Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election (Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management) 3030773329, 9783030773328

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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN POLITICAL MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT SERIES EDITOR: JENNIFER LEES-MARSHMENT

Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election Edited by Edward Elder Jennifer Lees-Marshment

Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management

Series Editor Jennifer Lees-Marshment, School of Social Sciences, Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management (PalPMM) series publishes high quality and ground-breaking academic research on this growing area of government and political behaviour that attracts increasing attention from scholarship, teachers, the media and the public. It covers political marketing intelligence including polling, focus groups, role play, co-creation, segmentation, voter profiling, stakeholder insight; the political consumer; political management including crisis management, change management, issues management, reputation management, delivery management; political advising; political strategy such as positioning, targeting, market-orientation, political branding; political leadership in all its many different forms and arena; political organization including managing a political office, political HR, internal party marketing; political communication management such as public relations and e-marketing and ethics of political marketing and management. For more information email the series editor Jennifer Lees-Marshment on [email protected] and see https://leesmarshment.wor dpress.com/pmm-book-series/.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14601

Edward Elder · Jennifer Lees-Marshment Editors

Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election

Editors Edward Elder Faculty of Arts University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand

Jennifer Lees-Marshment School of Social Sciences, Politics and International Relations University of Auckland Auckland, New Zealand

Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management ISBN 978-3-030-77332-8 ISBN 978-3-030-77333-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

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Political Marketing and Management in a Global Crisis: Challenges and Continuity in New Zealand 2017–2020 Jennifer Lees-Marshment What the Market Wanted: Vote Compass 2020 and Public Views on Issues and Leadership Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Lisa Chant, Danny Osborne, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden

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The COVID-19 Election: How Labour Turned a Crisis into Its Biggest Branding Opportunity Ziena Jalil

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Trashing the Brand: How Brand Damage Dented National’s Chance at the 2020 Election Heather Du Plessis-Allan

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Targeting Party Supporters, Key Demographics and Undecided Voters Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Lisa Chant, Danny Osborne, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden

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Labour’s Delivery in Government: Limited Transformation Masked by Crisis Management and Polite Populism Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Edward Elder, Julia Büdler, Daniel Barraclough, Alexa Frost, Laura Hemingway, Zach Lee, Shai Navot, and ‘Olita Tu’ifua Communicating Market-Oriented Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic Edward Elder and Julia Büdler

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Targeted Communication by Minor and Major Parties Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Salma Usman Malik, and Luna Zhao

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Practitioner Perspectives on Political Marketing and Management Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Edward Elder, Robin Campbell, David Farrar, Neale Jones, Tom James, Mike Munro, Shai Navot, David Seymour, and David Talbot

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Political Marketing and Management During a Crisis-Dominated Election: Lessons for Practice and International Research Edward Elder and Jennifer Lees-Marshment

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Appendix—New Zealand 2020 Vote Compass Data

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Daniel Barraclough is a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Julia Büdler is a former Summer Scholar who worked on the MarketOriented Strategy and Communication in the 2020 New Zealand General Election project. She is also a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Robin Campbell is the Political Director for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr. Lisa Chant Ng¯ati Wh¯atua te iwi is an Honorary Academic with the University of Auckland (https://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/people/pro file/l-chant). She was M¯aori Academic Advisor to TVNZ’s Vote Compass in 2017 and 2020. She served as M¯aori Academic Advisor to the New Zealand Magna Carta 800 Committee in 2015 and Chaired the University of Auckland public lecture ‘The M¯aori Magna Carta—Waitangi and Beyond’, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FnCyEo9TpA. Dr. Chant has been previously a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland (2000–2013) and AUT University (2015–2020). Heather Du Plessis-Allan is a journalist, the host of Heather Du PlessisAllan Drive on Newstalk ZB and a columnist for the Herald on Sunday.

