Marketing Strategy and Political Campaigning: A UK Resource-Based Perspective

The Resource-Based View (RBV) of marketing strategy development offers a useful method of identifying the distinctive strategic resources that will deliver competitive advantage. In this paper, its applicability to election campaigning is considered for the first time, using evidence from UK political election campaigning. The notion that electoral success is based primarily on the resources deployed in final election campaign itself is rejected and it is concluded that both shortand long-term resources are needed to confer competitive advantage on political parties. A paradigm is developed to capture the main resource elements. Such sources of advantage include aspects of policy development (substance) and policy dissemination (style), especially those associated with strong local resource networks and reputation both nationally and locally. The process of resource development appears to be, at least in part, knowledge-based. Environmental considerations are considered but further research needs to be conducted into the nature of sustainable competitive advantage, electoral success and their relationships before we can truly comprehend the potential contribution of the RBV to aid in our understanding of this important democratic phenomenon.