The Future of Politics and Marketing

For the past decade, technology has been reshaping the landscape of political campaigns. Cable television, satellite uplinks, cellular telephones, facsimile machines, and related communications and software applications offer ever more sophisticated ways of reaching voters. With each passing month, the advertisements in Campaigns and Elections, the trade journal of consultants and political professionals, are filled with new applications of this technology.

In the 1990s, political consulting firms were likely to work more closely with businesses, as pollsters and consultants with years of experience in campaigns broadened their clients beyond those of elected officials. Some politicalconsultants attribute this to the erratic nature of working on political campaigns, whereas others express the lure of new challenges, the desire to shape policy issues, or simply the desire for money as their reason for taking on more nonpolitical clients. Whether the motive is a more stable salary or a desire to shape policy in some way other than working on elections, consultants have flourished in an era of helping out candidates. Whatever their motive, consultants now spend their days using the techniques honed in the work of political campaigning for business-related advertising and public relations.

From a business perspective, the hiring of political consultancies brings with it not only expertise honed in the trenches of campaigning, but also contacts with lawmakers and officials who are already in office. In the midst of an election, pollsters and strategists can forge close relationships with candidates and elected officials, writes James Barnes of the National Journal, " giving them the kind of access that most Washington lobbyists can only dream of" (1995: 1330). Businesses that retain the services of political consulting firms, in short, benefit from both the years of experience of these firms in helping candidates win elected office and the prospect of retaining firms that may continue to work for those same officials after their election.

Politicalconsultants, for their part, believe that their desirability to businesses and private clients stems from their fast-paced and often aggressive use of the media, particularly newer avenues, such as the local television market, cable networks, and other outlets. Not only do corporations want to use these local markets in the way that political campaign professionals have been learning to do for the past decade, but they are also drawn by the much more immediate turnaround time of politicalconsultants. National Media in Alexandria, Virginia, according to Advertising Age's Ira Teinowitz, " has made a business out of the increased expenditures, going after corporations that require the heightened activity usually seen during the last days of a political campaign, policy developments at 10: 00 a.m., a media plan by 3: 00 p.m., an ad aired that night or the next day" (1997: 28). " It's a turnaround time, " concludes Teinowitz, " traditional media buying finds difficult

(1997: 28).(n11) " It's a lot like a political campaign without the candidate, " explains National Media's Robin Roberts. " It's in and out of the market real quickly, a lot of media weight very quickly" (Teinowitz 1999: S10). Mark Mellman, a prominent Democratic pollster, explains that " every year, there seems to be more work for us. We are the masters of the punch-counterpunch environment. For better or worse, the corporate world is becoming more that way" (Fitzgerald 1996: 10). The quickening pace of communications and new technology is likely to force businesses to rely on an ever-widening circle of consultants, advisers, and media staff, including those with experience in political campaigning.

The success of the HIAA in 1994 and its series of advertisements against the Clinton administration's health-care reform, as argued in this article, led to a remarkable upsurge of politicalconsultants, advertisement experts, pollsters, and media buyers all interested in working with corporations. Pharmaceutical companies, utility and telephone corporations, the tobacco industry, and most recently the computer industry have all spent hundreds of millions of dollars to produce and air advertisements with the help of some of the most well-connected Washington consulting firms (Bell 1998a: 26; Bell 1998b: 4; Rosin 1998: 12-13; Stone and Sandberg 1999: 57).(n12) Ben Goddard, the Goddard-Claussen consultant who produced the advertisements for the HIAA in 1993, continues to market his firm's work to corporate and business clients, including the Business Roundtable, the Chlorine Chemistry Council, the Coalition for Asbestos Removal, and the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (see https://www.goddardclaussen.com/workfor_content.htm for a list of clients). Political advertising and consulting firms are now taking on work for businesses, helping to shape their strategies in lobbying, government relations, litigation, and even new product placement. " The opportunities for political campaign consultants and vendors, " concludes John Persinos of Campaigns and Elections, " are endless" (Persinos 1995: 35). They offer a more fast-paced approach to media buying that features a flexibility lacking in most advertising firms.

