Marketing

Marketing politics to voters: politics to

late deciders in the 1992 voters

British election
127
Bernadette C. Hayes
Department of Sociology, Queen’s University, Belfast, and Received June 1996
Ian McAllister
Department of Government, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Elections and their accompanying political campaigns may be considered a
form of bloodless but serious marketing warfare. Not only must political parties
determine the scope and nature of their product, but they must also identify the
most effective way of communicating, or selling, its benefits to a target
audience. Thus, as in other marketing contexts, political campaigns, or the
process of getting elected, is primarily one of marketing or product positioning.
As Reid explains: “Political parties, either wittingly or unwittingly, produce a
political product for the consumption of voters” (Reid, 1988).
Despite the increasing realiZation of the importance and relevance of
marketing principles and procedures to the study of British electoral politics,
the application and evaluation of marketing techniques had been somewhat
amateurish (Butler and Collins, 1994; Kavanagh, 1995; Niffenegger, 1989). In
contrast to the USA, British politicians and the general public have remained
deeply suspicious of the perceived manipulative effects of political marketing
(Clemente, 1992; O’Shaughnessy, 1990). Until recently, not only did all the major
political parties shun the widespread use of such practices, but also, despite
record-breaking levels in party political expenditure, no systematic marketing
strategy has emerged to clearly differentiate either the market product ( political
party) or the specific target market (differing segments of the electorate) to
which the product is addressed (Scammell, 1995). As far as political parties are
concerned, traditional party allegiances and the existence of long-standing
ideological differences are still seen as the primary forces shaping electoral
opinion.
While this simplistic understanding of the electorate may have worked in
the past, recent research suggests that it is inadequate (Webb, 1992). In the first
place, traditional party loyalties have declined consistently in Britain since the
1960s, and this relationship holds regardless of whether Conservative or

The 1992 British Election Study was collected by Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell, John Curtice, Jack
Brand and James Mitchell and funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The data
were made available by the ESRC Data Archive at the University of Essex. Our thanks to two
European Journal of Marketing,
anonymous reviewers for this journal for their constructive comments; the usual disclaimer Vol. 30 No. 10/11, 1996, pp. 127-139.
applies. © MCB University Press, 0309-0566
European Labour identifiers are considered ,(Crewe, 1992; Smith and Saunders, 1990).
Journal Second, political competition has become increasingly devoid of economic
of Marketing ideology and all the major parties have become indistinguishable on important
policy issues. This trend was most marked during the 1992 election (Butler and
30,10\11 Collins, 1994). Finally, one important by-product of this phenomenon has been
the rise of a new political animal, the unaligned, or “floating voter”. In fact,
128 more so than any other segment of the electorate, it is this group of individuals
to which political marketeers have devoted most attention. As Reid puts it:
“The battle for ‘share of mind’ among floating voters is as ferocious as any
which is sought by consumer good manufacturers for space on supermarket
shelves” (Reid, 1988).
Despite this concentration of effort and expenditure, the potential impact of
political marketing on non-aligned British voters in terms of their eventual
electoral choices has rarely been assessed. In this article we examine the
background characteristics and voting decisions of these undecided or floating
voters. More specifically, adopting a market segmentation approach, both the
demographic profile of floating voters as well as their ultimate electoral
decisions are empirically examined.
The concept of market segmentation was first introduced by Smith (1956),
almost four decades ago. Since then, it has become the dominant concept in
consumer marketing, although it has had little impact on political marketing.
Market segmentation is based on the overt recognition that customers within
the market for a given product are not homogeneous. Segmentation rests on
three basic premisses: customers are different; these differences influence
demand; and segments of the customers can be isolated within the overall
market. In other words, market segmentation is the process of dividing a market
into distinct groups of buyers with similar requirements (Engel et al., 1972;
Wing, 1978).
There are two major approaches for market segmentation (Rao and Wang,
1995; Green et al., 1988). One is an a priori approach in which the segmentation
and their categories are predetermined or decided prior to the data collection or
analysis stage. Traditional segmentation approaches based on geographic or
socio-demographic variables fall into this category. For example, in consumer
markets, geographic, demographic and socio-economic variables such as age,
income, occupation, race, religion, family size, and education, have
traditionally been used as the bases for segmentation. The other approach is a
clustering-based segmentation design in which the segments are investigated
a posteriori by a range of sophisticated statistical techniques such as cluster
analysis. In this approach, respondents are placed into groups according to
their similarity with those in the same group, and dissimilarity with those in
other groups.
Much of the political advertising conducted in Britain rests on a simplistic
application of the traditional model. Not only are undecided voters specifically
targeted as the relevant segment for persuasion, but because of their perceived
volatility, their electoral impact through brand switching and product
conversion are taken for granted (Butler and Collins, 1994; Kavanagh, 1995). Marketing
More specifically, the underlying assumption of this approach is that not only politics to
do undecided voters form a single homogenous block, but by concentrating voters
their marketing efforts on these voters and devoting less attention to the other
(brand loyal) voters, they are targeting a group of individuals who are most
persuaded by campaign pleas and whose predispositions are consequently the
most susceptible to modification. We examine some of these assumptions in this 129
paper.

