Marketing Analogies and the Political Consumer

Nick Robinson creates some interesting analogies in his post of 8.30 this morning. Entitled the political marketplace he firstly links popularity with share value, so arguing that if Gordon Brown was a plc we would now be selling his shares and his value in the marketplace would be in free fall. He then moves on to suggest that the voters are buyers and sellers, and elections are a little like trading stock; is this an accurate reflection of the way the electors view democracy or is it a disservice to civic duty in Britain?

There are perhaps two issues here, one is the treatment of citizens as consumers by the parties and the media. While interesting and not for the consumption by the news audiences, Nick's metaphors seem to reflect observations that voters/citizens are passive, reactive and contributing to politics only through polling data and the ballot box. This can reinforce this behaviour and maintain audiences and reactors rather than participants. More importantly perhaps is the nature of democracy in Britain. While we can all say that participation is facilitated more than it ever was it reaches a small minority, few seem to be part of the new Web 2.0 democracy in reality. So the only chance to participate is a vote that may have little effect on the outcome and is unlikely to because at the local elections seats remain uncontested or so safe there is little point in making the effort.

But that does not make us consumers as consumers have choice. Perhaps what we are witnessing is not the rules of the marketplace filtering into politics but some of the attitudes, when there is no choice but two or three tarnished brands the product sector is ignored and alternative purchases are made: hence the shift from party politics to issue and cause based activism or transferring political ideologies to the consumer marketplace where we are seen to have power. When there is no perceiving benefit from participating, or from government actions, the voice of the dissatisfied consumer emerges: especially when high taxes do not equate to value for money. But there are citizens out there, it is not the case that we have a consumer society that wants individual benefits from market-oriented parties, they want that as well as the best politics for society (this is based on research findings); but they do not find that so become spectators of the political marketplace, where support goes up and down, but unsure who is setting the prices.

Out of tune with the market?

Prince's forthcoming album is to be available free with The Mail on Sunday at some point in the future causing shockwaves to run through the big high street retailers. Their response is to attack the decision and threaten to boycott selling his recordings. Is calling the decision "absolutely nuts" or making the statement "It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career." really good PR for the retailers? While not an admission that can often be made it seems that The Mail's MD Stephen Miron is more in touch when he argues retailers like HMV "are living in the old days and haven't developed their businesses sufficiently". As they try to respond to cheaper offshore retailers, file sharing and the download industry, it seems a little unwise for the high street to damage their images in this way. As artists make less money from record sales as concert revenue and through merchandising, and when in essence their music is their own, is it any surprise that small bands promote themselves via MySpace and the bigger names look at less conventional routes for promoting themselves. Change maybe a bad thing for some sectors but when the market speaks both retailers and artists have to move with the times. Critics appear to be simialr to King Canute trying to make the tide obey him. The market has spoken, in a consumerist society brands, political or otherwise, are forced to listen.

Voters, Consumers, Or??

Been organising a conference/workshop on top of the usual so blogging has not been a priority over the last weeks. Conference over and things may be different!!

Said conference asked whether voters are thinking as consumers or being treated as consumers by the political parties and government. Discussions approached the question from several directions and, as is normal for academics, we still dont have a definitive answer!

But perhaps that is not just because academics have their own views and these will always counter the view of the last contributor, that is largely not the case. Perhaps though it is one of those questions that can be answered in a variety of ways depending on the perspective.

So here is one thought, we are voters and consumers and citizens, but only any one of them at our choosing. And actually there is huge overlap between our thoughts, attitudes and behaviours when wearing each of the hats because underneath each 'label' we are individuals. Some may consume politics for entertainment, others view government outputs using their knowledge from the consumer part of their life experiences, some do buy consumables as a global citizen etc, etc. Labels are great,but the boxes we construct for individuals may not actually fit them well; hence we struggle in understanding what it is that motivates voting.