Political Marketing and the 2015 Uk General Election

This book brings together leading scholars to analyze political marketing in the context of the UK 2015 General Election. Election campaigns represent a time of intense marketing, including: the communication of party, party leader and candidate brands; the design and dissemination of key messages and policy proposals; identification of target voters; setting out strategies for the campaign; and translating strategies into specific communication tactics. Each chapter of this book has been specifically commissioned to focus on one of these aspects of the campaign (targeted campaigning, branding, core messages, advertising, media management, online campaigning and the campaign in the marginal seats). The collection offers insights into the most interesting and innovative aspects of the 2015 election campaign, determining how levels parties with differing resource approach elections and with what impacts, as well as what we can learn more broadly about marketing at general elections. The chapters are developed to make the topic accessible to non-scholars and to have real-world relevance.

Darren G. Lilleker is Associate Professor of Political Communication in the Faculty of Media & Communication, Bournemouth University, UK. He has written widely on political communication, political marketing and the impact on voter cognition and behaviour. He is also chair of the PSA Political Marketing Specialist Group.

Mark Pack is Associate Director, Blue Rubicon, UK. He was formerly Head of Digital at MHP Communications and before that Head of Innovations at the Liberal Democrats running their 2001 and 2005 internet general election campaigns. He was also Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, the most widely-read Liberal Democrat blog in the UK, until 2013 and has been a Visiting Lecturer at City University in the Journalism Department.