Political marketing in the 1992 election

The decade of the 1980s is generally considered to be pivotal in the development
of political marketing in Britain. When the Conservative Party commissioned
the advertising agency of Saatchi and Saatchi in 1978 it made headline news. By
the end of the 1980s, it would have been just as noteworthy if a major party had
chosen not to engage a professional marketing company. The turning point in
this transformation was the highly praised, although ultimately unsuccessful,
communications campaign mounted by the Labour Party in the 1987 election.
This ensured that by the end of the decade the use of marketing techniques by
parties had attained widespread application across the political spectrum
(Harrop, 1990; Scammell and Semetko, 1995).
The 1992 election campaign represented the logical progression of this trend.
Not only did all three major parties (Conservative, Labour and Liberal
Democrat) engage private advertising agencies, but many of the techniques and
tactics associated with political marketing were much in evidence even before
the formal election campaign had commenced (Butler and Kavanagh, 1992;
Newton, 1992). Precampaigns (that is, before the start of the official four-week
election campaign period) were waged on all sides, with differing effects.
Advertising, especially on television via party election broadcasts, became the
most prominent weapon in the political communications arsenal, as it had been
since the early 1970s (McAllister, 1985). In addition, the vast array of media
specialists, advertisers, pollsters and public relations consultants attached to
the major parties swelled in number and influence (Kavanagh, 1995; Scammell
and Semetko, 1995).
All of this activity, of course, had a price. Even by the record-breaking
standard of the 1987 election, the estimated expenditure in the 1992 election
campaign was a record (Butler and Kavanagh, 1992; Kavanagh, 1995). The
Conservatives spent £10.1 million during the actual campaign (compared with
£9.0 million in 1987); the equivalent figures for Labour and the Liberal
Democrats were £7.1 million (compared with £4.2 million in 1987) and £2.1
million (compared with £1.9 million in 1987), respectively. Thus, for all three
political parties, the 1992 general election campaign was by far the most
expensive in history. Why did the parties feel the need to expend such vast
sums on political advertising during the election? More important, what
influence did it have on the election outcome? We address these questions using
European the 1992 British Election Survey (BES), a national cross-sectional survey
Journal conducted immediately after the general election (Taylor et al., 1992).
of Marketing
The growth in electoral volatility
30,10\11 The main explanation for the expansion in political advertising is the growth in
electoral volatility. Not only has the number of individuals who switch their
130 voting preference from election to election dramatically increased since the
1970s, but this is also true during the election campaign itself (Farrell et al.,
1995; Miller et al., 1990). Throughout the 1980s, only half of the electorate who
were eligible to vote at two successive elections cast the same vote twice (Miller
et al., 1990). A similar, though less dramatic, pattern of turnover is evident
among campaign switchers (Clifford and Heath, 1992; Miller et al., 1990). Recent
estimates suggest that not only do 24 per cent of the British public leave their
voting decision until the start of the election campaign (as compared to 17 per
cent in 1964), but swinging voters – individuals who change their intended vote
during the final stages of the election campaign – now constitute about one
quarter of the British electorate.
The data in Figure 1 illustrate the extent of these changes. Although the
proportion of voters who decided on their vote more than two years before the
election campaign has declined steadily since the 1960s (from 77 per cent in

