Political Marketing in Canada

Political candidates, parties, and governments worldwide are using marketing tools and concepts such as profiling, targeting, segmentation, branding, and delivery management to win elections and retain their hold on power. Are these strategies making politicians more responsive to voters’ needs, or do they pose a threat to democracy? Political Marketing in Canada, the first book to ask this question of Canada, considers the consequences of political marketing in the realms of public policy, leadership, governance, and the government-citizen relationship. Through dynamic case studies that range from the resurrection of the Conservative Party, to media accounts of political marketing, to Tim Hortons as a political brand, the authors trace how political marketing is transforming the old system of brokerage politics into a new, distinctly Canadian model. Citizens are now viewed as consumer groups, while political platforms and promises have been repackaged as products aimed at targeted audiences. Whether this trend is positive or negative, the authors argue, depends on how politicians and governments carry out political marketing – and its promises – in practice. This path-breaking volume offers new research on a global phenomenon and shows how politicians and their advisers have adapted international approaches to create a unique Canadian form of political marketing.

Political Marketing in Canada introduces politicians, political parties, policy makers, and advisers and scholars in political science, marketing, and communications to an innovative new perspective on electioneering and politics