The six principles of persuasion

One of the approaches to persuasion is Robert Cialdini's which is interesting for two reasons. One it is based on empirical data and second it is fairly unusual in that he says that a persuader can change behaviour directly without having to automatically change attitudes first.

He recently gave an interview to Dutch television which is addresses the whole art versus science issues and how comemrcial sales people influence people

How the Lib Dems might view hung parliament negotiations

I am indebted to Mark pack at Lib Dem Voice for this very interesting article based on a dicussion on the Liberal Democrat History Group meeting at their Party Annual Conference in 2009.

Thus far I have been trying to put a personal view, as an elector, on the current negotiations for forming a Government. This article describes the process from within a political party. Reading this article there are two clear points that are relevant to the current machinations. First, the political parties will have short and long-term political objectives. They will not just be looking at the policy details, but what the electoral impact might be in the future. Second, the Liberal Democrats are very likely to be well-prepared, probably much better than the other two parties. And it is very interesting that David Laws who is central to this article, is one of the Lib Dems negotiators.

The interesting question for me are:
1) Is opening disucssion with Labour a negotiating ploy to get more consessions from Cameron? Or do they really wnat to work with Labour?
2) At what point do the Lib Dems walk away? And what would be the consequences of such an action?

Will the Government have credibility?

As the three main parties maneouvre for position and leverage in any deals, basic persuasion theory, using Aristotle's three components of rhetroic may help assess what might be the best way forward.

Ethos is the speaker. In esssence are they credible? Aristotle argues that this is the first and most important component. I am simply not convinced that a Lab-Lib coalition/agreement would be perceived as credible. First, it would appear to have a lame-duck PM who is widely seen to have lost the eelction, and has stated he will be going in September. Then the new PM will not be selected by the electorate, so you have to wonder what was the purpose of the leaders debates are.

Logos is the message. And here I struggle, because I suspect the subliminal mesages will speak louder than the actual ones. What has happened to new politics?

Pathos is the audience. And here I can't help feeling that they are fed up.

Whatever is the permutation of Government, no one will have an easy ride, but I can't help feelign that a Lab-Lib pact has more political persuasion issues to overcome.

Is a Con-Lib deal really that bad

There's a lot of discussion today about whether logically there should be a Lib-Lab pact, and what the possible political consequences for the Lib Dems might be of a deal with the Conservatives.

I can't help feeling that this is 'old' politics thinking. During the election campaign, especially the leaders debates, Clegg made much of his point that we need a new sort of politics. Uncomfortable as it may be, he is being presented with the opportunity for such a new direction. If the Liberal Democrats do not do a deal with the Conservatives, many ordinary undecided voters might reasonably ask "So was all that change stuff hogwash then?"

I fully understand why some MPs and activitists on both sides will be making political calculations, but Clegg tried to reach out to voters with a mesage. Now it is time to try and deliver.

Turning to a Lib-Lab pact, there is a sense that Labour lost and it is time for Brown to go gracefully, not with his fingernails stuff to the door of Number 10.

What do the lib Dems do now?

Are three leaders gave prepared statements today, and the ball appears to be fully in the Lib Dems court.

Nick Clegg made clear his view that the Conservatives, as the party polling the greatest number of seats and receiving more seats than their opponents should have first bite of the cherry in forming a Government.

Gordon Brown stated that he was willing to do a deal with the Lib Dems around the two principle areas of the economy and proportional representation.

Cameron made an offer of a formal deal with the Lib Dems and he outlined some policy common ground, and some areas the Conservatives would not move on. This line was much stronger than suggesting a loose arrangement.

A deal has been publicly made to the Lib Dems by both Labour and the Conservative. Despite the idealogical closeness some Lib Dems might feel with some in Labour, I would strongly suggest that two parties who lost seats should not form the Government. This would send out the wrong message.

At the same time I feel the Lib Dems should reject Cameron's formal offer. It may well be a poisoned chalice. It might well be better to go for an informal arrangement and hope that the Conservative Government has to make some unpopular policies, force a no confidence and hope that round 2 creates the momentum for PR in a year or so.

A risky bird in the future as opposed to bird in the hand strategy, that could backfire. But I feel this might well be the smart move. Often it is worth working out what would your opponent least want you to do? And this might be the Conservatives least prefered option, especially as they might then have to rely on cutting deals with the SNP, PC and DUP whose price might limit their ability to cut public spending.

No one has got all the aces, but this is clearly a game of poker. Who is the best player?

