The Contribution of Political Marketing in the re-election of President Gbagbo during the 2010 Presidential Elactions in Ivory Coast

Table of Contents

A. Introduction:

B. Description:
1.) What is Marketing?
2.) What is Political Marketing?
3.) What Similarities between Political Marketing and Business Marketing?
4.) What Differences between Political Marketing and Business Marketing?
5.) Partial Conclusion

C. General Analysis:
1.) Candidate Franklin Roosevelt’s Real Image
2.) Crafting a New Image:
3.) Partial Conclusion:

D. Actualization:
1.) The Most Serious Candidates in Ivory Coast?
2.) The Candidate Laurent Gbagbo:
2.a Positive Points:
2.b Negative Points:
3.) The Most Serious Opponents:
4.) Partial Conclusion :

E. Discussion:
1.) Crafting an Image of a Trustworthy and Fair President:
2.) Revealing the connections of the Opponents with the Rebels and France:

F. General Recommendations:

G. Conclusion:

H. Refe rences:

A.) Introduction

Political Marketing is a branch of Marketing specialized in presenting a politician or a candidate as a product to be sold to special customers called electors. This method became important since it is impossible for a candidate to meet all the voters and try to convince each of them.

Political Marketing has been used in the United States of America since 1952 by the presidential candidate Dwight Eisenhower, then eight years later by John Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

As stated by Bruce Newman, the year 1968 experienced the use of political marketing as a strategy to present the presidential candidate Richard Nixon as a real product to be sold to American voters. Since then, there is no election in the United States of America during which advertisers are not offered a chance to prove their talents of apparent personality and favorable appearance shapers (1999).

Though common and well-known in the United States of America, political marketing is almost never used in Africa in general and particularly in Ivory Coast. How can political marketing be introduced in the coming 2010 presidential Election? How can it be used for the re-election of President Laurent Gbagbo?

In order to try to answer these questions, we will first present a brief description of how political Marketing was used in the United States of America, then, we will initiate a general analysis of this concept, actualize it to our social and political environment, before discussing it and presenting the positive and negative points of the three most serious candidates as well as what to do to ensure the re-election of our favorite candidate. After all this, we will make some general recommendations and a final conclusion will put an end to this brief essay.

B.) Description

This passage will enable us to present the marketing concept in general and from that general concept come to political marketing and state their relationship with the modern world in which we live.

1.) What is marketing?

For Jean Marc Lehu, marketing is a science that takes the customer’s needs and expectations into account during the process of making a given product. In so doing, marketing identifies what prospective customers of a given product are actually looking for in that product, how much they are ready to pay for it, where and when prospective customers want that product (2004)?

As stated by Patrick Gabriel, the aim of marketing is not only the satisfaction of the customers’ needs, but also the insurance of the company performance. Thus, marketing serves both the customer and the company (2003).

2.) What is Political Marketing?

Political marketing consists in using the principles of marketing to make a candidate appear more desirable, more preferable to another candidate. To paraphrase the above definition, political marketing is a science that takes voters’ needs and expectations into account during the process of a given candidate’s ‘’image manufacturing’’, and make him look exactly like the candidate that voters are expecting.

Thus, like in business marketing, political marketing serves both the needs of voters and candidates. It serves voters in a sense that it turns a given candidate into the one that they desire and expect! Political marketing also serves the candidate by helping him reach his objectives to be desired by voters and finally, be elected.

3.) What similarities between Political marketing and Business marketing?

According to Bruce Newman, both business marketing and political marketing use traditional marketing tools. This is the case of market research used to analyze both customers (business marketing) and candidates (political marketing). Another characteristic feature is that both political and business marketing function in a very competitive atmosphere (1999, page 36).

4.) What Differences between Political Marketing and Business marketing?

Political marketing helps to win elections whereas business marketing helps to sell goods and make a profit. Market research is enough to make a profit in business marketing whereas in political marketing research is associated to a given philosophy and they do not necessarily lead to success.

5.) Partial Conclusion:

Political marketing promotes a particular merchandise type for the election sake whereas business marketing promotes goods for the profit sake. Both marketing types utilize all the traditional tools associated with marketing in general. The next question to ask is how was political marketing used in the United States of America?

C.) General Analysis

The history of politics in the United States of America presents many presidential candidates who made use of political marketing. Among them, the case of Franklin Roosevelt is for us the most successful of all, because he was the only American president who was elected four consecutive times.

1.) Candidate Franklin Roosevelt’s Real Image:

As an ambitious politician, he was said to have contracted poliomyelitis when he was thirty nine years old and lost the use of his two legs. His new physical appearance was a very serious handicap for his political ambitions.

Furthermore, before becoming the thirty second President of the United States of America, Franklin Delano Roosevelt had several love affairs with many ladies among which Lucy Page Mercer Rutherford, his wife’s secretary.

Thus, when Eleanor Roosevelt discovered all this in 1918, she was about to ask for divorce and this was her right to do so, but this would have increased Franklin’s negative image of a paralytic and unfaithful husband who, in addition to his negative image, divorces his spouse (A.S. Goldman, 2003).

Had Eleanor asked for divorce as she was ready to, who would have voted for such a man? Certainly the way such a serious handicap was transformed in the favor of the candidate Franklin Roosevelt will surely help another candidate with fewer handicaps. How did Franklin Roosevelt transform such a negative image through political marketing?

2.) Crafting a New Image:

The objective was to present the image of a normal Franklin Roosevelt, able to stand and walk. As for the image of the unfaithful husband, it consisted in convincing his wife Eleanor Roosevelt to stop her complaints and accept not to divorce in exchange of a promise to stop meeting Lucy Rutherford, an arrangement reported by Bruce Newman (1999).

However, if convincing Anna Eleanor Roosevelt seemed relatively easier, being able to stand on the lost legs was not an easy task but, as stated by a famous reggae singer: ”when there is the will, there is the way”, Franklin Roosevelt “demonstrated indomitable courage” in fighting “to regain the use of his legs, particularly through swimming” in warm water (Quoted from the Whitehouse official site).

As a result, this special courage made the work of market researchers, media strategists and direct mail specialists possible. They succeeded in creating the appearance that Roosevelt was able to walk. His particular friendly way to treat the press and media people was an incentive for them and they decided to help the candidate Roosevelt protect his image. Only few people knew the truth about his legs. Thus, for the great majority of Americans, he was an irreproachable husband and of a normal citizen able to stand and walk. The consequence of such a positive image was his election as governor of the state of New York in 1928 and four years later, in November 1932 he became the thirty second president of the United States of America and the only president elected for four consecutive terms.