better understanding of what makes political marketing unique.
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Notes
Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia
For example, after losing to Bill Clinton, Robert Dole carved out a career as a spokesperson for Pepsi, Visa, and Viagra.
In a US presidential election, given that it is the Electoral College that determines the outcome of the election, the winner-take-all feature operates not only at the overall election level, but also in its constituent parts—the “electoral college elections” in each state. This is because, as per current rules, with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, the winning candidate in each state gets all of that state’s electoral votes, no matter how close the margin of victory.
While the existence of these two margins is seen most starkly in the voting context, the commercial context is not immune to these considerations. Typically we dismiss the first margin when we are talking about necessities: milk will be bought, in other words, so the only interesting question is, from whom? However, many product categories may be viewed as at least somewhat discretionary, and arguably, part of the goal of every marketing campaign is not just to persuade, but also to stimulate buying. With purchase stimulation on the table, it becomes easier to rationalize something that has long puzzled economists: why well-established long-lived brands continue to invest in marketing when there is seemingly no one left to persuade.
For the reader interested in the large empirical literature on political campaigns, a good starting point would be [11] and the references therein.
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Sridhar Moorthy thanks the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their generous support of this research vide Grant No. 435–2017–0121.
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Moorthy, S. On Marketing Strategy in Electoral Politics. Cust. Need. and Solut. 6, 57–62 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40547-019-00102-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40547-019-00102-4