The wheels are falling off the Labour campaign bus

There gets to be a time in every Government when it appears to those on the outside (though rarely those on the inside) that it is time to go. I suspect that this was the case with the Conservatives in 1992 (even thoguh they hung on for five more years) and is the case with Labour now. I say this not as a partisan political point, or even one based on policy or personalities. Rather, the nature of the campaign is conspiring against Labour, they keep making one step forward and then suffering two-back. It feels like an election campaign damned by the gods. The latest of these is that yesterday Brown got a rousing standing ovation at a debate hosting by Citizen's UK, and then today Labour candidate Manish Sood claims that Brown is the worst PM ever. Whilst this statement is made by a candidate in a no-hope seat, it and its timing is extraordinary. Brown and his close advisors really must wonder what can go wrong next?

Too much of Brown's campaign looks like it was written by the scriptwriters of accident-prone Frank Spencer.

Is bigotgate a storm in a teacup?

I have a sense with just over a week to go bigotgate could have quite a significant effect on the outcome of the election. I don't expect the other parties to directly mention it (though the right-wing press clearly will), although it will be interesting if tomorrow night there is an oblique question on it during the leaders debate.

My overall impression of the campaign thus far has been that in the first ten days or so the media were bored, then they had Cleggmania to get stuck into but more recently they appeared to be getting bored with hung parliament dicussions. The time was ripe for a new story, and unforturnately for him, Gordon Brown supplied it.

I expect that this gaffe will have some effect on the polls, probably to knock Labour down rather than the others up. This could be very very significant to the long term political future of the Labour movement. One of the biggest issues now is who comes second in the popular vote. If the Lib Dems beat labour by just one vote, they will have bragging rights irrespective of the number of seats each has. The Alliance failed in 1983 and then gradually fell back. In recent polls the gap between Labour and the Lib Dems was closing, and it looked if Labour might reclaim second spot. Now I think this is less likely.

One other point to note, however, is that if someone makes a mistake tomorrow night, bigotsgate will be forgotten. Unless of course it is Brown that supplies the headlines again.

My own take on what happened today is a) it reinforces the point I made recently about managing events such as leaders' tours. Why did they not have their own microphone? Is no one checkign the details? b) why did the broadcasters feel it was acceptable to broadcast a private conversation off air. We're all said things under our breath, surely Brown should be allowed to let off steam.

Do Testimonials Work?

I recently received an email from Tom Levitt who headed his email "Welcome to an election special of ‘e-former-MP News’!" He notes that the fight in his former seat High Peak is close with his majority being 735 over the Conservatives.

It will be interesting to see if such testimonial appeals to a group who have been communciated to the former MP will have any impact. I doubt it.

The vagaries of political events management

Earlier posts have noted that if the experiential marketing approach is accepted (and I am not saying it should be) as a framework for understanding politics, then elections should be viewed as akin to events. As a consequence, elections are spectacles which provide entertainment as well as information. Whilst election campaigns stress their overall ideologies, policies and strategies, it may be that more generic events management skills are required. This is not to say they don't already play a role in elections, but they are probably seen as very functional and so low-key in strategic importance.

However, I note in this campaign, as with previous ones in the UK, what appear to be event management oversights can affect the campaign. In a previous post I highlighted the consequences for Labour of not checking that Gordon Brown was allowed to take the media into a school, and now Labour again have been pulled up. This time it is the children's cartoon Peppa Pig who was due, apparently, to be part of a Labour visit to a pre-school. This one rather beggars belief, surely the political antennae is saying that the commercial owners of this programme would never agree to the asscoaition of their 'product' with partisan politics. Yes, as part of a Government education/reading campaign, but during an election? Surely not.

Overall this does make one think that basic event management skills of having a check list of all the details might not be given the priority it should. Or do these two examples suggest that it is only Labour that really need to take professional event management advice?

I am reminded that childrens' shows, particularly pigs, have before been involved in political issues. A Pinky and Perky show, You Too Could Be Prime Minister, during the 1966 election was originally banned by the BBC, but when aired its audience was higher than Labour's PEB.

"I disagree with Nick Clegg"

The second leaders debate last night was a slightly diferent, and dare I say it more entertaining, proposition from the opening one last week. There was more bite to all the contestants, there was a bit more passion and Nick Clegg was given a less easy ride.

Clegg was never going to scale the heights of last week as the novelty wore off and his opponents took him seriously. I thought he was more nervous this week and his presentation was not quite as polished, but his content was a bit 'heavier'. Cameron was a slight better than last week, there was more passion, and his delivery was improved (but still not as pleasing to the eye as Clegg's). Brown was much much better. He perhaps overplayed it, but he was more passionate. My only problem was that he was a bit like a student who has revised only one topic for the exam. When the question was about that topic, the economy, he was very convincing but when the question was about soemthing else he still tried to get the economy in.