The traffic between the work of politicalconsultants and their private-sector clients is not without the taint of ethical questions. In July 1999, Vice-President Al Gore announced a reorganization of his presidential campaign team, including the hiring of Carter Eskew, a consultant who, several years earlier, had left his firm of Grunwald, Eskew, and Donilon to form his own consulting outfit with a focus on working with private clients. " Public policy decisions are being waged increasingly through advertising, " Eskew explained in his announcement in April 1995 of a new firm affiliated with the public affairs firm of Robinson Lake Sawyer and Miller. Eskew was instrumental in the lobbying campaign of the tobacco industry in 1998, helping to craft a series of advertisements reminiscent of the HIAA ads. His ads were thought to have played a pivotal role in the defeat of tobacco legislation in Congress.(n13) The questions raised about Gore's hiring of Eskew are an example of the new kinds of ethical issues that arise as the line between politicalconsultants and private-sector clients is more and more blurred by these politicalconsultants -turned-corporate strategists and troubleshooters. Such questions are likely to continue for both Democratic and Republican candidates in the years to come as consultants more often divide their time between campaigns and their more lucrative business clients and as a small but significant percentage of politicalconsultants weigh offers from the business community to focus exclusively on their private-sector work.

Along with the obvious conflict-of-interest questions that arise when candidates hire consultants who seem to effortlessly glide between running campaigns and managing public relations portfolios for some of the nation's largest corporations, an interesting set of questions remains about the impact of this interaction between politicalconsultants and their work with corporations and private businesses. What possible complications arise, for instance, when private corporations and businesses adopt the fast-paced advertising techniques honed in the trenches of running for elected office? Will the techniques of quick-response, negative advertising already disliked by millions of Americans in the campaigns of their elected officials be more readily adopted by the private sector? How might these techniques and these politicalconsultants undercut the credibility of their corporate clients? How does this group of consultants who glide between the public and the private sectors contribute to larger challenges to traditional lobbying groups and the party system? All of these questions remain as the bond seems to grow closer between consultants, the private sector, and candidates for public office.

Campaigning today is different from even a decade ago, as candidates respond to radio talk shows, cable television programs, and thousands of sites on the Internet, all of which afford candidates new ways of reaching the public that were not available even five years ago (Novotny 1998). With a continuous, twenty-four-hour news cycle marked by the nearly instantaneous coverage of events as they occur, a campaign must be ready to respond to news as it develops, keeping ahead of developing stories and anticipating new ones as they unfold. Direct broadcasting satellites, cable television, cellular telephones, pagers, and the Internet all speed up politics, to the point where news travels at what now seems to be a faster pace than ever. Campaigns now boast of being able to write, produce, and distribute advertisements to air in a matter of hours, using conference calls, cellular telephones, computerized document sharing, and even digital transmission to connect their campaign staffs with pollsters, writers, producers, and time buyers in ways never before possible.

Not only do corporations and businesses want to tap into the expertise learned on the campaign trail, but they also want the fast-paced, responsive style that was a trademark of well-run political campaigns in the 1990s. Accustomed to working with deadlines in an adversarial and ever-changing environment, politicalconsultants are bringing to bear a new, cutting-edge element to the advertising and polling of their candidates, a use of the latest in software and media technology that is accelerating politics to the point where, in the words of Campaigns and Elections, overnight is no longer acceptable. Not only do politicalconsultants and their candidate clients abide by this maxim, but corporations and businesses realize that they, too, must take the initiative in dealing with the media and with their competitors in the marketplace. Careful students of political campaigns should be attuned to the shifting trends of many of those who normally work on the election trail, as the work of commercial advertising, political consulting, and polling intermingles even more in the years to come.

Address: Department of Political Science, PO Box 8101, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA 30460-8101; phone: 912-871-1391; fax: 912-681-5348; e-mail: pnovotny@gasou.edu.

Paper submitted September 20, 1999; accepted for publication October 29, 1999.

