Framing political policy communications in Africa

Abstract

Policy communication has become a crucial area of political marketing. Traditional frames of political communication are transformed to meet the changing demands of the political market. This chapter adopts a four-phased comprehensive framework of policy brand management to frame marketing-oriented political communication strategies in Africa. The marketing orientation of policy involves applying market research to understand better voters’ needs and craft more effective market segmentation, targeting and positioning of political campaigns. Focusing on three countries, we present a marketing mix framework (i.e. the marketing mix 4Ps: product, price, promotion and place). Evidence shows how political parties use broadcast and narrowcast forms of communications in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya. Also, policy communication tools, namely, policy fairs, organised social media postings and advertisement of different marketing-oriented approaches in communicating proposed and delivered policies, have been applied to political marketing in Africa. We show that policy framing, packaging and dissemination have variedly become key to pitching specific policies to political consumers across Africa.