THE PARALLEL FACT OF GH 2016 HIATUS: THE ROLE OF MARKETING IN POLITICS

THE PARALLEL FACT OF GH 2016 HIATUS: THE ROLE OF MARKETING IN POLITICS

This article is establish on my recent observation and subsequent monitoring which identified the roles of marketing and its tactics in politics as proactive leadership, political branding, conflict management and promotion of democratic ideals to woo the heart of the masses. The focus of the present situation is to determine how best to improve and tolerate these roles in Ghanaian democratic dispensation.

Although marketing philosophers accentuate the significance of negotiating advantageous exchange agreements with influential external stakeholders, such as regulatory organizations  or associations of traders, slight consideration has been given to the nature of these exchange processes or to the role that the marketing function assumes in this process. Spreading the political economy framework, the concept of the parallel political marketplace is offered for exploring the exchange relationships that span both economic and political market domains.

Political Marketing Defined

Political marketing encompasses the application of commercial marketing models to the practice and study of politics and government. Marketing isn’t a substitute for advertising, public relations, or telemarketing; those are features of marketing communications. Relatively, as the Canadian Marketing Association (2010) defines it, marketing is “a set of business practices designed to plan for and present an organization’s products or services in ways that build effective customer relationships.”
 In other arguments, if applied to politics in GHANA and other part of the world, marketing entails a political organization using business techniques to inform and shape its strategic behaviours that are designed to satisfy citizens’ needs and wants.

Political Marketing in Ghana: Theoretical Distinctions

Ghanaian politics are occasionally debated in political marketing by some academic professionals and media experts, for instance, Ben Ephson, a Pollster and elections expert, has expressed his opinion about the various political parties vis-à-vis their marketing approach thereby trying to evaluate both their strengths and weaknesses of their marketing approach, it is also an established facts that the two major political parties outsource the expertise of marketing professionals in their campaign activities.

In Ghana, advertising of party-politics commands much attention, mostly during election crusades. Marketing is obviously a tough feature of Ghanaian politics. For example, among the uses of political marketing between the two major political parties in Ghana  are the NDC presidential candidate John Dramani Mahama’s  facebook page with over 806,846 likes,  and NPP's presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s  facebook page with over 651,3983 likes which is making an impact of communicating to the masses especially in an era where degital technology has made it easier for the views  of the masses to be heard. The inability of the masses to physically follow through a campaign trip due to an intense increase in economic engagement of the citizenship which has made it imperative for the various political parties to use social media such facebook, twitter among others to engage their target market. The highest profile form of political advertising and marketing in  Ghana  now is communication being it positive or negative in electronic and print media spot, which creates either good impression about a political party’s policies to govern or attacks opponents using unflattering images, sinister music, dark colour schemes, and accusations of unsuitability for office). The best-known Ghanaian example of an attack communication is that of the NPP’s ‘INCOMPENT AND CORRUPT JDM GOVERNMENT, following the warm-up to the 2016 polls in spite of widespread condemnation, the government in Power i.e., NDC’s campaign for 2016  also featured some negative communication ads about its opposition the NPP by decrying the 'POOR INTERNAL MANAGEMENT OF THE NPP'S AFFAIRS.

Technological advancement has also fortified online forms of advertising (Small 2010) that reinforce mass media messaging, such as the NPP’s 'negative advertising'  that seeks to weakened the brand values of NDC while indirectly improving the presidential candidate of NPP, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and vice-versa. Throughout John Dramani Mahama’s tenure in 2012 to date, the NPP media campaign proclaiming that he ( John Dramani Mahama) was “the worse leader ever in Ghana’s history”.

The use of political advertising in Ghana generates significant debates. The responsive resonance hints to permit news reporting as the political advertising is eventually taking over the reality of socio-economic issues. Supporters of negative ads maintain that they help shape the public agenda, that they weaken an opponent’s values, and that they encourage political honesty and accountability. Critics counter that attack ads are unethical, that they are undesirable for the Ghanaian democracy.

In conclusion, Political Marketing in the Ghana needs to explore more and utilize marketing concepts and tools, providing an up-to-date and broad overview of how marketing can effectively deliver to capturing political power. Political Marketing in Ghana must focus on market research, marketing parties and volunteers, strategy and branding, communications, delivery, and marketing in government policies.

Reference: Marketing – Political aspects – Canada. 2. Political parties – Canada. I. Marland, Alexander J., II. Giasson, Thierry III. Lees-Marshment, Jennifer

ARTICLE BY: JEROME ADZAH