Global political marketing: Analysis and conclusions

Political marketing is a global activity: political parties around the world all utilize marketing techniques and concepts, but the extent to which marketing is used to design the political product as opposed to sell it not only varies from one country to another, but from one election to the next. This global study has revealed that the overall trend in political marketing is diverse and fluctuating; it is not simply the case that major office-seeking parties in developed democracies successively move towards the market-oriented party model and that parties in developing democracies eventually will follow. Indeed there are times when parties move closer to the market-oriented party model in new democracies while parties in established democracies remain or move towards the sales-oriented party model. Whilst political marketing is an important tool for parties to consider, and there is no doubt that practitioners are aware of its potential and share both tools and product concepts, it is by no means a quick fix or guarantee of success, given the complex range of activities it involves.