Overall I felt that it was a score draw, if you can have such a result with three players. All of them can have something to be pleased about. For Clegg no one landed a heavy punch on him, so he lives to fight another day, and as the days get nearer to May 6th then he becomes more of a winner if the polls stay broadly unchanged. Cameron maintained the Prime Ministerial approach, but added a bit of bite. Brown can also be pleased from a more combative performance, and he too is still in the game.

That said of the three, I suspect relatively Clegg has most to be happy still.

The gloves come off the election campaign

Watching last week's leaders debate I felt slighty uncomfortable that both Cameron and Brown were being so nice to Clegg, with the 'I agree with Nick' line. This just felt wrong. It also probably reflected the fact that Cameron, in particular, had not factored Clegg or the Lib Dems into his calculations.

It was somewhat predictable that eventually the gloves would come off. So in a rather perverse way I am rather pleased about the headings in today's Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. It proves that the Lib Dems have got under the establishment's skin. Moreover, the fact that such stories are surfacing allows us to see both Clegg's and the Liberal Democrat's mettle. Do they really have the ability to play a major role? If they are not tested, and do not rise to the occasion then maybe they should not have our votes. But if they do rise to the occasion the Lib Dems will be in a better position.

I am not convinced that either story is going to be a big problem. Having read Clegg's actual 2002 article in The Guardian I really can't see what the fuss is, and I doubt anyone who does not read The Mail would either. The Telegraph's claims are more problematic, but my antennae is saying that this was not best practice and so unwise but it does not feel dodgy. I'm really not convinced it will hit home, especially if the necessary paperwork is indeed produced. In fact, both stories may actually backfire, and be viewed as smears as fuel to the fire that there needs to be change to the existign system.

What actually may have more effect is the use of satire online. Already mainstream journalists are linking to #nickcleggsfault on Twitter where people are blaming Clegg for all sorts of riduclous things, such as the person who could not find his tin of beans for lunch. This sort of humour may well take the sting out of such personal attacks by the media. Perhaps more importantly for the Labour and especially Conservative Party strategists it does suggest that the British public know what they like and don't like. And I am not convinced they like what the Establishment may be trying to do.

What if Cameron had punched the egg-thrower?

David Cameron was today visiting the Souith West and was at Cornwall College in Saltash part of a seat, SE Cornwall, which the Conservatives need to be winning to get a majority. When there a student decided to throw an egg at Cameron from behind.

When John Prescott was famously 'egged' by a farmer he immediately lashed out with a punch. As a result his popularity grew.

Such acts of violence shoudl nto be condoned at all, however the hypothetical, but nonetheless interesting question, is what might have happened if Cameron had turned round and lamped the student? Would he have been treated so generously as Prescott was. Or would he have been pilloried? We'll never know the answer, but it could have had the same dramatic impact on the polls as the Leaders' Debate.

What the election has ignored so far

With the focus of media attention on the big three parties, and the effect of last week's leaders debate, a longer term trend of relevance to the body politic is being ignored.

My own political experience was shaped in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s. A period when two main parties, and occasionally the Liberals and Welsh or Scottish nationalists got some attention. Apart from the occasional MP resigning the Whip and standing as an independent as Dick Taverne did, by and large the two-party system dominated. But then in 1997 Martin Bell got elected as an Independent and in 2001 so did Dr Richard Taylor on essentially a local issue. As the curent eelction was called there were technically 9 Independent, plus one Independent Labour and one Independent Conservative and George Galloway officially Respect, but in effect an Independent as well. Whilst several of the nine are not really independent but have specific personal reasons for having the party Whip removed or wishing to no longer have the Party Whip, these figures suggest a further crack in the existing party-dominated system.

With the Green Party, UKIP and the BNP all having a serious chance, probably for the first time, of winning a seat or two this all suggests that not all is happy in the body politic. Whilst I suspect these parties will be unsuccessful, there is clearly a deep-seated uphappiness with the existing system. At present the focus is on who is the change candidate - Cameron or Clegg - but the rise of the Independents is also a sympton of this long-term trend.

Today an Independent slate of candidates was announced. It is unlikely that they will have any effect on the election, but the very fact they exist as a coherent body tells us something.

