Local Political Marketing in the Context of the Conservative Party

Abstract

Local political marketing can be defined as marketing related strategy, activities, and tactics implemented by a political party in a local geographic constituency, in order to attempt to maximize aggregate potential voter satisfaction, and therefore maximize total number of votes and electoral support in the constituency. Through 12 in-depth interviews with Local Constituency Party representatives from the Conservative Party, the study found that local political marketing was acknowledged by a majority of respondents although this was not unequivocal, and was frequently conflated with campaigning. Local political marketing was associated with: visual identity, language/messages, values, image, communication devices, awareness raising, data management and targeting, and simplification. The support from higher levels of the party in local political marketing was varied across constituencies. There was evidence of growing coordination/influence by higher levels of the party in local political marketing. However, this tended to be in seats judged as ‘winnable’.

Keywords:

• politics
• marketing
• local
• conservative
• election
• qualitative