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Dr. Edward Elder is a Teaching Fellow and Researcher at the University of Auckland. His research focuses on political marketing, political communication and social media engagement in New Zealand and the United States. His work can be found in books such as Marketing Leadership in Government (Palgrave, 2016), Political Marketing and Management in the 2017 New Zealand Election (Palgrave, 2018) and Political Marketing: Principles and Applications, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2019), as well as the journals the Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, Journal of Political Marketing and Journal of Social Marketing. David Farrar is the Owner and Director of Curia Market Research, who conducts polling for the New Zealand National Party. Alexa Frost is a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Laura Hemingway is a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Ziena Jalil is a Partner at SenateSHJ Public Relations and Communications. Tom James is the Press Secretary for Hon Michael Wood and a former Press Secretary for Hon Phil Twyford. Neale Jones is the Managing Director of Capital Government Relations and is a former Chief of Staff to Labour Leaders Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little. Zach Lee is a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Jennifer Lees-Marshment is an Associate Professor at The University of Auckland. She is the Author/editor of 16 books, and is a world expert in political marketing with additional research interests in political management, public input and leadership. She is the Editor of the book series Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, the Lead Author of Political Marketing: Principles and Applications, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2019) and the Author of Political Management: The Dance of Government and Politics (Routledge, 2020). See www.lees-marshm ent.org.

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Salma Usman Malik is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Auckland whose doctoral thesis focuses on online targeted political communication and political knowledge of young people in New Zealand. She has also worked as a Research Assistant on projects related to political marketing and branding, and tutor. Her research interests are online political communication, political knowledge and political marketing. Mike Munro is the Director at Munro Church Communications and is a former Chief of Staff to Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. Shai Navot is the current Leader and former Deputy Leader of The Opportunities Party. Danny Osborne is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychology at the University of Auckland. His research examines the intersections of intergroup relations and political psychology, focussing on factors that contribute to—and impede—people’s intentions to redress inequality. Since receiving his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2011, he has published 103 peer-reviewed articles, 19 book chapters and is the Lead Editor of the forthcoming Cambridge Handbook of Political Psychology. Dr. Osborne has received numerous local and international distinctions including the New Zealand Royal Society’s Te Ap¯arangi Early Career Research Excellence Award, an Early Career Research Award from the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists and an Early Career Research Excellence Award from the University of Auckland. He also teaches a post-graduate course in political psychology and undergraduate courses in social psychology. Justin Savoie is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Toronto. His areas of interest include the design and analysis of large-scale survey-based web applications and the development of statistical algorithms for social learning. His research has appeared in the International Journal of Forecasting, PS: Political Science & Politics, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, French Politics, the Journal of Experimental Political Scienceand the Journal of European Public Policy. David Seymour is a Member of Parliament and the current Leader of ACT New Zealand. David Talbot is the Chief Executive of UMR Research who conduct polling for the New Zealand Labour Party.

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‘Olita Tu’ifua is a former student from POLITICS 704: Political Management in Government at the University of Auckland. Clifton van der Linden is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McMaster University where he also serves as the Director of the Digital Society Lab and as an Academic Director of the Master of Public Policy program. He is also the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vox Pop Labs, the social enterprise responsible for developing Vote Compass as well as numerous other digital products that promote democratic participation. Luna Zhao is a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Auckland whose doctoral thesis focuses on the strategic targeting of Chinese voters by New Zealand political parties. Her research interests more broadly include political marketing, New Zealand politics, as well as ethnic minority voting and political participation. She has also worked as a research assistant for projects such as Vote Compass and analysis around the 2020 New Zealand General Election.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 1.3 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3

Perceptions of how in touch Jacinda Ardern was with ordinary people’s concerns Trust in Ardern or Collins to manage the economy National’s perceived ability to govern in 2017 and 2020 2020 Vote Compass data on government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic 2020 Vote Compass data on public perception of the best leader to manage the COVID-19 pandemic Vote Compass data on voter perceptions of whether Labour’s 2020 policy promises were believable