When the election entrails are analysed after election day, the focus will rightly be on the perfromance of the big three. But to get a full understanding of what is happening in the UK don't ignore how the smaller parties and independents did.

The possible value of experiential marketing

I found this BBC article on Labour's PR debacle in Swindon yesterday interesting. It seems that someone forgot the basic rules of managing events and checking that everything was in place. Note to self whoever is running Brown's calvacade have a checklist, and tick off the details of each and every event.

The bulk of the article explains the consequence for Labour's handlers of this oversight, but my eye was caught by the end where a heckler met Gordon Brown for a one-to-one. The journalist, Iain Watson, observed that the previously disgruntled voter opined that Brown was a reasonable human being, and might be changing his vote as a result. This suggests that meeting the PM was a possible critical incident for this voter. Watson ended his piece with "Perhaps this experience will convince the prime minister to meet more voters and fewer supporters on his campaign visits." Watson is suggesting that the transactional approach of focusing on core voters, and communicating via the media may not be as successful as more personal commmunication. Brown was creating an emotional experience for this voter, and one that appears to have been partially successful.

As a postscript I note that the voter, a publican, and therefore presumably easy to reach claimed he was going to vote Lib Dem, but now his vote was up for grabs. I would expect the Lib Dem and Cons candidates to be around his boozer straight away. There is a vote to gain, and possible PR opportunities surrounding it.

Getting independent information about the election

During the 2005 General Election the bloggosphere was relatively new, and as a consequence it was fairly easy to trawl for interesting commentary sites on the election campaign. Because the big players, both in the parties and the media have woken up to the power of the Internet, it is much more dificult to find indeendent analysis. This is not because they don't exist, rather that they are overwhelmed by the sheer number and the search engine ratings of the big players.

Although presented by a newspaper, I found this FT panel interesting because it includes three party back-room staff who look at the communication issues each week of the campaign. Moroever as communciation professionals you get more of analysis and less of yah-boo sucks.

My colleague Paul Baines at Cranfield is presenting both research and commentary on the elections which provides a more academic interpretation.

Prior to the eelction City University had a very interesting debate about the possible impact of new media on the campaign.

Some more academic commentary can be found here

The UK General Election site provides a place for interested people to get involved in polls and discussion forums, but lacks a commentary cutting edge.

For academics looking to conduct research on party and candidates communications, this site at Bristol University may well prove a worthwhile source.

I was amused to note that Angie Hobbs is constructing a Cabinet of philosophers, though personally I prefer Monty Python's philosophers song

Nottingham University's blog on the election provides postcripts to some of the happennings of the campaign.

One interesting question for lobbying groups, especially charities, is how do they get a look in during the campaign and have their voice heard. This site explains research which may help answer this question.

I also note that De Montford University has a PhD scholarship available for a student to look at the role of the Internet in the 2010 General Election. I am slightly lost how someone can start after the campaign, too much information will be lost.

Also focusing on the communication aspects of the campaign is Darren Lilleker's blog

Is fear the right strategy?

Blogging today the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson suggests that the big two parties may well respond to the Lib Dem problem by relying on fear appeals. So for example, a vote for the Lib Dems lets in Labour or do you want Nick Clegg and his bearded sandel wearing brigade to be in No 10 on May 7th?

The problem with these is that fear appeals are not always succesful and are quite complicated to use. Indeed they can backfire. Fear appeals are essentially a negative communication strategy (and when a significant minority of the electorate want change this seems unwise). They are emotionally charged, and indeed the evidence is that it is difficult to scare people, often they just tune out to such scare appeals such as driving too fast. If they scare us too much, we deny them as happens for some people with smoking. The receiver will often employ selective distortion based tactics so that we twist the message to hear what we want to hear. Or we employ selective attention and don't notice all messages around us.

Kim Witte’s Extended Parallel Process Model tries to explain how fear messages might work, and when they won't. She notes that a fear-arousing message contains two components:
1) A threat (that there is danger). The receiver will then consider the severity (the seriousness of the threat) of that threat and susceptibility (the likelihood that the threatening outcomes will occur). But will receivers actually believe the Conservative fear messages will actually happen. Do they even care if they do?
2) What is the efficacy information (that a recommended response exists) to help the receiver. There are two components to this, response efficacy (information about the effectiveness of the recommended action) and self-efficacy (the individual is capable of the recommended action). Would a voter in a safe Labour or Conservative margianl actually care?

This process can lead to either the Danger Control Process or the Fear Control Process. With the former the individual believes that they are capable themselves of averting the threat by undertaking the recommended action. With the latter the receiver internalises the message, so how do I contain the fear. Fear appeals work if it pushes the person to fear control.