Per cent
80 77 77

70
64 62
60 60
60 57 60

40

25
23 22 22 24
21
20 18
12 16
12 18 18 17
14 15
11 11 12

0
1964 1966 1970 1974 1974 1979 1983 1987 1992
February October
General election
Key
Up to two years
During campaign
Figure 1. Long time ago
When voters decided
how to vote, 1964-92 Sources: Political Change in Britain Survey (1964-70),
British Election Surveys (February 1974-April 1992)
1964 to only 60 per cent in 1992), there has been a dramatic rise in late deciders, Marketing
or individuals who decide on their vote during the election campaign. Thus, politics to
while only one in every ten voters made their decision during an election voters
campaign prior to 1970, by February 1974 this had reached almost one in four.
A similar, though less dramatic increase, occurs among individuals who made
their decision up to two years before the election campaign, climbing from 11
per cent in 1964 to its current level of 18 per cent in 1992. As far as the British 131
electorate is concerned, then, not only has the proportion of late deciders
increased significantly during the past 20 years, but they are now sufficiently
numerous to have the potential to determine the outcome of the election.
While a number of explanations have been advanced to account for this rise
in late deciders, with few exceptions (Clifford and Heath, 1992; Miller et al.,
1990), most have emphasized the importance of declining party attachments.
Put simply, British voters have become less partisan. In 1964, 93 per cent of the
electorate volunteered a party identification; by 1987 only 86 per cent did so.
The strength as well as the incidence of party loyalty has also diminished. In the
1960s nearly half of the electorate were self-declared “very strong” identifiers;
by the mid-1980s the proportion had fallen to one-fifth, while the number of “not
very strong” identifiers had more than doubled, from only 11 per cent in 1964 to
29 per cent in 1987 (Crewe, 1992). It is to this group of voters – the non-aligned
or undecided voters – that political advertising is specifically aimed. In contrast
to the politically committed, who rarely, if ever, change their voting intentions
and for whom political advertising simply reinforces their choice, campaign
strategies have been developed to stir the hopes and the fears of the undecided
voter.
From a marketing perspective, floating voters may be considered individuals
with no brand loyalty. As in other marketing contexts, the purpose of political
advertising is not only specifically to target this segment of the electoral
population, but also to persuade them about the benefits of choosing their
particular product. It is important to note, however, at least as far as political
marketing in Britain is concerned, that the underlying assumption of this
approach is that not only do floating voters represent a single homogenous
target audience, but, because of their absence of brand loyalty, they are the most
susceptible segment of the electorate to political persuasion. To what extent are
these assumptions correct? Do floating voters constitute a single homogenous
block and what is the empirical evidence concerning their greater susceptibility
to political persuasion?

