Abstract
In the early 1980s, particularly on the Left, commercial ‘marketing’ was seen as taking a strong and potentially sinister grip on British politics. Lady Thatcher was regarded as central, both at a personal level and as populist leader. The ‘marketing of Margaret’ provided the common currency of political discussion: the Iron Lady image, the tabloid press cult of Maggie, the personal details of appearance and image, the deepening of her voice, the dental work, the change in style of dress and hair-do, and the copying of President Reagan-pioneered techniques, such as the use of the ‘sincerity machine’ autocue, photo-opportunities and ‘sound-bites’. Thatcher was ‘a willing instrument of all the latest wizardry of the political salesman’, according to Guardian commentator Hugo Young.2 The Labour Party’s deputy leader, Roy Hattersley, attributed Thatcher’s success to a ruthless exploitation of the murkier arts of image building.
As those who aim at control of government come to regard mass persuasion as their central problem, then the specialist in mass persuasion will rise correspondingly in influence.
Stanley Kelley1
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Notes
Stanley Kelley, Professional Public Relations and Political Power (1956) p. 210.
Hugo Young and Anne Soman, The Thatcher Phenomenon (1986) p. 94.
Wendy Webster, Not A Man To Match Her (1990).
Philip Kleinman, The Saatchi & Saatchi Story (1987) p. 32.
The £11 million figure is quoted in Eric Clark, The Want Makers (1988) p. 312. For a full account of the GLC campaign and its success in shifting public opinion
see Robert Waller, Moulding Political Opinion (1988)
Richard Rose, Influencing Voters (1967) p. 13.
Quoted in H.J. Hanham, Elections and Party Management: Politics in the Time of Disraeli and Gladstone (1978) p. 202.
Serge Chakotin, The Rape of the Masses: The Psychology of Totalitarian Propaganda (1939) pp. 131–3.
See Max Atkinson, Our Masters’ Voices (1988) pp. 13–14.
Quoted in Michael Thomas, The Economist Guide to Marketing (1986).
Michael J. Baker, ‘One More Time — What is Marketing?’, in Michael J. Baker (ed.), The Marketing Book (1991).
Nicholas O’Shaughnessy, The Phenomenon of Political Marketing (1990) p. 2.
Tom McBurnie and David Clutterbuck, The Marketing Edge (1987) P. 7.
See, for example, Roland Perry, The Programming of the President (1984).
John Ramsden, The Making of Conservative Party Policy (1980) p. 3.
See Richard Kelly, ‘Party Organisation’, in Contemporary Record, April 1991 4(4).
Michael Cassell, ‘Hard left softened up as party leadership scents better times’, Financial Times, 3 October 1989.
See Nick Grant (Labour’s publicity director), ‘A Comment on Labour’s Campaign’, in I. Crewe and M. Harrop (eds), Political Communications: The General Election of 1983 (1986).
For an article which captures well the predominant view of the ‘presidential’ nature of British campaigns, see Richard Holme, ‘Selling the PM’, in Contemporary Record, Spring 1988, vol. 2(1). See also Bob Franklin Packaging Politics (1994).
Larry Sabato, The Rise of Political Consultants: New Ways of Winning Elections (1981).
For a general introduction to the American party system and the effect of campaign finance rules and primary elections, see M.J.C. Vile, Politics in the USA (1983).
See also Philip John Davies and Fredric Waldstein (eds), Political Issues in America Today (1987).
Sidney Blumenthal, The Permanent Campaign (1982) pp. 22–6.
Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 5th edn (1976) p. 283.
See Jeffrey B. Abramson, F. Christopher Arterton, and Gary R. Orren, The Electric Commonwealth: The Impact of New Media Technologies on Democratic Politics, 1988.
Frank Luntz, Candidates, Consultants C.9 Campaigns (1988) p. 227.
See, for example, Kathleen Jamieson, Packaging the Presidency (1984) pp. 446–52.
Hilde T. Himmelweit et al., How Voters Decide (1981).
See, for example, A. Heath et al., How Britain Votes (1985).
John Curtice, ‘Interim Report: Party Politics’, in R. Jowell et al., British Social Attitudes: The 1987 Report (1987).
D. Kavanagh, Politics and Personalities (1990) pp. 1–14.
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© 1995 Margaret Scammell
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Scammell, M. (1995). Introduction: Propaganda and Political Marketing. In: Designer Politics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-23942-9_1
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