Tom Flanagan’s Winning Power is an impressive piece of writing. This is because it combines academic research with practical knowledge of campaigning. Flanagan worked for a variety of “Conservative” parties. This is in addition to being a professor which has given him great experience to draw upon in helping with understanding Canadian electioneering. Positioning And…
Category: Political Marketing
Reference Dependence In Primary Elections
Reference Dependence involves comparing outcomes to what we are focused on rather than an absolute scale. Thus higher pay after a cut may make us less happy than lower pay after a raise. Comparison to the reference, here past earnings, helps explain behavior. What then can we deduce about reference dependence in primary elections? Reference…
Primary Election Strategy
I find primary elections endlessly fascinating. Partly because the decision is so tricky. We rarely have enough information to make an ideal choice, Yet, people still develop very strong opinions. In the 2008 Democratic primary it was hard to see significant policy differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. That didn’t stop intense arguments. What…
Misunderstanding Political Marketing
Bruce Philp’s article in the July [2014] issue of Canadian Business criticizes political marketing for being “hollow and disingenuous”. I think this is misunderstanding political marketing. Political Marketing Is Not Just Political Communications I wasn’t impressed. Firstly, I think Philp is equating political marketing with political communications. This is a strange thing for a brand strategy consultant…
Shopping For Votes
Susan Delacourt’s Shopping For Votes is an enjoyable read. Lots of nice detail helps illustrate some interesting events in Canadian politics. The Political Marketing Literature I, of course, have a couple of quibbles. 1) Firstly I feel that her main thesis wasn’t well developed or supported. She has clearly become familiar with the political marketing…
Voters And Consumers
I recently read an interesting article in the Globe and Mail (a major Canadian paper). This talked about the political marketing techniques used by Canadian parties. The journalist asserted that “Canadian politics have moved into an era where voters no longer think of themselves as citizens, with duties and obligations and longer-term perspectives….” (Simpson 2013)….
Understanding Numbers
Understanding numbers is vital to so many parts of life. It is a shame many otherwise sensible people don’t seem to take numbers seriously. Numbers Allow You To Understand Magnitude When I managed the finances of a political party the BBC’s political editor explained on TV that donations totaling 6 million pounds would run my…
A Reason To Be Cheerful
This post from 2013 is a hopeful one about declining overt bias found in polling. While we have had reasons to worry in the intervening years I still stand by the idea that declining overt bias is a good thing. We may not be perfect. I think this is pretty obvious to all, but, at…
Winning And Political Marketing
Winning and political marketing go together like curry and naan. You can have one without the other but it isn’t ideal. As a former political party Finance Director I would have cried if someone had suggested deliberately not using the best techniques we could to win. (More robust staff would probably have washed the person’s…
Marketing And The Republican Autopsy
The Republican’s recently issued an interesting competitive analysis of how the party’s marketing operations stack up. [Published in 2013]. The Growth and Opportunity Project has been dubbed the “Republican Autopsy”. This basically accepted that the 2012 national elections were a disaster for the party. So what can we learn from marketing and the Republican autopsy? Criticism…