Identifying late deciders

Although the number of undecided British voters has increased dramatically
since the mid-1970s, with few exceptions (Heath et al., 1985, 1991; Miller, 1991),
the origins of this phenomenon has received little research attention. In line with
recent American research (Granberg and Holmberg, 1990; 1991), the few
available British studies suggest that not only are late deciders less
knowledgeable politically and less politically involved, but they are also more
European likely to be ideologically moderate and young (Miller et al., 1990). Our results
Journal from the 1992 British election confirm this finding.
of Marketing For the purposes of identifying late deciders – those who made their voting
decision while the 1992 election campaign was under way – age and strength of
30,10\11 partisanship are the most reliable indicators. In terms of demographic
background, later deciders tended to be much younger than their more stable,
132 or prior decision-making, counterparts (Figure 2). For example, whereas 37 per
cent of males and 41 per cent of females aged 18 to 24 years decided on how to
vote during the campaign, for the 45 to 54 year old age groups these figures are
almost half, at 22 and 23 per cent respectively. There is also a slight tendency
for late deciders to be female rather than male, although this difference is only
of marginal importance across all age groups, with the notable exception of
voters aged 25 to 34 years.
Late deciders also tend to be non-partisan or partisans who hold weak
identifications (Figure 3). Among voters with a very strong party identification
only 6 per cent delayed their voting decision until the election campaign was
under way; among non-partisans the same figure was 47 per cent. A similar
pattern is evident for individuals who had decided on their vote more than two
years before the election campaign. While an overwhelming majority of very
strong identifiers (89 per cent) had decided how to vote prior to the election
campaign, slightly less than one-third of non-partisans had done so. Only in
relation to weak partisans are the proportions evenly distributed across both
groups. Thus, 37 per cent of weak identifiers made their voting decision at least

Per cent decided during campaign

50
41
40
34*
37
30
30
28 23
24* 18
20 22
15
17
10 11

0
18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+
Age group (years)
Key
Male
Female
Figure 2.
LAte vote deciders by Notes: *Gender difference statistically significant at p <0.01, two-tailed
age and gender, 1992 Figures are percentage of survey respondents who said that they decided
how to vote during the election campaign
Per cent Marketing
100 politics to
89
90
voters
80
70 64
60
50 47 133
40
40
30 37
32
20
10 19
6
0
Very strong Fairly strong Weak None
Partisanship
Key
During election campaign
Long time ago Figure 3.
Copy to follow
Source: British Election Study (1992)

two years before the election campaign compared with 40 per cent of late
deciders.
Although late deciders may be considered a relatively homogeneous segment
of the electoral population in terms of age and lack of partisanship, previous
research suggests that it is not these factors per se that make them indecisive,
but rather the characteristics that are associated with them (Heath et al., 1985,
1991; Miller et al., 1990). The young tend to be less politically aware, to have
accumulated little political information in their everyday lives, and to have
fewer social networks from which they can acquire such information.
Similarly, weak partisans lack the conceptual tools to use political information
in a meaningful way, and as a consequence, often do not hold any strong
ideological feelings. Furthermore, although late deciders are less
knowledgeable politically and lack political involvement, this does not
necessarily mean that they are easier to influence. As Philip Converse
demonstrated more than three decades ago, less politically aware voters also
pay less attention to political information and consequently are as difficult to
convert as the most committed and knowledgeable voters (Converse, 1962).
The most likely outcome is that even when these groups are targeted in party
political advertising, it will not result in conversion in sufficient numbers to
influence the eventual result of the election.

