Journal of Marketing Management, 2005, 21, 1151-1160

Jennifer Lees-Marshment1

The Marketing Campaign: The British General Election of 2005

Political marketing was a key factor in the 2005 campaign, but more for its ineffectiveness than for its success. The use of marketing techniques such as segmentation and targeting was prolific, however the extent to which the parties adopted the marketing concept was limited. The impact of Labours Big Conversation and Team Labour campaign approach was always going to be hindered by Tony Blairs perceived dismissal of party and voter opinion on the Iraq War and top-up fees; appointing a marketing director to work on the presentation rather than the design of policy, combined with a highly negative campaign, was never going to win the election for the Tories. The lessons of electoral history and marketing were proved right once again: only if parties fully embrace the marketing philosophy and comprehensively design their behaviour by reflecting and responding to public demand. Nevertheless the key to future success for UK parties is to bring back ideology: market-oriented politics should also include using party principles and leadership judgement in order to be able to produce a distinctive response to the public concerns that is both popular and credible.

Keele University,

Keywords: party Introduction

market and sales-oriented party, Conservative party, Labour

Political marketing is now an established area of academic study and increasingly permeates political discussion by political practitioners around the world. Increasingly voters are referred to as consumers; political systems as markets; policies as a product and there is continual talk of achievable pledges and the need to deliver in government. In 2005, the use of marketing techniques such as segmentation and consumer data also caught the
1

Correspondence: Dr Jennifer Lees-Marshment: Senior Lecturer in Political Marketing, University of Auckland, Department of Political Studies, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1020, New Zealand, Email j.lees-marshment@keele.ac.uk

ISSN1472-1376/2005/9-10/01151 + 09 8.00/0

Westburn Publishers Ltd.