The problem then is what might be fearful to the party startegists might not be viewed in such ways by the electorate. Moroever, in the mass of messages going out, voters may selctively distort what they hear.

What to do with the Lib Dems?

The recent, rather bizarre, poll ratings for the Lib Dems put us into fairly uncharted territory. The last time I can remember similar ratings for the third party was in the early days of the SDP and the Alliance with the Liberals. My memory was that at some points in the 1983 campaign the Alliance did poll higher than Labour, and the final result was very close in terms of the national vote. However, in the political lifetime of most of the major players of all parties now, we have not witnessed such skewed ratings. So what should Labour and the Conservatives do now?

There is no off-the-shelf playbook the parties can use to guarantee success, to a large degree they are making this up as they go along, which makes it fraught with danger.

I would suggest that there are two components to their approach. First, what the leaders do in terms of the next two debates and their various tours. Second, what they get their attack dogs to do on their behalf.

I would strongly suggest that the leaders need to be positiive. Yes, in the debate point out the weakneses of the Lib Dems polict stance, but stress their own party's unique approach. Going for Clegg or the Lib Dems in an overt way in a TV debate format could merely reinforce the impression of tired old politics, and turn more people off the big two. The attack dogs need to go more into the detail, and highlight inconsistencies etc. However, even here there is a danger of turning off people, and it creates automatically the opportunity for the Lib Dems to have a right to reply. I very much doubt that anyone, in the parties, the media or other commentators expected the Lib Dems to be the issue of the election. And in such circumstances only the Lib Dems will be the out and out winners. The party strategists now have some interesting and tough decisions to make, and it is quite likely that they will get it wrong as get it right.

As I noted before, if Labour and the Conservatives go for Clegg/the Lib Dems they must score a knockout blow, otherwise they merely reinforce the image of the Lib Dems as a major player. That said, personally I do not expect the Lib Dems polls to stay as high, nor do I expect Clegg to be as so obviously ahead in the next two debates. However, unless we have entered an X-factor contest where polls can rollercoster up and down very quickly, they will still probably end up on May 6 much better than they expected a week ago.

The focus so far has been on the impact of Clegg's performance on the big two, but in fact it also raises serious questions for some (but not all) of the minor parties. Since the existance of more proportional electoral systems in some UK elections, such as the European Parliament, the smaller parties have gained more votes, and stand usually in the 10-15%. Very often this is a proptest vote, and it is quite likely that the Lib Dems have regained some of this disaffected vote.

Is television helping this become an experiential marketing election?

When I first reflected on the last week's leaders debate, and the impact on the polls, I concluded that the debates had acted as a shot in the arm to the transactional marketing approach. That despite all the hype about the Internet, direct mail from the parties and the importance local campaigns in the battelground seats, mass communication channels had reasserted their primacy. Instead of buying soap powder as suggested by Kotler and Levy in 1969, many voters were thinking of buying 'Clegg' in 2010. This strongly suggested a one-off tranactional approach.

However, it is quite possible that the leaders' debates could actually encourage an experiential marketing approach to this election. I note that Nick Clegg has observed that there is a "fluidity in this election which we haven't seen for perhaps a generation. " Of course he would say this, but if, and it is a big if, he is correct a long term increase in Lib Dem poll rating might well be the result of an emotional attachment. Enough voters might say that this is an important election and I am fed up with the big two parties. I am not saying this will happen, but it a perverse way the leaders debate may have increased the chance of an emotional attachment being made, and not just voting based on rationally or past behaviour.

A miracle or a rogue poll?

Several bloggers are currently discussing an apparent ITV/ComRes poll that shows the Lib Dems are up 14%, with the party's at Cons 36, Lib Dems 35 and Labour 24. This did not seem right, and a bit of digging around suggests that this is an unreprensentative poll of the 4,000 panel that watched the debate last night. Though Lucy Manning ITV political correspondent who may or may not have put out the figures first, clarifies the situation that the weighted figures are: Cons 35, Lab 28 LD 24. This does suggest in fact that there has been an immediate bounce in the Lib Dem polling. It will be interesting to see if as other polls come out that this is replicated, and who is losing support most. The unrepresentative poll above suggested that it was Other who was the biggest loser. Indeed, a qualitative based piece of research by IPSOS/Mori suggest that it is the Other parties who are the biggest losers. They asked 36 undecided voters both before and after the debate who they would vote for, and whilst the Lib Dem vote nearly doubled, the Labour and Conservative vote was marginally down, but that of Other dropped by two-thirds.

