The Marketing of Political Candidates: Current Tactics and Future Strategies

This chapter explores where tactical and strategic elements of marketing have contributed to modern political campaign management to date and to speculate about the elements of marketing. In general, the integrated application of marketing and related techniques to political campaigns has been relatively minor, although individual techniques have been used skillfully. Although some tools of marketing research have been employed (e.g., survey research), the strategic connections between research, candidate development, and subsequent voter cultivation have not been as effective as possible. Marketing elements such as advertising, direct mail, publicity, and sales promotion arecurrently used in political campaigns throughout the United States. In the future, it will be necessary for political strategists to begin campaigns by identifying voter segments more precisely on the basis of marketing research. Such new marketing strategies will include the coordinated use of marketing tactics such as direct mail, narrowcasting, and the promotion of multiple themes that are designed to reach targeted, priority voters.