Selling socialism: the marketing of the 'very old' British Labour Party

The present incarnation of Britain’s leading social democratic party as ‘New’ Labour underlines the relevance and importance of marketing to politics. Management discourse now permeates the modern electoral process. During the 1990s leader Tony Blair aided by key acolytes such as Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson used marketing techniques and thinking to recreate a brand identity in keeping with their cautious programme for government. In doing so they followed on from their previous work on behalf of Blair’s predecessor, Neil Kinnock. During the Kinnock era the party had undergone a fundamental change akin to a business evolving from a sales to a marketing driven strategic approach. Key contemporary accounts of Labour have tended to reinforce the politicians’ emphasis on the novelty and radical departure involved in their respective projects of organisational reform (Hughes and Wintour,1990; Gould,1998). This, however, is to ignore the role and work played by marketing techniques, personnel and thinking in earlier incarnations of what has often been portrayed as a traditional, conservative organisation

Political communication

Political communicatio

Images of Labour: the progression and politics of party campaigning in Britain

This paper looks at the continuities and changes in the nature of election campaigns in Britain since 1900 by focusing on the way campaigning has changed and become more professional and marketing driven. The piece discusses the ramifications of these developments in relation to the Labour party's ideological response to mass communication and the role now played by external media in the internal affairs of this organisation. The paper also seeks to assess how campaigns have historically developed in a country with an almost continuous, century long cycle of elections

The 'Tony' Press: media coverage of the election campaign

The 'Tony' Press: media coverage of the election campaig

From mass propaganda to political marketing: the transformation of Labour Party election campaigning

The rise and growing importance of political marketing is self-evident in many of the major western democracies. The innovative Conservative party campaign effort of 1979 is sometimes referred to as a major watershed in the development of the phenomenon in Britain. Results of that election proved a vital component in the respective success of both the agency and client organisation. Victory heralded the beginning of three Thatcher led majority governments as well as the start of a period of commercial success for the party's consultants

Labouring the Point: Operation Victory and the Battle for the Second Term

Labour’s second landslide victory of 2001 seemed inevitable given the almost continuous public support for the government through its first term. This paper considers the ways in which the party attempted to maintain and cultivate the electorate’s backing during the last four weeks or ‘short’ campaign. Perhaps fearing apathy more than the Conservatives Labour launched ‘Operation Turnout’ in order to mobilise its core supporters. Though this attempt failed to boost electoral participation the party nevertheless achieved another major victory. In this so-called ‘apathetic landslide’ Labour was able to strategically outmanoeuvre their principal opponents the Conservatives. Interestingly the more telling and potentially compromising criticisms of government policy and party procedure came from sympathisers. These and other points will be examined with recourse to a marketing analysis of the Labour campaign

Reconciling marketing with political science: theories of political marketing

This paper has two broad aims: to trace the theoretical development of political marketing and then demonstrate how these concepts can be used in the analysis of election campaigns. Electioneering is not the sole manifestation of marketing in politics but it is the most obvious, a point underlined by recent work addressing the prominent role now played by political marketing in a parliamentary democracy like Britain (Franklin 1994; Kavanagh 1995; Scammell 1995). Whilst much of this material understandably concentrates on the once neglected work of campaign practitioners, the more theoretical explorations of the intersection between marketing and politics have tended to appear in management journals (Shama 1976; Smith and Saunders 1990; Butler and Collins 1994). This paper intends to explore the relationship from a political science perspective

The media and politics : influencing intra- as well as inter-party debates

The media and politics : influencing intra- as well as inter-party debate

The marketing colonisation of political campaigning

The marketing colonisation of political campaignin

Focus group follies? Qualitative research and British Labour Party strategy

Media coverage of the contemporary British Labour party routinely suggests party leaders, notably Tony Blair, have been overly reliant on using focus group as a means of obtaining voter feedback. The paper explores this popular understanding by considering how and when qualitative forms of opinion research began to play a significant role in developing campaign strategy. Following their incorporation into party planning during the mid-1980s, focus groups provided an increasingly influential (and at the time more discreet) source of data and support for the leadership's Policy Review later that decade. Following the 1992 election defeat selective findings from the party's qualitative research programme became integral to the public relations' initiatives of Labour's self-styled 'modernisers', particularly in their largely successful attempt to delegitimise and then marginalise the role of the party's once formidable affiliated union supporters in internal affairs. Crucially this contributed to a climate that enabled the key moderniser Tony Blair to emerge and win the leadership