Page 172 - An Introduction to Political Communication Third Edition

POLITICAL PUBLIC RELATIONS

Another important marketing technique is that of ‘product
endorsement’. In commercial terms this is achieved by positioning
the product (in an advertisement or promotional event) alongside a
well-known and popular personality, usually from the worlds of
entertainment and sport. In politics this approach has been used
since the 1960s when Harold Wilson received the Beatles at 10
Downing Street. Whether or not Mr Wilson enjoyed the Beatles’
music, it was certainly clear to him that large numbers of the British
electorate did. To be photographed and filmed with the Beatles was
an attempt to appropriate this image and its connotations; to have
his ‘product’ endorsed by young, trendy musicians. In the late
1980s, towards the end of her period in office, Margaret Thatcher
tried a similar trick with football star Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne. If
some of his working-class ‘blokishness’ could rub off on her, she
apparently felt, it would assist her to retain popularity. In the end
she, like Gazza, was to fall from grace. In the Blair government’s
first year in office, the Prime Minister hosted several parties for
celebrities from the worlds of art, entertainment and youth culture
at 10 Downing Street. Meetings with Oasis’ writer and manager
(Noel Gallagher and Alan McGee respectively) were photographed
and widely publicised (although the Gallagher brothers’ alleged
fondness for cocaine and marijuana was in some contradiction to
the new government’s anti-drugs policy).
During election campaigns, rallies have become opportunities for
parties to display the stars of stage, screen and sports arena who
support them. At a rally in 1983 the Conservatives enlisted the aid
of popular young comedians like Kenny Everett, as well as more
well-known Conservative supporters like Cilla Black and Jimmy
Tarbuck. In 1992, 1997 and 2001 Labour employed ‘alternative’
comedians Ben Elton, Stephen Fry and others to emphasise what its
advisers hoped to present as a younger, more progressive set of
values. For the Labour Party, as for the Alliance and Leicester
building society, endorsement from such sources was assumed to
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carry weight with the target audience.

Internal political communication
The marketing techniques and promotional devices described in this
chapter and the previous one are not pursued in isolation but as part
of a communications strategy which will ideally be co-ordinated
and synchronised. Parties, like commercial organisations, must
develop channels of internal communication, so that members (and

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