Who won the leaders debate?

The media consensus is that Nick Clegg won the debate last night. My feeling is that as long as he did not make a huge mess of it, Clegg was always going to be a winner. His goals are much narrower and more easily achieved through the oxygen of publicity. Clegg needs to get his party as close to its showing last time (23%), they are at roughly 20% now, to ensure that his party does not get squeezed later in the campaign and to hopefully win a few more seats. If Clegg's performance in the 3 debates helps them defend five seeats the Conservatoves might have won, and to gain 5 from Labour than this would have been a significant effect. For both Brown and Cameron such a result would be useful, but unlikely to transform their position in a way that they might for Clegg.

My thoughts on last night's performances are:
1) No leader landed a big punch.
2) No leader made a huge gaffe (though I can see both Clegg and Cameron being quized more about Trident).
3) Each leader can come away with positives. Brown is not out. Cameron can claim to be firming up his Prime Ministerial credentials' and Clegg is now in the game. In the short term Clegg has gained most, but the war is not yet over.
4) One leader (Clegg) spent a lot of time attacking his opponents.
5) Two leaders (Brown and Cameron) spent a lot of time attacking each other.
6) Two leaders (Brown and Cameron) did not attack the third.
7) Clegg seemed to be able to pull off the trick of using both the plague on both your houses approach, and at the same time saying let's stop bickering and work together. I suspect the second is a stronger message.
8) This is not, as we already knew, Brown's natural ground. He looked uncomfortable, but his performance was not disasterous and he can improve the most.
9) Clegg did better than I expected, his body language was very strong and I liked the way he stood at the pedestal.
10) Before it began I expected Cameron to be the best presentationally by far, and was surprised that he was not. It was not that he was poor, because he was not, it just that he did not come over as polished either. When we saw the background pictures Clegg and Brown seemed to be listening, Cameron either looked mystified or worried. He may well not have been, but his body language when the others were speaking was not confident.

In terms of the next debates the expectation is on Clegg, and it may be difficult for him to maintain that level - if he does the political axis may well tilt a bit. Brown needs to be more empaphetic, and Cameron needs to be himself more.

The next week will now be interesting, both main parties need to firm up what they will do with the Lib Dems. This is a tricky issue. The third party poll ratings always go down when it is ignored. If Labour and Conservatives turn on the Lib Dems (see Trident) then it could actually backfire, and just give them more exposure. If the big two try to knock out the Lib Dems then they'd better connect, or actually the result could be more point-scoring on the counter for the third force.

The impact of the leaders debate

For me the big two big questions for the three debates collectively are 1) will they encourage more voters to engage with the campaign and 2) do they have any effect on voting behaviour?

It is far too early to tell with both, but on the latter it is likely that the Lib Dems will in all probability gain in the polls in the next few days, though this gain could easily and quickly be lost. Of more fundamental gain for the Lib Dems is likely to be the fact that it will be much harder for the big two parties to put the squeeze on the third party. Traditionally when this has happened the third force has been ignored because it is seen as not being relevant to the key debates. For at least the next week this will not be the case. I would expect Lib Dem candidates and background staff to be asked their opinion more than they might have been before the debate. Clegg's performance will not just probably influence his ratings, but also trickle down to media opportunities for the party as a whole.

The other question related to the effect is, if we assume Clegg's ratings go and stay up a lot, what affect will this have on the Lib Dem vote? The answer is probably limited and rather difficult to quantify. There have been a number of occasions when the more popular party leader did not win (1945, October 1974 and 1979). Though it is worth noting that this existed in a two-party system, in a two-and-half party system a small improvement for Clegg could have more of an effect for his party because the voters may be voting for him as the king-maker not the king. Ultimately voters vote for ther party to govern, this is not an issue with Clegg, so his performance like several of his predecessors could be important at gaining votes, amd more importantly a few seats.

It is also worth noting that if the leaders debate does lead to the Lib Dems gaining in the polls, it is quite posible that they will make their greatest gains at the expense of the Others rather than the two big parties. The Liberals had traditionally been the repository of the protest vote, but now this is less of the case and a greater range of protests exist. It is possible that Clegg's performance, if repeated over all 3 debates could actually strengthen the party as the protest vote party, and take away votes from UKIP/Greens etc as a result.