Notes

(n1.) Explained Roberts, " We were in the right place at the right time with the right business model when the lobbying laws changed" (Teinowitz 1999: S 10).

(n2.) Robin Toner, " Harry and Louise and a Guy Named Ben, " New York Times, Sept. 30, 1994: A22.

(n3.) Ibid.

(n4.) Explained Goddard, " We wanted to precede his September speech and lay the groundwork to raise people's concerns" (Gilbert 1994: 28).

(n5.) Focus groups and polls conducted by Goddard-Claussen/First Tuesday found that viewers were starting to have negative feelings about the advertisements. Explained Goddard, " They began raising concerns that Harry and Louise were a selfish, yuppie, white, middle-class couple, just like [people in] the insurance industry" (Gilbert 1994: 28).

(n6.) " The next couple of spots took Harry and Louise out of the house, " explained Goddard in National Underwriter magazine, " in an effort to avoid people getting bored with the commercials" (Gilbert 1994: 28).

(n7.) Alison Mitchell, " Stung by Defeats in '94, Clinton Regrouped and Co-opted G.O.P. Strategies, " New York Times, Nov. 7, 1996: A1.

(n8.) Using a schema to classify voters into four sets of basic traits, the team of Mark Penn and Doug Schoen assembled what it called a " neuropersonality poll, " a profile of the electorate reaching far beyond politics into the values and lifestyles of voters. Using the latest techniques in marketing research, the polling team saw it as a way to provide insights into " how Americans lead their lives" (Thomas et al. 1997: 233).

(n9.) Peter Baker, " White House Isn't Asking Image Advisers to Reveal Assets or Disclose Other Clients, " Washington Post, May 19, 1997: A8.

(n10.) Ameritech enlisted the well-known consulting firm for what Trevor Jensen of Adweek describes as " its bare-knuckled fight against local and long-distance competitors" (Jensen 1997: 3). Though somewhat reluctant to talk about their contract, Ameritech executives volunteered that the retaining of the Communications Company was an " experiment" intended to " use the agency primarily for quick-turn response ads to competitors such as AT& T" (Jensen 1997: 3). The three " corporate spots" produced by the Communications Company for Ameritech depicted the company as " a reliable, hometown friend." The work of Robert Squier and the Communications Company, explains Jensen, " first drew the attention of Ameritech chairman Robert Notebaert while the shop was pitching the U.S. Telephone Association account last fall [ 1996]" (Jensen 1997: 3). " The assignment to a firm known for its political work, " concludes Jensen, " may signal how Ameritech plans to fight its war with AT& T and other local and long-distance competitors" (Jensen 1997: 3).

(n11.) Explains Teinowitz, " The pitch [of political consulting firms] to corporate clients is the quick turnaround time for getting advertisements on the air. Years of political campaigns now could translate to corporate purposes. Media buyers in Washington all contend they are much better than New York buyers at handling the quick turnaround dictated by advocacy campaigns" (1999: S 10).

(n12.) See also Rajiv Chandrasekaran, " Harry and Louise Have a New Worry, Encryption, " Washington Post, July 28, 1998: El; Rajiv Chandrasekaran and John Mintz, " Microsoft's Window of Influence, " Washington Post, May 7, 1999: A1; Dan Eggen and Craig Timberg, " AOL Tries to Interface with Politics, " Washington Post, Mar. 14, 1999: C1; Elizabeth Kolbert, " New Arena for Campaign Ads: Health Care, " New York Times, Oct. 21, 1993: Al; and Dan Morgan, " Drug Makers Launch Campaign on Medicare: Industry Wary of Prescription Cost Controls, " Washington Post, July 28, 1999: A4. In a November 16, 1999, story, the New York Times reported that Ginny Terzano, former press secretary to Vice-President Al Gore, had been hired by Microsoft to head its lobbying office in Washington, D.C. Katharine Q. Seelye, " Employees from Microsoft Give Gore an Icy Reception, " New York Times, Nov. 16, 1999: A1.

(n13.) Howard Kurtz, " Tobacco Shows Senate It Can Still Sell, " Washington Post, June 19, 1998: A1.