Invitation to submit a short case study for the 2nd edition of the textbook Political Marketing: principles and applications

Routledge

Deadline: 1 October 2013

The first edition of Political Marketing: principles and applications helped break new ground, introduce the field to both practitioners and academics and students, and sold over 1000 copies in the first year. So Routledge now wants another edition.

For the 2nd edition I will update the main text, integrating all the new work which has been done since 2008. In order to make the textbook as broad and international as possible, I also want to update the case studies and I am thus calling for new cases to be submitted for consideration for inclusion in the book. The case studies enable the book to feature work from authors around the world which helps to bring out different theories and aspects of political marketing in a range of countries.

I encourage you to consider submitting a case study. The work should not be difficult or time consuming: the word limit is 1250 words, so it is not onerous to write. You can simply draw a case study from your existing research in your country, follow your own theoretical perspective, use something from a conference paper or summarise something already published.

Editorial review

For the 2nd edition I will review all submissions once submitted to check their quality, suitability and that they provide a balance of focus before letting you know if it is accepted for the book. Going on the first edition, there will be room for around 40 case studies, and if more than this are submitted I will pursue the possibility of expanding the size of the book or discuss putting some online. The more the better!

Benefits to you

It won’t make you rich! However it is an easy publication that will feature your work in an international publication with a strong publisher, and you can also put references to your other work within the case study so it helps publicise your work. In particular it can help books, journal articles and conference paper reach a wider audience. If you’ve got a great theory and empirical illustration that hasn’t yet made it out into the publishing world this is a great chance to get it out there to the political marketing community.

In public service terms, it will greatly enhance the value of the book. This may then mean you can benefit from it by using it in your teaching.

Research students and practitioners

Authors do not have to be permanent academics; this is a good opportunity for research students or even high achieving undergraduates to turn their work into a case study. And I also welcome cases from practitioners – the 1st edition featured several excellent cases by practitioners.

Political marketing example topics

Case studies may be submitted on any aspect of political marketing, such as, but not limited to:

Understanding the market

• The political market
  • The political consumer (consumerism in politics, voter demands, behaviour from a political marketing perspective, voter profiling, consumer behaviour theories applied to politics)
  • Market research tools (polling, surveys, focus groups, Opposition, candidate and policy research, co-creation, deliberative marketing)
• Experimental and analytic marketing
  • Global knowledge transfer

Strategy

• Segmentation
• Targeting (including nano targeting, microtargeting)
• Position
• Competition analysis and strategy
• Market-oriented marketing
• Niche marketing
• Populist marketing
• Campaign strategy
• Strategy in government
• Long versus short term strategy

Branding

• Branding candidates and leaders
• Branding parties
• Branding policy or government departments
• Re-branding
• Obstacles to successful branding
• Branding personality, effectiveness etc

Internal marketing

• Membership marketing (understanding volunteer demands, stimulating involvement and activism)
• Fundraising
• Political marketing staff (including party officials, government advisors, outside consultants in areas such as polling, consultation, strategy, media, advertising and communication)
• Creating unity

Short term static communication

• Marketing communications of new leaders and new products
• Campaign communication (e.g. market-oriented advertising, researched and strategised placement and style)
• Communication tools (e.g. Get out the vote, direct marketing, targeted communication and mobile/virtual marketing)
• Selling government policy (i.e. market researched government advertising)
• Crisis communication
• Communicating change (e.g. rebranding of a leader, repositioning of a party, changes in policy)

Relational and interactive communication

• Public relations
• E-marketing
• Local level communication
• Social networking
• Consultative dialogue
• Leadership interaction and reputation management
• Ongoing communications in government

Delivery management

• Managing expectations pre-election
• Making delivery happen in power (e.g. relationships with the civil service, marketing legislation, public sector staff)
• Managing problems
• Conveying delivery progress
• Demonstrating the impact of delivery

Political marketing and democracy

The impact of political marketing on:

• Voters (weaknesses of public opinion; insatiability of voter demands; consumerism and citizenship; ethical voters; responsible voters; voter objections to ethnic targeting)
• Political leaders (pandering, phony politics; making room for leadership; the need for authenticity)
• Political participation (downgrading of internal democracy; enabling more power for volunteers)
• Advice for politicians (travelling global consultants; unelected advisors; the objectiveness advisors can provide)
• Policy (encouraging more popular policy; inhibiting policy change)
• The overall relationship between voters and the public (political marketing and representative and deliberative democracy
• The choices open to politicians and political marketing practitioners

They can be on local/national level politics, parties/individual politicians, campaigns/government, and so include for example the branding of public policy or use of marketing by a government department. The more recent the case, the better.

Case study rules

• Maximum 1250 words on a particular case which highlights a particular aspect of political marketing
• It must be empirical – i.e. can’t just be theoretical; the aim is to apply the theoretical aspect empirically. The ideal case study will take a theory, e.g. branding, explain it in political terms clearly and concisely, and then give an empirical illustration of it.
• It can show problems/failures/concerns with an aspect of political marketing, as well as an illustration of its success
• It should be written in a punchy, comprehensible style
• It needs to follow the required structure – see below

Required structure

1. Title
2. Authors name, institutional affiliation and contact details
3. The main section: the case itself including the political marketing aspect (or theory/concepts) from it
4. Lessons for political marketing: such how it shows a particular tactic/theory is important; or it illustrates the ethical consequences of x; or lessons for practitioners for why they need to follow the theory more; or the complexities of putting theory into practice
5. Up to 5 further reading/sources – e.g. good reading materials or websites for students to follow up on your particular issues/country/case

More than one

Authors may submit more than one case study for consideration for inclusion in the book.

Exemplar case studies from the 1st edition

It might help to look at examples for the style. Here are some of the best – that are not only good intellectually but follow all aspects of the required structure – from the 1st edition:

• Case study 4.2 The Finnish case – strategic positioning of a nice party: the Swedish People’s party by Susanne Jungerstam-Mulders
• Case study 5.6 From database to relationship marketing – a case study of Fedesz by Zsuzsanna Mihalyffy
• Case study 5.8 ACT New Zealand and branding by Chris Rudd and Geoffrey Miller
• Case study 6.1 Wasted on the young: marketing membership efforts by Plaid Cymru by Sue Granik
• Case study 7.3 UP Mps and the marketing of their websites by Nigel Jackson
• Case study 7.4 ACT New Zealand Party and the limits of technological marketing by Gavin Middleton
• Case study 7.6 Canadian constituency campaigns by Alex Marland
• Case study 7.7 Market-oriented political advertising in the 2006 New Zealand election by Claire Robinson
• Case study 8.3 When politics becomes contractual: a case from Denmark by Jens Jonatan Steen
• Case study 9.3 International political product marketing by Jamie Turner
• Case study 10.2 Political marketing in the 2006 Canadian federal election: delivering citizen or party needs and wants? By Daniel Pare

Please pass on this call

Obviously I have a range of contacts but there are bound to be other scholars, students and practitioners out there who may be able to contribute to this book in this way but I don’t know them and they aren’t on any list. If so, please pass this on to them.

Publication date

At present, submission of this manuscript is scheduled for end of 2013, therefore I hope for publication in 2014 but cannot guarantee it.

Questions

If you have any questions please contact me.

Submission

Please submit all case study to me on j.lees-marshment@auckland.ac.nz as an attached word document.

Jennifer Lees-Marshment
University of Auckland
email j.lees-marshment@auckland.ac.nz

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