THERE is a general misconception among many people that politicians do not need any marketing but only need effective publicity and propaganda.
This notion is widely held by most politicians, especially in Africa.
However, I wish to take cognizance that this mindset is slowly changing as most politicians are now beginning to recognise the relevance and importance of marketing in getting voter numbers.
I should confess that this topic was quite difficult for me to tackle as I have strong reservations on writing and commenting on politics.
Additionally I have a principle of keeping my deliberations strictly on business and marketing.
I believe that as a marketing professional, my boundaries have been clearly spelt out. Nevertheless, going by the current environment and political atmosphere in the country I find this topic very difficult to resist as it also borders on marketing.
As I have pointed out on a number of times in my previous articles, marketing is one discipline that affects everybody and every activity.
Regardless of the nature of business or activity, marketing has to be applied.?For as long as there is a need to promote products, services or ideas, one cannot do without marketing. Marketing affects us all, be it religion, non-governmental organisations or politics.
Political campaigns are usually very competitive in that individual candidates are expected to aggressively promote themselves and convince the electorate that they are the suitable and right candidates and not their competitors.
Already we are witnessing aggressive approaches from some politicians within the ruling Patriotic Front, especially those who feel that they have the right credentials and reputation to replace the late President.
Given this analysis, we can justify the need for marketing in and during political elections. Many will agree based on precedents that in every political contest, it is always the candidates that apply effective personnel-selling who always emerge victorious.
Personnel-selling is very critical in political contests and is one of the many tactics of marketing.
Is there any difference between business marketing and political marketing?
According to Philip Kotler, one of the world’s renowned marketing scholars, certain differences between political marketing and business marketing are alleged to exist in the public mind.
They relate to characteristics of the product, buyers and sellers.?Professor Kotler notes that ‘for any specific commercial product, such as a can of beans or a tonne of steel, is relatively fixed in its characteristics at a given point in time’.
The political candidate can talk back.?It is clear from this description that politicians need to do as much marketing as in the commercial environment.
This brings me to the not so long ago presidential by-election in 2010, which saw the former president Rupiah Banda to be among the few former presidents to acknowledge the importance of marketing in political contests.
If you recall in the quest to improve his personnel image, what we call in marketing terms as ‘branding’ he went to the extent of hiring professional image builders who were to help him on etiquettes such as body posture, speech, how to handle the media to mention but a few.
Using this strategy the name tag ‘Nyama Soya ‘which was getting associated with the former leader was eventually killed.?From a layman’s perspective, this could be seen to be purely, Public Relations.
On the contrary, this is part of the marketing communications brand development strategy, which deals with individual brand personality, brand features, brand characteristics and brand symbols such as logos and trademarks.
Image building essentially aims at creating a brand out of an individual. Public Relations is merely a component of this whole process, it is normally used to communicate or create publicity once the brand or image has been established.
There are many political campaign marketing strategies that politicians vying for political office can employ.
The normal approach involves the use of the marketing mix which includes product, in this case the political candidate vying for election. Price is in the value the individual attaches to himself or the promises of what he or she intends to deliver once elected.
Place is where one launches their campaigns. Promotion is all about how one intends to communicate his or her vision, policies, values and plans for development.?During the 2008 American presidential elections, we witnessed some of the most aggressive marketing strategies ever witnessed in global politics.
President Barak Obama set up an aggressive marketing campaign for his presidential ambition which evidently paid off.
For the first time ever in the American presidential race President Obama’s marketing consultants were able to mount a highly interactive social media platform aimed at promoting their candidate’s ideals, vision and plans.
This platform worked extremely well for the American youth population of which about 70 per cent are on the social media.
During that period his marketing campaign managers were able to set up facebook, twitter, Youtube, Linked In, a personnel web site and even an SMS platform to enable him interface effectively with would be voters at an individual level.
Our Zambian presidential candidates can pick a leaf from the above given examples if they are to remain competitive and have an edge over their opponents.
Comments:
ndhlovudennis75@gmail.com
or dennis_sokondhlovu@yahoo.com