It wil be interesting to find out the viewing figures, and how many watched all 90 minutes (even a political junkie like myself was struggling at the end). But I suspect these debates will support not the hypodermic needle of the leaders reaching out individuallly to viewers and persuading them. Rather it seems to point to a two-step, or more likely multi-step flow approach. Some of those who watched will be influenced directly by what they saw, but for the majority they are likely to have their minds shaped by the verdict of others. The broadcast media and press seem to suggest that Clegg won, and this, along with debates via the Intenret and posibly clips on YouTube will shape opinions. Clegg in his opening gambit said he wanted to persuade viewers, in all likelihood this persuasion will be subtle and only part of a longer process.

How the Liberal Democrats might be seeking to persuade

I am reminded that during the days of the old Liberal-SDP Alliance, during elections the leaders such as David Steel use to try and refer to the two main parties as Tweedle and Tweedledum, and consequently create some space for themselves. However, given that the Alliance won only a few seats (in the 20-30 range) their leverage on both the media, and in key battleground seats was minimal. As a consequence, they tended to get squeezed, and at a national level in the campaign had limited impact.

However, since the party has broken the 50 seat barrier they have more impact, especially when people are thinking about a possible hung parliament. As a result this means that what they do to carve out their own unique space may have some effect on the campaign and the voters. Ex-Paddy Ashdown aide, Olly Grender, writing about the 2005 General Election campaign suggested that the Liberal Democrats used a range of persuasive techniques. So the election message of ‘1P on income tax for education’ might at first appear merely a detail of education policy, but was in reality designed to provide both a rational and emotive reason for people to vote for the third party.

Looking at this election we can already see stylistic ways in which the Liberal Democrats is seeking to diferentiate themselves, and hence give voters reasons to vote for them. First, Nick Clegg's wife is not actively campaigning, unlike the spouses of the two other main party leaders. Whilst this may not be a deliberate strategy, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez may simply have put down her foot it may have an effect. The reason given, that she has a day job to put food on the table may well reasonate well with voters, compared to the other two leaders' wives who by implication are so well off they don't have to work. Second, unlike the Labour and Conservative Manifesto launches, that of the Liberal Democrats had a low level of razzamatazz, rather they focused on the serious issues in a serous way. If the economy is indeed the key question, the Liberal Democrats are clearly hoping that such a sober approach will be appreciated.

In the past the third party gained votes almost because they were not the main two parties. Now their is a fourth 'party' which plays the protest vote role that of Other, comprising Greens, UKIP and BNP that play that anti-system role. Hence the Liberal Democrats need to create their own 'yellow' space. At present I see their two strongest cards being their strength on the ground in their key seats and Vince Cable. In order to be persuasive during the campaign they need to develop other cards, which is why the leaders' debates on TV are almost make or break for Clegg.

David Cameron and experiential marketing

A key component to experiential marketing is to stress the emotional as well as rational aspects of a product or brand. Audiences are segments by grouping them according to values, enjoyment, personality and social group. It is the latter factor which implies that an experiential marketing approach can be reflected in the messages parties and candidates present voters. The slogan ‘Time for a Change’ is used frequently by oppositions, and ‘Yes we can’ used by Obama in 2008 are actually a suggestion that the recipient can make a difference, and be part of something new. Those voters who got 'carried away' by 1997 and voted Labour to be part of something new and important suggest experiential marketing can be succesful.

This election has already at least one clear example of experiential marketing. David Cameron's invite yesterday for voters to "Join the Government of Britain" is a clear appeal for voters to become active with the campaign. So rather than buying Conservative policies as would be implied by transactional marketing, they become an active participant. The email I recieved from Cameron said "We've got big problems in this country and the truth is politicians can't do everything on their own. We need your energy, your ideas, your passion to get this country moving". It will be very interesting to see if this type of message is successful in mobilising people to feel part of a special campaign. However, if the view is that this election campaign is not important, such appeals will fall on deaf ears.

Does marketing apply to general elections?

As one of the authors of The Marketing of Political Parties: political marketing at the 2005 British general election, I am sceptical as to what extent marketing can be applied to the political process. When you talk to backroom staff they frequently use some marketing terminology, such as segmentation, but this does not necessarily mean that marketing is driving party election activity. Rather, our book found that in 2005 the parties cherry-picked what they wanted to use from marketing theory. So a bit like magpies they liked the nice shiny bits, which essentially was marketing communciations, but did not necessarily adopt marketing theory on research, the customer and the product.

At the recent Political Studies Association annual conference in Edinburgh I pondered the question of the possible impact of marketing on the election for the the Political Marketing Group's Round Table. I suggested that a framework for understanding the impact of marketing on elections might be to consider marketing philosophies. I specifically addressed three: transactional marketing; relationship marketing; experiential marketing.

