Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

No, fund raising will help

Thats a tricky one, I always wanted to be able to work for a political party as a marketer. See basically its the same: We are trying to sway opinions in our favour.
With politics, its little different in the way people approach it. Without writing an essay here, I would state the most important aspect of political branding is the collective opinion of target audience about that political brand. The opinion is formed over a period of time, it has some significant pointers, such as events or politicians who might have corrupted or degragded the brand.That needs addressing before a newer positive image is prjected. Just look at the way David Cameron in UK has transformed Conservatives into New Conservative.

There is only one way to first encounter and then try to change the opinion in your favour: lots of focus group surveys and polls, ots of meeting with the target audience. Idetifying impotant pointers ( as mentioned above) and addressing them. Being interactive is very important for a political brading exercise. It has to be two-communication. A blog would be great; a forum with polls and survey etc.

By Relaunch, I’m assuming that it’s already been and tried and gone and failed!

Politics thrives on the ludicrous premise that the people involved in it actually believe in something. That means that you need to have policies well before you get round to advertising them. The policies should be principled and driven by conviction, but they are usually driven be the desire to win votes. Advertising and PR will then win a better share of the vote by the communication of these popular policies to the gullible electorate, who will have a deranged belief that the politician is doing it altruistically for the electorate, rather than trying to win power and feather their own nest.

And this despite the fact that the 82 % of the same electorate simultaneously believes that politicians are lying self interested toe-rags! Advertising in politics changes few minds, it mainly communicates a message to the lemmings and occasionally seeks to bribe them.

Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute wrote a witty story about a collection of amoral business people who stood on the same ticket for election in the UK. They promised next to no taxation and lots of other silly things and advertised their policies widely. They wanted to get elected so that they could divert relatively small amounts of Government money into their own accounts whilst largely shutting down the rest of Government. Their aim was to get rich before they were thrown out at the next election before which they would flee to a safe haven. Madsen has them all accumulating billions whilst doing nothing very much for 4 years and all heading to the airport to fly to South America with their ill-gotten gains as the new election takes place.

Only as the results come in, rather than being swept from power by their own self interest, by an angry electorate, they are re-elected by a landslide for having done precisely nothing and letting the people get on with their lives without interference.

It’s a neat story and I sometimes wish that politicians had the sense to heed the grain of truth in it!

Vote for me, by the way.

Steve Alker