ABSTRACT
Party officials – the full-time paid professional employees of the party organisation – are often overlooked in accounts of political marketing campaigns, in favour of the more high-profile elected party leaders and external consultants. Yet party officials can perform distinctive functions that the political marketing literature suggests are necessary if the party is to achieve sustained electoral success. This chapter describes these functions and presents examples, drawn from the Australian context, of party officials as political marketers. While party structures and campaign practices differ in democracies around the world, it is argued that greater attention to the role of party officials will provide a more complete understanding of the political marketing process.