Transactional marketing is the traditional 4Ps approach to marketing, where political actors primarily use mass communciation channels to reach their audiences in a broadcast manner. As such an election is, as Kotler and Levy suggested in 1969, similar to selling soap. Parties and candidates tend to rely on media management and advertising to reach voters, and so communication is largely one-way and top-down. It is quite possible that the leaders' television debates could revitalise this approach.

Relationship marketing is a longer-term approach that seeks to develop a lifetime of support. With an emphasis on customer loyalty the stress is on developing personal relationships by encouraging trust and showing empathy. This approach views politics as akin to a service industry, and politicians secure loyalty by engaging citizen-voters in conversation over a period of time. This implies a level of interaction and dialogue through direct targeted communications.

Most research has suggested that either the transactional or relationship approach applies. However, a more recent and yet to be tested approach is that experiential marketing might help illuminate what is happening during elections. Schmitt (1999) suggests that consumers do not just want tangible components of a product, but also an emotional attachment. Holbrook (1999) suggests that consumers personally connect to a product through an experience. This implies that political parties, candidates and the media need to offer voters a memorable experience. This raises the interesting prospect of political discourse introducing emotions such as fun, fear and pleasure. Experential marketing focuses on the human connection with a brand or product. This generally requires that the consumer is involved in an active experience with the brand/product, so they take part in an activity in a public place. The channel used is more likely to be events whereby a voter can see for themselves the product or experience on offer by the political parties.

Experiential marketing seeks to change the voter-political actor relationship in two key ways:
1) Political persuasion is not just based on rational argument attached to the candidate/party product offer, but also intangibles such as how much the voter enjoys the experience of the interface with political actors.
2) an election becomes an event at which the voter is a spectator and feels part of the show.

It will be interesting to which, if any, the campaigns of the parties and individual candidates is closest to.

The power of email

At the last general election the most influential online communication channel was email. Private email lists at both a national and constituency level allowed parties and their candidates to reach, motivate and mobilise their activists to work offline, be it canvassing, telecanvassing, stuffing envelopes or whatever.

Although much interest has been shown in recent years in the political application of Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, microblogs and social networking sites, I suspect that they will be an online side-issue. They are the latest fads, but are unlikely to be a persuasive tool. Rather, once again I suspect it will be email. As part of a long-term relationship marketing approach email can persuade voters to change their opinion of MPs, and possibly therefore influence their voting behaviour.

Within an hour of today's formal announcement one MP emailed about the relevance of the campaign to their constituency, and one party leader had emailed me too. Given the the lack of trust about politicians perhaps the most interesting email I received was from another MP, who regularly consultants with constituents via email. They noted that they would not be using their email list during the campaign. Because they wish to attract voters of all parties and none to sign up, this MP did not want the list to be seen to be a partisan tool. My suspecion is that by using it as a regular two-way interactive tool as an MP probably increases their vote anyway, and to use it as a campaigning as opposed to representative tool would probably undo all the good it has done.

Election 2010 called - They're off

Well, at long last Gordon Brown has prorogued parliament, and what we all suspect is now reality - it will be 6th May.

I have a few general thoughts so far.

I note that HM The Queen had to get a helicopter to Buck House to see Brown. At what point was it confirmed behind the scenes between No 10 and Buck House that such a journey was required? I am assuming quite some time ago?

In how many other countries does the Prime Minister or President control the exact date of an election within overall parameters?

Thirty days is a mid-level campaign, not too short and not too long. Suggesting that Brown and his aides are not totally sure whether they need a long campaign to win people over or not. However, it is clear that they could not afford a short campaign - they have to get some momenutum and make changes in the polls. The length implies that Labour suspect they will lose, but that they could just do it.

Is Labour Imploding?

As someone who spends a lot of their time working on words, albeit in an academic setting, I was very interested in the open letter to all Labour MPs by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt.

This appears to be a well-crafted third way, essentially saying some people are arguing for a leadership campaign, adn some are not but that to lance this boil we must have a secret ballot of MPs, and that whatever the result all MPs should abide by the decision.

This seems to present the letter writers as innocent neutrals. This may or may not be the case, but I suspect that I suspect that the supporters of Brown my suggest that this is not a third way, but actually a letter from those who have been involved in the calls. Irrespective of the motives and political in-fighting that appears to be going on, the letter is an interesting example of how important precise words can be. It also shows, despite the growth of the political bloggersphere, that it is probably still media that has greatest political impact on setting the agenda.