ABSTRACT
Corporate marketers and politicians share a great deal of DNA. Both seek to please; both want to do deals with multiple publics – to get our purchase or our vote over the line; both want to turn these deals into sustained loyalty; both have a single-minded focus on success. Even their goals – profit and power – though seemingly distinct in reality meld into one: money attracts power; power attracts money.
It is unsurprising, therefore, that politics and marketing are ancient bed fellows. As far back as the Caesars, politicians have been using the rudiments of modern marketing: bread and circuses to seduce the mob, symbols, and mysticism to provide meaning and material rewards to repay loyalty. This natural affinity became more clearly defined with the dawn of consumer capitalism. Commerce and civics come naturally together in a capitalist system: happy consumers make happy voters; the CEO and the President both gain power.
So the keepers of power – whether commercial or civil – have a mutual interest in getting on. The digital capacity to guarantee outcomes, presaged by Cambridge Analytica, is now sealing this unholy bargain and shaking democracy to its foundations.