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attention of the print and TV media. The three largest parties Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat invested heavily in marketing techniques to help them gain advantage in the election. However, the main marketing significance of the 2005 election was the failure of such marketing tools. Labour lost a significant number of seats, the Tories made minimal gains well short of a potential governing party, and the Liberal Democrats were disappointed by their relatively few gains in terms of seats. Post-election, all three parties face questions about their future direction and leadership. A more indepth examination of voter opinion than the numerical tallying via the voting booth and electoral system revealed significant dissatisfaction with the main parties on issues of leadership, party capability, trust and delivery. Turnout, despite magnificent efforts by the media and electoral commission, only increased by 2%. This could suggest that political marketing does not work: however it was practice not theory that was at fault here. This comment does not come purely with the benefit of hindsight enabled by post-election analysis:2 it draws on the fundamental marketing philosophy that it is not just the use of tools, techniques, data, and computers that makes the difference to win or lose, profit or die. Marketing is a more complex activity, built on the principle that organisations need to offer something people want. In 2005, all three main parties adopted more of a sales attitude to marketing. This article will therefore critique political marketing practice leading up to and including the official campaign, before offering conclusions about the significance for the future direction of the UK parties.3 Marketing Issues from the Official Election Campaign The first point from the 2005 campaign is the one obvious to all commentators: the parties engaged in significant market segmentation, voter profiling and data analysis, accompanied by targeted direct mail in the form of DVDs, mail shorts and telephone messages from call centers (see for example CIM 2005, Benady 2005, Smith 2005, Parry 2005, Britt 2005). Furthermore, all energy was focused in key marginal seats: as DDB director Chris Powell, a former Labour strategist noted elections are determined by very few people. Most constituencies are a done deal before the election is announced. The key to winning is the floating voters (quoted by Britt 2005). The detail of this is covered elsewhere in this special issue: the significance
It was also noted by academics (see Lees-Marshment and Lloyd 2005a and b) before the election. 3 This paper draws on material from a number of and range of interviews with party staff in the Labour and Conservative Party by the author, conducted between 2001 and 2005.
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was its ineffectiveness. Whilst there may be debate about the effect of such tools in individual seats, it did not win a clear mandate for any party. Labour tried to persuade people to vote for them to stop the opposition, but this was a negative rationale. The Tories argument that people should vote Conservative to harm Labour/Blair also prevented them projecting a mature and responsible alternative government. Although as one practitioner said its all about targeting nowadays and you end up ignoring 90% of the electorate,4 the Liberal Democrats suffered from sending a targeted but conflicting message to different segments within the same seat and therefore lacked a coherent, stable product overall. These deficiencies reinforce conventional marketing wisdom as to the limitations of trying to sell an unwanted, unresponsive organisation and product; and that commercial direct marketing campaigns are only expected to yield a response rate about 2-3 per cent (Benady 2005, 29). What was a positive development during the campaign was the way Labour appeared to recover its ability to acknowledge public opinion. The theme Britian forward, not back which Andrew McGuinness, CE of the Partys ad agency TBWA argued crystallise[d] the economic argument (quoted in Benady 2005, 28) may not have whole-heartedly addressed voter concerns about the Labour Government, but other strategies employed were more effective. Tony Blair was a clear weakness in the Labour product and pre-campaign analysis (see Lees-Marshment and Lloyd 2005 a, b) suggested his role be downplayed: this was followed and TEAM LABOUR was born: senior figures launched the manifesto, and ran the last press conference of the campaign. As Blair himself acknowledged in an interview with the Guardian, it was absolutely essential that we present a strong team for now. That's why Gordon Brown and I are spending a lot of time together, and tomorrow, I'll be with John Reid and Ruth Kelly - to be very clear there is a team. Brown and Blair were together in a special PEB, giving key speeches and photo opportunties, again offsetting perceived weaknesses in their relationship. One key concern identified by the parties Big Conversation exercise was long-term health care and Blair highlighted the need for quality school food and fitness. Blair himself was dealt with very carefully. On the war, he explained that as leader he had to make a decision at that time, something people could sympathise with as a dilemma for anyone in that situation. Labour also tried a Let the leader hang strategy, putting Blair in positions to take criticism from ordinary people over coffee in shopping malls so he was then seen to suffer and accept voters discontent. Upon winning power and returning to Downing Street Blair declared Ive listened
Liberal Democrat practitioner, speaking at the PSA Political Marketing Conference, February 24 2005.
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and Ive learnt: perhaps the biggest marketing success for the 2005 campaign was bringing Labour back in touch with the public. The Conservative campaign employed simplified messages, ten words as priorities, use of handwriting and the phrase are you thinking what were thinking? on billboard posters to connect with ordinary people. Greg Delaney, a former Labour strategist and current businessman noted how everyone in the advertising world is saying that the Tories have won the campaign, because they have messages that are consistently stated in a framework that gives simple prods to peoples anxieties (quoted in Benady 2005, 27). The Party brought over the Aussie Lynton Crosby, a former Liberal Party strategist, who had developed successful populist, anti-asylum messages; the aim in the UK being to play on peoples fears. However, negativity and cynicism can only get you so far: buy our product because the other one is awful and the world is a terrifying place is an interesting strategy but unlikely to win a landslide majority. In 1992, Labours reliance on the weaknesses of the government and public concerns about the state of country also failed: consumers were left wanting to reject the current brand without the satisfaction of knowing there was an alternative and safe product to switch to.5 Positive aspects such as a more professionally-selected, and well trained set of candidates were never publicised nationally. Attacks on the opposition were not thought through: Vote Blair, Get Brown was attractive to disillusioned New Labour voters who thought Brown would be more attractive. Howards attacks on Blair on the war but then admission he would have made the same decision did not help to convey a solid, strong, leader capable of running the country. The leader-selected focus on policy issues such as immigration only served to reinforce previous concerns from 2001 that the Party was right-wing and uncaring (see Lees-Marshment 2001b). The last issue of significance is the broader picture: the marketing of politics as a whole. The Electoral Commission, set up to increase political participation, engaged in numerous reports and discussions culminating in the If you dont do politics Tom and Mike TV and radio campaign, yet turnout only increased 2%. This reflects the core of the problem identified by the Commission themselves in their initial analysis: the reason for the drop in turnout in 2001 was the behaviour of the parties themselves. 2005 was no exception. As will be explored, the levels of satisfaction with the product choice on offer were not high, and this is another kep aspect of the 2005 campaign.

