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Access some recently published research and interviews I’ve conducted on my work.
Casting light on the evolution of political marketing in Central and Eastern Europe, this book delivers an intriguing snapshot into both the sophistication of campaign strategies and the triumphs and trials facing democratic progress in this increasingly complex political landscape.
Free elections, following the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, brought the need to attract voters through election campaigns and therefore, races involving political marketing began, and electoral campaigns in CEE began to resemble those of Western democracies. Most political parties operating in the region became quickly accustomed to the new approach to politics and a broad range of political marketing tools and techniques.
This book examines the 2020 campaign and election in the United States of America from the perspective of political marketing, always intrinsic to democratic elections. Whether focused on the development of campaign strategy, its implementation via various communication media, or how well that communication resonates and mobilizes the electorate, marketing is central to political campaigning.
The election of 2020 was arguably one of the most unique in recent memory. The campaign took place in a context which included a pandemic that prevented normal campaigning for much of the year, a historically unpopular and polarizing incumbent president and continued adaptation on the part of all political actors and citizens to a rapidly changing communication environment. Chapters in this book, by well-respected scholars in the field, focus on various aspects of this reality. This includes discussion of how candidates use various social media platforms, what effects the social media campaign has on citizens and legacy media, as well as how well marketing efforts resonate with citizens.
Citizens, journalists, and scholars have shown increased interest in candidate violations of democratic norms, ranging from former President Trump’s campaign rhetoric to the Capitol riot. But how unusual are the former President’s actions on the campaign trail? And to what extent do norm violations benefit – or harm – presidential candidates?
Other campaign strategies involve social norms around non-elites. For example, some campaign messages emphasize group norms in order to influence turnout and correct misinformed beliefs. How do communications based on group behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes affect voters during presidential campaigns?
Chapters in this edited volume explore the communications of the President, and other actors, including groups promoting turnout and fact-checking candidate statements. It uses the historic 2020 U.S. Presidential Campaign to explore the relationship between campaign messages and democratic norms, as well as the potential of social norms to shape election-year behaviors, attitudes, and perceptions among voters. This volume highlights different features of the changing role of democratic and group norms in presidential elections.
Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways, and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary.
This Research Agenda documents and establishes the thinking of leading scholars in the field of political marketing and related sub-fields, also encompassing additional social science disciplines that intersect at the crossroads of political marketing.
Chapters address the complexity of how politicians and political parties leverage trust, credibility, and expertise across their policy positions, and how citizens formulate their attitudes and opinions. Contributors focus on the new challenges and opportunities for political parties and politicians around the globe when communicating about complex issues, such as science and technology.
This book demonstrates the progress that has been made on political branding research across international contexts. It focuses on the critical application of new concepts and frameworks, generating a deeper understanding of unexplored settings and positioning research from multiple perspectives.
It is important to consider different typologies of international political brands particularly as we have witnessed huge changes across political landscapes from Brexit, the rise of President Trump, the surge in populism and the development of sustainable-climate change movements. Given that there are many potential typologies and non-traditional political brands, this volume investigates different typologies and alternative political brands with the support of new and under-developed theoretical lens from multiple perspectives and contexts. These include Canada, Iceland, India, Indonesia and the United States of America. This book provides areas of reflection and explicit calls for further research, which in turn will advance insight into political brands and enhance our understanding of political marketing in action.
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram create new ways to market political campaigns and new channels for candidates and voters to interact. This volume investigates the role and impact of social media in the 2016 U.S. election, focusing specifically on the presidential nominating contest.
In this latest book co-authored with my son, Todd Newman, we put forward an innovative model of branding that integrates the best practices across six different brand entities: Products, services, people, organizations, nations and complex ideas. The book relies on extensive examples of successful branding strategies, including the recent Trump election victory and the challenge to climate change advocates.
I recently held an interview with DePaul University’s College of Business, where I discussed Brand’s primary framework and how it integrates with political marketing. The full interview is available here.
I published the Journal of Political Marketing Volume 20 in 2021. This has been the cornerstone of my experience in the field, as I have published an updated volume of this Journal every year for the past 15 years. It is available for purchase here.
Released in January 2016, this book captures the effective marketing models Obama employed in his successful 2008 an 2012 campaigns. It is available for purchase on Amazon.com.
In addition to these most recent publications, I also authored or contributed to these additional books:
Cross-Cultural Theory Building in the Practice of Public Relations and Political Marketing (2002).
Democracy in an Age of Manufactured Images (1999).
Political Marketing as Campaign Strategy (1993).
The political landscape has shifted drastically over the past several decades, but arguably the more so in the past three election cycles than any other point in history.
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