ABSTRACT
Political marketing is an approach that politicians, parties and governments can use to attain, increase and maintain support from the public in order to gain or retain power in office. It includes a range of activities, including orientations; market intelligence to understand, predict and identify the market; product development strategies and positioning; internal marketing approaches; communication and campaigning; and marketing once in government. Marketing can be used simply to inform communication and presentation of the political product and potentially affect the outcome of elections; furthermore, it can be used to inform the nature of that political product and influence government policy and legislation. This raises concerns about its impact on democracy. Political marketing has profound ramifications for the political system from a normative, ethical or democratic perspective. This chapter will explore all of the issues: first, the problems with political marketing; and, second, the potential of political marketing.