In this respect, the Liberal Democrats we oppose we propose poster approach was more effective.
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There are number of important issues from events leading up to the official campaign The first is the extent to which the two major parties did use political marketing appropriately. After winning in 2001, Blair was conscious of the need to deliver on his 1997 pledges and set up the Delivery Unit to coordinate and monitor performance. In response to awareness that the Party was beginning to seem out of touch, mainly because of the Iraq war, the Big Conversation was launched. This was an extensive range of events that facilitated positive, reflective and constructive discussion - a different mode of market intelligence to focus groups and polls - and identified key public priorities: Top concerns 1. Education (especially student finance), 2. Immigration/asylum (national and local), 3. Health (especially public health), 4. Council tax, 5. Crime and ASB Emerging priorities: 1. Opportunity: early years, 2. Health: prevention and public health, 3. Anti-social behaviour: youth provision neighbourhood governance, 4. Work: skills, work life balance, 5. Prosperity: housing supply, tomorrows pensioners (30-40s now) (Labour Party Document, 2004) In his key speeches, Blair continued to talk about putting political consumer at the heart of government, arguing at the 2004 party conference that the relationship between state and citizen has changed. People have grown up. They want to make their own life choices. In an opportunity society government does not dictate; it makes the individual - patient, parent, lawabiding citizen, job-seeker - the driver of the system, not the state. Labour utilised all the usual suspects in terms of professional staff like Philip Gould, including the US Democrat counterparts Stan Greenberg, Karen Kicks, Zack Exley and Mark Penn. The Conservative Party appointed first UK-Party Marketing Director, Will Harris, who had worked for the phone company O2; and created the Timetable for Action in response to market intelligence that noted voters scepticism that promises would be delivered on. It was even test-marketed. The Party professionalised the candidate selection procedure, working with local associations, to produce parliamentary candidates with the skills not just to impress internal party members but do the job of an MP, which inevitably helped to make some of the Tory gains in 2005. However the second significant issue is the number of weaknesses in political marketing practice running up to the campaign. Both Labour and the Conservative Party took an overall approach that went against the

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marketing philosophy which was more sales-oriented than market-oriented (Lees-Marshment 2001). Labour Party staff conceded that market intelligence was used to inform the way something was presented than the actual policy; to influence language, phraseology to influence perception. 3 of the top priorities identified by the Big Conversation were largely ignored in policy-making, including council tax that emerged as a key issue and weakness for Labour in the actual campaign. Blair exhibited an increased willingness to go against country and party on issues such as the war, top up fees and foundation hospitals and has talked of his conviction and belief and the need to go against public opinion. His public standing has declined accordingly. Similarly the Conservative staff noted that policy areas were very much driven by Michael [Howard] personally policy [was] not driven by polls, the Director of Marketing defined his job as presenting policy in an appropriate way, and the research department was focused on day to day media management rather than long-term strategy and product development. The new pollsters ICM produced objective but negative results and were either sacked by the party or sacked the Tories after the Party said they wanted more positive results. Political marketing was limited in its practice and therefore its effectiveness. Consequently, a third significant issue of the entire electoral period was consumer dissatisfaction. This was partly evident in the rise of smaller and new competitors UKIP, BNP, and Veritas amongst others. The two main parties attracted low satisfaction results: the Conservatives were poorly evaluated on their team of leaders, sharing the same values, honesty, competency, unity, understanding, caring and Labour did similarly poorly on sharing the same values, honesty and unity.6 Furthermore, as Lloyds indepth interview research (2004, 5, presented in Lees-Marshment and Lloyd 2005 a, b) indicated, voters were concerned about Labours lack of delivery, the Tories self-serving attitude, and the lack of difference between either party. This means that both major parties started the next parliament with a very unstable base. On election night, the Partys Communications Director David Hill conceded that Labour were losing seats in the south-east of England and said he didnt know why: the answer lies in their 1997 Contract with the people in which New Labour promised middle-class, middle-england voters outputs such as better health care, education, lower crime. However, as Martin Tod, Head of Brand and Advertising for Vodafone argued the party has made the mistake of overpromising and underdelivering (Tod 2005). Voters gave Labour support in 1997 on the basis of promised outputs: as predicted (Lees-Marshment 2001a), if they failed to deliver, that support
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see http://pollingreport.co.uk for example

