Political Marketing

Political marketing has developed in parallel with commercial marketing through the course of the 20th century, particularly in America and Europe, with the rise of the universal franchise, the development of broadcast media communications, and scientific methods of assessing market and public opinion, which have transformed how political campaigns are run today. The use of marketing in British political campaigns has been said to have developed over four different eras: the unsophisticated selling era (candidates promoting themselves to different social classes in the 19th century); the selling era (early 20th century, when politicians used the mass media to disseminate messages but did not research voting intentions); the sophisticated selling/nascent marketing era (the private poll was developed, allowing voter feedback into the political process); and the ...