The utilisation of language in political marketing theory and practice

Purpose: Whilst political marketing has become established as a subject area, important issues remain under-researched. One such area is language utilisation in political marketing. The purpose of this paper is therefore to further the literature with respect to this issue. Method: The paper discusses at a conceptual level: (i) the use of political marketing language inside political parties; (ii) the relationship between the use of political marketing language and the media; (iii) academics’ use of political marketing language, and; (iv)the impact of the language of marketing experts/ advisors on political parties. Results/Conclusions: The utilisation of political marketing language has many complexities. The language of political party insiders has value providing the language of marketing can be disentangled from political campaigning. The media’s use of political marketing language has an advantage of alerting researchers to potential research avenues, but sometimes has limitations in its appropriateness and proportionality. Moreover, advisors to political parties on political marketing may fail to adequately adapt ‘general’ marketing models to the relevant context. There is a high degree of contestability in both marketing and political theory language; thus creating higher level meta-contestability in political marketing language