Political marketing in Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign

Résumé du document

To what extent Nicolas Sarkozy's communication strategy is based on marketing tools which can be compared to corporate marketing tools? What are these tools and how do they manage to change the electors' opinion? How to sell this candidate to the younger generation? These are some questions that will answered in this paper. Nicolas Sarkozy is now the new French President and he certainly owes his success to an intensive campaign of political marketing that had started several years ago. Political marketing has become increasingly important in countries around the world and this is mainly due to the fact that candidates have become more voter-oriented for 25 years. Nowadays political actors not only act out but also think in marketing terms. They use all the instruments of business marketing to set up a strategically campaign that will lead them of the way of victory. This way was not so easy for Nicolas Sarkozy: he was compared at first to dwarf of steel who wanted to wash the suburbs with a "Karcher?.

Extraits

[...] Nicolas Machiavel, The Prince Political marketing has become increasingly important in countries around the world. The concept of marketing has emerged as an integral foundation on which to build campaign strategies. This is mainly due to the fact that candidates have become more voter-oriented for 25 years and probably due to the fact that political actors increasingly think in marketing terms. They try to use marketing instruments in a coherent marketing strategy to sell a political program or a candidate. [...]

[...] - We get the interview of Aurore Bergé, president of the association jeunes de l'UMP”, a very comitted group in Sarkozy's campaign for the students and the younger. - We asked a questionnaire to students in HEC and at the Sorbonne in order to consider a group of young people with various political opinions. The questionnaire aimed to analyse the impact of Sarkozy's communication tools among the younger, and was based on a comparison with Segolène Royal's campaign Communication SOMMAIRE INTRODUCTION POLITICAL MARKETING A. Political marketing and Business marketing B. [...]

[...] He has a history and fairly set personality o Political products are only on sale” every few years contrary to business products normally available for purchase any time o By voting, citizen voters do not expect to accrue any personal and early benefits, contrary to the buyer of a commercial product. o The candidate does not have to use hard marketing tactics to sell himself. o The messages reaching the public about a political candidate are largely developed by the news media. The press is for him the ultimate public. o Whereas the business seller is seeking profits, the political candidate is seeking power. [...]

[...] Tracts are very efficient according to M. Breton de la Baronnière, to the extent that it presents the electoral program of the candidate, stressing the main points, and are distributed to everybody . The role of Internet In the beginning he used Internet a lot: petitions during the suburbs crisis, online sticking, discussion with blogers, specific programmes for the cybermilitants Then he has been caught up by his competitors as the comparison between http://www.desirsdavenir.org/index.php and http://www.avec-sarkozy.fr/site/ shows: Sarkozy doesn't have an official blog because it does not seem very 12 credible for a Minister to gives strategically decisions on a blog. [...]

[...] We call that the buzz marketing. We can do several remarks about his book: First of all, the title, with religious references shows that he wants to be at the same level of his readers. In his book, as in the real life, he uses short sentences to be clearer. His plan is very simple (my life, my work, my future). Sarkozy really wanted to say clearly and sincerely what he was. But some people refused to buy the book because they consider it only as an instrument of advertising B. [...]