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would disappear, and in 2005 this began to happen, an inevitable consequences of parties developing a producer-consumer type relationship with the electorate. This is particularly a problem for Labour, who no longer has the enviable position of a large majority and leader with unprecedented levels of popularity. Public opinion towards Blair turned cold as he seemed to override the views of both voter and party, and display an attitude which echoed the declining years of Margaret Thatcher (see Lees-Marshment 2004, 34-5). It was not just the war, but on issues such as top-up university fees with comments such as there will be absolutely no retreat on the principles of this at all the job of political leadership is to try and turn people round (Tony Blair, December 2003). Whether the Let the leader hang strategy and pre-campaign appearances on Tony and June for younger viewers, Richard and Judy and little Ant and Dec will go some way to assuage the publics hostility that Blair, now in power for two terms, can never be as in touch and responsive as he was in 1997 remains to be seen. However there is an ethical issue here of wider political marketing significance. There is no doubt that once he began to lead rather than follow on issues of great concern, Blair began to lose popularity. In his defence, it could be argued that such policy decisions might be in the interests of the public in the long-term (see Lees-Marshment and Lilleker 2005, 26-31), or that war is an inherently complexity issue and should not be decided by public opinion (see Lees-Marshment 2004, 23). Whether decisions about international relations can be subject to marketing, as well as how we decide when a long-term policy decision is market-oriented or not, needs further debate. As Blair himself said the easy thing to do, frankly, is to hit the button on exactly what the public wants to hearThe responsibility, though, in the end, particularly in the case of war, is to do what I believe to be the right thing for the country. I cant do it simply on the basis of this opinion poll or that opinion poll (Tony and June Channel 4 30th January 2005). Overall Assessment and Conclusions There were clearly many problems and concerns about the use of political marketing in British politics in 2005. The major parties leaned too far towards a sales-orientation; expending money and energy on marketing techniques while attempting to sell incoherent products with varying levels of responsiveness to voter concerns. As Alastair Campbell said the night Labour won in 1997 I dont know whether the campaign in the end made that much difference, yet he was only brought in shortly before the 2005 campaign. There is little point carrying out exercises such as the Big Conversation, identifying public concerns, and then not carrying them

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through to policy design. Similarly the Tories created a new Marketing Director position purely to sell rather than design party policy. As the editor of Marketing Week, Stuart Smith noted, despite the praise for the Tory communication in the campaign, it was unlikely to make much difference on election day: in the end, brands are bought on trust, a quality conspicuously lackingin the two major ones on offer (2005, 5). 2005 was a clear demonstration of the limitations of sales-oriented political marketing. Nevertheless, this does not mean parties need to slavishly follow the polls. A market-orientation in politics should incorporate judgement, leadership, professionalism and even ideologies, as long as they are executed in response to voter concerns. Indeed, the one key aspect missing in 2005 was ideology: as a key part of the political product it needs to be marketed accordingly. The Liberal Democrats need to find an ideological theme that binds them, and their target markets, together into a coherent and distinctive party. The Labour Party should use Blairs departure, whenever that may be, to find a leader more at home and at ease with utilising the Partys core beliefs to respond to todays problems, thereby meeting the criticism levelled by one of the ordinary people Blair got to meet in Sheffield shopping mall that it is heartbreaking when you work so long to get a Labour Government in power and then they turn into a Conservative one. As for the Conservatives, they have perhaps the best opportunity, though the most urgent need to improve their performance, by including ideology as a means to respond to voter concerns, rather than returning to salesmanship to persuade voters to support an elite-driven product they do not really want. The Tories have recently been perceived to be right-wing, but a more traditional aspect of the Conservative vision is economic and social liberalism. Research on the party conference fringes revealed a responsive and reflective party. One key figure, Malcolm Rifkind, argued that the Conservatives need to bring prosperity to the last 20% who had not benefited from Thatcherism; David Cameron how its about people feeling they are in charge, not the politicians we are the servants, not the masters. There were two parties at the conference: the public version a more out of touch, negative and European-focused, the hidden party aware of its previous limitations, considerate of the public concerns, and thoughtful about how to respond to them. If the more responsive side can assume dominance, the Party has a future. It can target markets lower-income families and public sector professionals involved in delivery; tax can be reformed to be fairer to lower incomes/those starting out; traditional Conservative philosophy can be used to demand respect towards professionals trying to help the vulnerable. Thatcherism arguably set free those who helped themselves rather than relying on the state; future Toryism could support those who help others (in the public and voluntary sector

