What do products and politicians have in common? Customers!

 

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Politicians and Products: Strategies for Getting Consumer Support
By Sandra Bravo, Babson College

What do politicians and products have in common?  Both are brands seeking your dollars (and in the case of politicians, your vote, too).  The marketing textbooks of the 1980s and 1990s pushed for a customer (or market) orientation heavily relying on marketing research to find out what customers really want in a product and then deliver it.  More recently, however, a product orientation has been touted for success, and suggests that creative product development will be embraced by consumers.  Dr. Anjali Bal and her co-authors studied these approaches as they apply not only to products, but to politicians as “brands” as well in a recent article entitled “How customer and product orientations shape political brands” in the Journal of Product & Brand Management.

The central question for political marketers is whether politicians are successful by using research to figure out the needs of their constituents and address them accordingly, or if politicians should shape the preferences of voters through strong and persuasive communication efforts.  The former approach is a consumer, or market, orientation heavily dependent upon market research.  The latter approach is a product orientation which requires creative product development and then a strong communications campaign.  As the founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, once said, “You can’t just ask customers what they want then try to give that to them.  By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

Bal and her co-authors discuss four strategic orientation archetypes in a quadrant using the degree of customer orientation as one axis, and the degree of product orientation as the other.   

Figure 1: Strategic orientation archetypes

Customer Orientation	High	Follower	Interact
	Low	Isolate	Shaper
		High	Low
		Product Orientation

Source: (modified from Berthon et al., 1999)

In political terms, each of these groups relies on a different approach.  Followers focus on and react to customer needs and the public’s concerns.  Shapers influence and “mold the opinions” of the electorate.  Interacts seek to combine the two approaches, listening to but also shaping through conversation the beliefs of voters.  Finally, Isolates are inherent in monarchies and therefore would not be applicable to a democratic political system.

Political strategists will do well to realize that no one approach is best.  The political marketplace is constantly evolving and a change in stance, depending upon the environmental conditions, may be appropriate.  What do the authors suggest?  “It is proposed that influence in political endeavors happens in a bi-directional manner where both politicians are influenced by voter sentiment and voters are influenced by politicians.  Using a careful analysis of the changing environment, political brands can better manage this relationship.”

Article citation:
Alessandro Bigi Emily Treen Anjali Bal , (2016),"How customer and product orientations shape political brands." Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 25 Iss. 4 pp. 365 – 372.