Political Marketing in Italy: Development Trends and Issues

The concept of marketing in politics is a philosophy according to which electoral success can be achieved by directing coordinated actions of a political party (candidate) to meet the needs of an audience representing a certain market segment. Political marketing in Italy is perceived within two approaches: reductionist (interprets political marketing as technologies used in an electoral campaign) and holistic (considers political marketing comprehensively, presenting it as a system to analyze the relationship between a political organization as a “product” and the “demand” for it in the “market”). Despite the fact that the study and use of political marketing has recently begun to develop in Italy, some political marketing trends can be identified in the country’s political system: Americanization; the desire of political parties to move to the political center; mediatization; personification. However, along with the trends, it is worth noting the obstacles to the development of the political marketing system in Italy: the lack of a stable system of permanent operation of market-oriented parties; the lack of political marketing as an industry; the psychology of the political elite; emerging obstacles at the legislative level.