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teachers, nurses, carers, parents etc). Liberalism within the economic marketplace could be revisited through developing policies on childcare, gender/age discrimination, career change, part-time work: a caring approach equally economically beneficial by maximising resources obtainable from the workforce. A tangible approach to delivery, more convincing than Labours Delivery Unit and the Timetable for Action, needs to be carefully crafted, developing and communicating a modern representative team of MPs and candidates, appropriately selected and trained: a professional, business approach to governing. Political marketing is a dominant force in politics today. It can only work, however, if parties fully embrace the marketing concept. In business whilst we know that whilst public relations, campaigns and new sales techniques are key activities, to be most effective, marketing should be used to create a product the market will want, thereby making communication or selling almost unnecessary. Political marketing proceeds from the same concept: if a party wants to be successful, it must create and deliver a wanted political product; it must be market-oriented at all times. Tony Blair was previously successful not just in gaining power but in enjoying unprecedented levels of popularity when he took on and maintained such a strategy from 1997-2001. To use marketing properly parties need to not just collect market intelligence but actually use it when they develop and deliver their policies, choose their candidates, and lead their organisations. As it stands, the 2005 election is more a case study in how not to us political marketing, and a further reminder that the golden rule of business that the golden rule of marketing to produce what the consumer wants will always hold true. References CIM (2005), Press 5 now Marketing and the 05/05/05 election, and If it works for Tesco Charted Institute of Marketing, Insights team, www.cim.co.uk Benady, David, (2005), Politics isnt working: can marketing fix it?, Marketing Week, April 21, pp.26-29 Britt, Bill (2005), Precision election, Marketing, 13 April, pp.30-32 Lees-Marshment, J. and Lloyd, J. (2005a), Its their party and theyll cry if they want to, A political marketing assessment of the state of the Labour and Conservative product from the eye of the voter Presentation to the 2005 PSA PM Conference Political Marketing and the UK Election, 24-25 February, Grange Hotel, Holborn, London Lees-Marshment, J. and Lloyd, J. (2005b), A political marketing assessment of the state of the Labour and Conservative product, Roundtable on the UK Election PSA Conference, Political Marketing group panel, April Lees-Marshment, J. and Lloyd, J. (2005b), The state of political marketing in

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2005: an analysis of the Labour and Conservative Party product, paper presented to the PSA conference April, available online at http://www.psa.ac.uk/2005/pps/Lees-Marshment.pdf Lees-Marshment, J. (2001a), Political Marketing and British Political Parties: The Party's Just Begun, Manchester University Press Lees-Marshment, J. (2001b), Marketing the British Conservatives 19972001, Journal of Marketing Management, 17, pp.929-941 Lees-Marshment, J. (2001c), The Product, Sales and Market-Oriented Party and how Labour learnt to market the product, not just the presentation, European Journal of Marketing, 35, (9/10), pp.1074-1084 Lees-Marshment, J. (2004), The Political Marketing Revolution: transforming the government of the UK, Manchester University Press Lilleker, D. and Lees-Marshment, J. (2005), Marketing British political parties at the national and local level, In: Political marketing in comparative perspective, Manchester University Press Parry, Caroline (2005), Learning from a political example, Marketing Week April 21, p.34 Powell, Chris (2005), Diagnosis 1: The Conservatives, Marketing, 6 April, p.22 Smith, Stuart (2005), Why politicians fail the brand test, Marketing Week, April 21, p.5 Tod, Martin (2005), Diagnosis 1: Labour, Marketing, 20, April, p.20 About the Author This article draws on ongoing empirical and theoretical research by Dr. Jennifer Lees-Marshment who developed the model of the Market-Salesand Product Oriented Party and previously published the books Political Marketing and British Political Parties (Manchester University Press 2001), The Political Marketing Revolution (MUP, 2004), and Political Marketing in Comparative Perspective (co-edited with Darren Lilleker, MUP 2005). Jennifer is founding Chair of the Political Studies Association Political Marketing Group (www.keele.ac.uk/dept/mn/cpm) and can be contacted on email j.lees-marshment@keele.ac.uk