Marketing in Politics
If there is one industry which makes the most use of marketing techniques, it is any profession inside of the political arena. Politics and marketing have been bedfellows ever since the idea of competing for power became the standard in countries with a democratic or republican system of government.
Though there are many examples of politicians going overboard with their marketing techniques today, and there are many politicians who rely solely on marketing to retain their positions of power, ideally marketing should be used to give the general public an idea of the message of a politician. Whether it is election time and a politician must market his views to his or her constituency to prove that he or she has a better handle on issues moving forward into the new term, or serving as a proponent or opponent to a new legislative measure and trying to convince his or her base of the correctness of his or her views, marketing should simply expand on the ideas of the representative, not create them or falsify new ideas in and of itself.
One good example of a politician using marketing as it should be used is the Union Minister for Urban Development, Kamal Nath. There are no new stories created about Mr. Nath to enhance his personal reputation; only stories of what his views are and why he holds them. For example, most recently, Nath expressed himself as a proponent of the proposed ‘satyagraha’ of yoga guru Baba Ramdev, saying that the central government will also participate in the battle against corruption. His words were not inflammatory, nor did they mention any of his political rivals past the point to which Nath had to mention them to ground his position.
On the contrary, many politicians in the United States use marketing as their idea instead of an expansion on the ideas with which they have come up originally. Many advertisements marketing a politician, especially during times of election are little more than shocking negative images and sound bites which the purveyor hopes to attach to his or her opponent. Another way that domestic politicians misuse the avenues of marketing is to simply hope that their constituency is distracted by a rehashing of successful public policy, to which the politician hopes to attach him or herself after the fact.
Fortunately, there are many independent web sites that see through the marketing and get down to the real ideas that are presented or not presented by politicians in their advertisements. FactCheck.org, a web site commonly referred to and trusted by even the government, has exposed many fraudulent marketing campaigns for what they are, an attempt to distract and associate rather than expand an idea to the general public. As a rule, whenever marketing techniques are used to generate ideas in the ideas of a constituent rather than simply present a clear picture, it is being misused and its utilization should be rethought. Little hope of this though, with the way that business is connected to politics, but that’s another essay.