The electoral consequences

The impact of political advertising in persuading voters remains controversial.
While party strategists and media specialists underline the major shifts in
European party support that often occur during an election campaign, academic
Journal researchers have remained sceptical. Arguing that political advertising simply
of Marketing reinforces voters’ existing predispositions, studies of the mass media have
found that the impact of television and newspapers is limited to the better
30,10\11 informed and already committed section of the electorate (Glaser and Salmon,
1991). Furthermore, this also seems to be the case even among the undecided, or
134 floating, voters (Miller, 1991; Miller, et al., 1990). While political advertising may
influence undecided voters on some election issues and on public feelings of
warmth towards the party leaders, it has little overall effect in shaping the final
voting choice.
Even when political advertising does result in conversion, it rarely affects the
election outcome since there is a mutually cancelling pattern of voter movement
between the parties. As Miller et al. (1990) conclude in their comprehensive
examination of voting patterns in the 1987 election: “That these [final
campaign] changes did not have a greater effect upon the eventual outcome was
in part a product of mutually cancelling patterns of voter movement between
the parties. In 1987, much of the change in voters’ political beliefs, attitudes, and
opinions cancelled out in the aggregate”. Because later deciders are less
committed voters, the factors that shape their ultimate choice often tend to be
random; the absence of any patterned response means that no one party is
likely to make a significant net gain from their movement.
If there is any vote advantage to be derived from late deciders, we would
expect that the minor parties would be more likely to benefit. Partisan
dealignment creates the conditions under which voters may defect from the
major parties, but not cross the psychologically-important dividing line
between Conservative and Labour. Thus, over the past quarter of a century the
Liberal-Democrat vote has risen significantly. Although the Liberal-Democrat
vote in 1992 slipped to 17.8 per cent, in the two elections of the 1980s it averaged
24.0 per cent, compared to less than half that figure in the elections of the 1960s.
The extent to which the Liberal-Democrats benefited from late deciders is
shown in Table I. About four in every ten Liberal-Democrat voters were late
deciders, compared with 17 per cent of Labour voters and 22 per cent of
Conservatives. Indeed, Liberal-Democrat voters who were late deciders actually

Vote
Con Lab Lib-Dem Other/DK

A long time ago 62 71 36 48

In 1991 7 6 8 7
In 1992, before the campaign 9 17 39 36
During the election campaign 22 17 39 36
Table I. Total 100 101 100 99
Vote by when decided, (n) (1,103) (826) (413) (147)
1992 Source: British Election Study (1992)
outnumbered their counterparts who said that they decided a long time ago. Marketing
Although the aggregate vote totals tend to disguise it, the effect of this volatility politics to
on Liberal-Democrat support is a high vote turnover from election to election voters
(Studlar and McAllister, 1987).
However, the electoral benefits of increased proportions of late deciders to the
Liberal-Democrats is limited, as we noted before, if defections and conversions
occur in approximately equal proportions. This is, in fact, substantially the 135
case, at least as far as inter-election shifts are concerned. The figures in Table II
are the proportion of electors who voted for a particular party in the 1987
and/or 1992 elections, followed by the proportion who defected from that party
between the two elections, and the proportion who were converted. The figures
are disaggregated by the timing of the vote decision. Overall, the Liberal-
Democrats experienced a net vote gain of 3 per cent, the product of 4 per cent
defection and 7 per cent conversion. Labour gained 1 per cent based on these
shifts, while the Conservatives had a net loss of 4 per cent. So although the
Liberal-Democrats did experience a net gain in votes, their advantage would
have been much more substantial if they had been able to defray defections
among their 1987 supporters.
The figures also illustrate the extent to which a disproportionate amount of
defection and conversion took place among late deciders, and among those
who had decided how to vote in the previous year. For example, of the 32 per
cent of 1987 and 1992 Conservative voters who had decided how to vote a long
time ago, only 3 per cent – or about one in ten – changed their vote between the

