Wring06.pdf (82.61 kB)
Selling socialism: the marketing of the 'very old' British Labour Party
The present incarnation of Britain’s leading social democratic party as ‘New’ Labour
underlines the relevance and importance of marketing to politics. Management discourse
now permeates the modern electoral process. During the 1990s leader Tony Blair aided by
key acolytes such as Philip Gould and Peter Mandelson used marketing techniques and
thinking to recreate a brand identity in keeping with their cautious programme for government.
In doing so they followed on from their previous work on behalf of Blair’s predecessor, Neil
Kinnock. During the Kinnock era the party had undergone a fundamental change akin to a
business evolving from a sales to a marketing driven strategic approach. Key contemporary
accounts of Labour have tended to reinforce the politicians’ emphasis on the novelty and
radical departure involved in their respective projects of organisational reform (Hughes and
Wintour,1990; Gould,1998). This, however, is to ignore the role and work played by
marketing techniques, personnel and thinking in earlier incarnations of what has often been
portrayed as a traditional, conservative organisation.
History
School
- Social Sciences
Department
- Communication, Media, Social and Policy Studies
Pages
55871 bytesCitation
WRING, D., 2001. Selling socialism: the marketing of the 'very old' British Labour Party. European Journal of Marketing, 35(9/10), pp.1038-46Publisher
© EmeraldPublication date
2001Notes
This article was published in the journal, European Journal of Marketing [© Emerald]. The definitive version is available at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0309-0566.htm.ISSN
0309-0566Language
- en