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Election Campaigns in Armenia: Comparative Analysis of 2013 Presidential and 2017 Parliamentary Election Campaigns

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Election Campaigns in Armenia: Comparative Analysis of 2013 Presidential and 2017 Parliamentary Election Campaigns Political Marketing Tools Used in Pre- election Campaigns in Armenia: Comparative Analysis of 2013 Presidential and 2017 Parliamentary Election Campaigns Submitted to American University of Armenia Manoogian Simone College of Business and Economics In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of BA in Business By: Azniv Tadevosyan Supervisor: Dr. Knar Khachatryan Yerevan 2018 1 ABSTRACT The election campaigns in the Republic of Armenia have received little academic interest from the political marketing perspective, hence the aim of this capstone thesis to identify the political marketing tools and techniques that were used during the election campaigns, understand their effectiveness in transferring the political promise and to explore whether the change of the political system affected the usage of tools. For this purpose, the electoral campaigns of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Serzh Sargsyan and Heritage Party candidate Raffi Hovhannisyan in 2013 presidential elections, as well as, after the constitutional change of the political context, of RPA and Tsarukyan bloc 2017 parliamentary elections are studies. The social media, video ads, booklets/flyers, election programs, campaign finances of each campaign were scrutinized as candidates’ channels of communication. Visual and written content analysis was carried out to interpret the above-mentioned data. For analyzing the media coverage and the social media environment of the campaigns, reports drafted by the Yerevan Press Club and Region Research Center were used. The two sets of case studies have revealed that he most popular political marketing tool throughout the studied campaigns was the leader image. Next in the row were the policy focus and the ideology. Increase in the usage of social media, reduction of broadcast media ad budget, diversification of political marketing channels and more trends have been identified. Not enough evidence was found to claim that the political system change influenced the campaigning behavior of the electioneers. It also showed that 66.7% of actual and communicated political products 2 were corresponding, showing that the used political marketing tools were successful in transferring the ‘political promise’. Keywords: Political marketing, pre-election campaign, political brand, political marketing mix ACKNOLEDGEMENT Thanks to continuous support and guidance of my supervisor Knar Khachatryan I have fulfilled this research. The remaining errors in the paper, if any, are mine. 3 CONTENTS 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 6 2. Literature Review .................................................................................................................... 8 3. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................................... 10 3.1. Place ............................................................................................................................... 12 3.2. Price ................................................................................................................................ 13 3.3. Product ........................................................................................................................... 13 3.4. Promotion ....................................................................................................................... 14 3.5. Points for Consideration ................................................................................................. 15 3.6. Framework application ................................................................................................... 18 4. Research Design .................................................................................................................... 18 4.1. The Scope ....................................................................................................................... 18 4.2. The Research Method..................................................................................................... 19 4.3. The Case Study Analysis Tools ..................................................................................... 19 4.4. Data Sources ................................................................................................................... 21 5. Political Context .................................................................................................................... 22 6. Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 22 7. Case Study of 2013 Presidential and 2017 Parliamentary Election Campaigns in Armenia 23 7.1. 2013 presidential elections ............................................................................................. 23 7.1.1. Heritage party.......................................................................................................... 23 7.1.2. Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) ...................................................................... 33 7.2. 2017 parliamentary elections ......................................................................................... 41 7.2.1. Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) ...................................................................... 41 7.2.2. Tsarukyan Alliance ................................................................................................. 48 8. Research Findings.................................................................................................................. 54 8.1. Comparative Analysis Findings/Identified trends .......................................................... 54 8.2. Case Study Analysis Results .......................................................................................... 56 9. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 58 10. References .......................................................................................................................... 60 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1:The Political Marketing Process (Wring 1997) .............................................................. 11 Figure 2:Heritage Party Agenda ................................................................................................... 25 Figure 3:Financial Allocation: Raffi Hovhannisyan's Pre-election Campaign, 2013 ................... 26 Figure 4:Raffi Hovhannisyan's FB page Agenda (Region Research Center, 2013) ..................... 28 Figure 5: RPA Agenda, 2013 ........................................................................................................ 35 Figure 6:Financial Allocation, Serzh Sargsyan's Pre-election Campaign, 2013 .......................... 36 Figure 7: RPA Agenda 2017 ......................................................................................................... 43 Figure 8:Budget Promotion, RPA 2017 ........................................................................................ 43 Figure 9:Tsarukyan Alliance Agenda ........................................................................................... 50 Figure 10: Budget Allocation, Tsarukyan Alliance, 2017 ............................................................ 51 Figure 11: Tools used in Political Marketing Campaigns:2013&2017 ........................................ 57 Figure 12: Actual and communicated products: Degree of Compliance ...................................... 57 5 1. Introduction Political marketing is a relatively new approach that envisages to investigate the political electoral processes. Kotler and Levy (1969) believed that it was one of the fields that marketers should explore: “Political contests remind us that candidates are marketed as well as soap”. Later, Reid (1988) emphasized the importance of political marketing, mentioning that even though the electorate trusts their own intuition while voting, a large portion of them need to be guided through the process of elections. Gamble (1974) believed that the political market consisted of two groups: those that compete for the office and those that vote. Just like the producers and consumers in economic markets one of these parties is active, creative and the other one is passive and receptive. The foundations of political marketing models were designed by Niffenegger (1989), who used the 4P’s as a basis of his political marketing model1. This framework allows the parties to better prepare for the elections, as well as to analyze something so politicized in a whole different dimension, where techniques, communication channels and strategies are easier to explore (as the political dimension is minimized). The Republic of Armenia has been through around 14 elections after its second independence (Election Guide, n.d.). However, the political marketing discourse has been absent from the discussions and the analyses of the political campaigns, until very recently when Narek Ghukasyan wrote his book called “Political Marketing” in 2012 and touched upon some examples from Armenian political campaigns. After a thorough search in Armenian libraries, there was one more research found on the topic of political marketing (by Taron Parsamyan in 2016). There were no research projects found after 2017 parliamentary elections, thus this is a 1 See Figure 1 6 research gap that needs to be filled. Accordingly,
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