(Per cent)
Con Lab Lib-Dem

Decided long time ago

Voters in 1987, 1992 32 26 6
Defections –2 –1 –1
Conversions +1 +2 +1
Net vote 31 27 6
Decided in last year
Voters in 1987, 1992 8 3 3
Defections –3 –2 –1
Conversions +1 +2 +3
Net vote 6 3 5
Late deciders
Voters in 1987, 1992 9 5 4
Defections –3 –2 –2
Conversions +2 +2 +3
Net vote 8 5 8
Total vote 45 35 16
Note: Estimates exclude voters who were too young to vote in 1987 or who did not vote in either Table II.
1987 or 1992 Net vote gains and
Source: British Election Study 1992 losses 1992
European two elections. By contrast, among 1987 and 1992 Conservative voters in the
Journal late deciders group, more than half had changed their vote during the same
of Marketing period. Clearly, then, there is considerable potential for parties to benefit
electorally from late deciders – if they can maximize conversions and minimize
30,10\11 defections.
Although these results relate specifically to inter-election shifts, the data also
136 enable us to make some estimates of the voter shifts within the campaign
period. The 1992 BES contained a question asking respondents if they had
seriously thought of voting for another party during the election campaign and,
if so, what that party was. The results showed that about one quarter of voters
had considered changing their vote, substantially more (60 per cent) in the late
deciders group than among those who had decided in the previous year (26 per
cent) or a long time ago (12 per cent). Of the late deciders who had finally opted
to vote Conservative or Labour and who had considered voting for other parties,
by far the largest proportions said that they had thought about the Liberal-
Democrats, rather than the other major party.
These results lend some support to previous market research findings on
brand switching and product choice. As is also the case among consumers,
voters who considered changing their vote were more likely to switch between
parties or brands that were their closest substitute (Carpenter and Lehmann,
1985; Grover and Srinivasan, 1987; Keller, 1993). In other words, similar to
commercial markets, the political market may also be intuitively understood in
terms of a set of hierarchical submarkets in which a party (brand) competes
more directly with other parties (brands) within its submarket. The
positioning of the party within the political spectrum will thus determine the
extent of voter loyalty, and the party’s ability to compete with other parties for
votes.

Conclusion
Since the 1980s, British election campaigns have become increasingly organized
and professionally-managed media events. All of the major political parties use
advertising consultants to plan their campaigns and the tools of professional
marketing – photo opportunities, rallies, walkabouts and even the use of film
directors and actors – are commonplace. Yet, despite the activity and the cost,
there is little empirical evidence to suggest that political advertising has any
significant impact on electoral outcomes. Past research suggests that, although
the use of political campaigns does result in a better informed voting public, its
overall impact is limited to nothing more than a reinforcement of the voter’s
existing predispositions. In terms of their actual electoral behaviour,
comparatively few voters are influenced by these events and the net effect on
aggregate vote is negligible (McAllister, 1985; Miller, 1991; Miller et al., 1990).
Our results from the 1992 election broadly confirm this finding. Even among
late deciders, where there are proportionately greater inter-election and
campaign shifts, the net impact on the votes cast for the three parties is
comparatively small.
 From a marketing point of view, the central problem is that political Marketing
advertising is currently targeted to the wrong group of individuals. By politics to
concentrating their efforts on undecided voters, the least aware or least partisan voters
group, political campaigns have chosen a segment of the electorate that is the
least likely to be persuaded by either their product or marketing efforts.
Furthermore, because the undecided are also most likely to be determined by
random factors, even when effective, the overall benefits of this approach 137
remain highly questionable; swings in support in the direction of one party are
likely to be cancelled out by swings towards the opposing party. As we have
shown, the Liberal-Democrats made a net gain among late deciders at the
expense of the major parties, but much of the gain was lost because of
defections. The figures for the Conservative and Labour parties are similar.
From a marketing perspective, not only will the continuing targeting of this
segment of the electorate fail to result in any short-term gains in product-
positioning or dominance, but it will also impede the development of any long-
term party or brand loyalty among the wider electorate.
Would a re-orientation towards an alternative segment of the electorate – the
middle group of voters, or those who decided in the previous year – reap greater
electoral rewards for the parties? The evidence presented here suggests that it
might. This group remains substantial – accounting for 16 per cent of the
electorate in 1992 – and is both better politically informed and more cognitively
skilled than late deciders. Moreover, research in the USA has suggested that the
images of the party leaders have a substantial impact on the party preferences
of this group, mainly via voter perceptions of the leaders’ integrity, reliability
and competence (Kessel, 1988; Miller et al., 1986). Voters with average levels of
political awareness are now more likely to use such information as an electoral
cue rather than partisanship, social position or their peer group. If British
political parties and their campaign managers targeted their products in terms
of leadership qualities to this group of voters using precampaign strategies,
perhaps they would find it a more rewarding and efficient use of their resources.
It is to this group of voters, and not the undecided, that political advertisers
should be directing their campaigns.

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