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3

Table 2.4 Table 2.5 Table 2.6 Table 2.7 Table 2.8 Table 5.1

Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4

Political marketing lessons for New Zealand parties Top issues by voting intention Propositions with a majority (+50%) position held by respondents Propositions where opinion was divided and/or a significant number of voters were neutral Average percentage of respondents who agreed with the parties’ positions Party leaders’ average likeability Demographic categories and groupings examined Demographic groupings the party leaders scored the highest and lowest average likeability with Party leaders’ likeability by voting intention The percentage of parties’ supporters who on average held their parties’ positions on all 30 Vote Compass propositions Support for the left-wing parties’ positions by demographic Support for the right-wing parties’ positions by demographic Support for New Zealand First’s positions by demographic

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60 65 67 69

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 5.5

Table Table Table Table Table Table

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Table 10.2

The percentage of undecided voters who held the parties’ positions on average over all 30 Vote Compass propositions The most important issues for undecided voters Core principles of delivery in political marketing Recommendations for the Labour Party’s delivery Model for targeting young people Principles for targeting Chinese New Zealanders The election and Vote Compass results on policy and leader likeability The impact of a crisis on political marketing

70 70 82 92 111 114 160 162

CHAPTER 1

Political Marketing and Management in a Global Crisis: Challenges and Continuity in New Zealand 2017–2020 Jennifer Lees-Marshment

Abstract This chapter provides an overview of political marketing and management in New Zealand. It reviews the election results and identifies key aspects and events that led to them. These include how the Government managed policy, the Christchurch shootings, the COVID19 pandemic, the relatively late changes in the National Party’s leadership as well as the challenges and opportunities these brought for political marketing and management in practice. It provides an analysis of marketorientation in relation to Labour, National, New Zealand First, The Greens, ACT and the M¯aori Party. It draws on analysis of party policies, adverts and uses of Vote Compass data related to political marketing from the main and post-election surveys.

J. Lees-Marshment (B) University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_1

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Keywords Political marketing · Political management · Market-orientation · COVID-19

Introduction The New Zealand 2020 election both challenges and confirms political marketing and management orthodoxy. On one hand, there were multiple distinct challenges: it was held during a global pandemic; crisis management not only dominated communication, but the Prime Minister branded the election itself as the “COVID election”; and the election date itself was delayed one month due to a second lockdown in New Zealand’s largest city. However, the effectiveness of political marketing and management over the three-year term was also important. Labour leader Jacinda Ardern’s effective management of the coalition added competence and credibility to her long-established empathy and her party won a majority in Parliament even though New Zealand has a proportional representation electoral system. The main opposition, the National Party, failed to reconnect with voters and went through three leaders. Whilst New Zealand First lost all their seats, the Green Party added two despite the constraints of government, the ACT Party successfully rebranded to rise from 1 to 10 MPs and the M¯aori Party returned to Parliament. This book will therefore explore a range of aspects of political marketing and management, generating valuable insights, not just for New Zealand, but political leaders, parties and campaigners around the world. First, though, this chapter will explore the market-orientation of six parties—Labour, National, New Zealand First, the Greens, ACT and the M¯aori Party—because one of the core concepts in political marketing and management is that politicians need to use market research to create a product that responds to what voters want.

Market-Orientation and New Zealand Parties To win elections, political parties need to be market-oriented (Lees-Marshment, 2001) and use market research to create a product that responds to what voters want. Market-oriented parties do not attempt to change what people think, but aim to deliver a product that better correlates with it. There are three key principles:

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1. Parties need to listen and be responsive to the market—for major parties Labour and National this is most of the country; for minor parties this is their distinctive target markets. 2. Party leaders must be in touch and, thus, well-liked by the public as well as their specific supporters. 3. What happens in the years before the campaign matters most including the party policies, leadership, the team, and governing and leading. To be market-oriented, parties need to go through a process that includes market research, product design, adjustment, implementation and longterm communication before the campaign begins. In 2020 though, it was almost impossible for parties to work in such a sequence. COVID-19 hit early on in election year, and any policies parties had already designed had to be adapted or abandoned in light of the health and economic crises that the global pandemic brought. Market research data collected prior to COVID-19 was suddenly defunct, and voter demands were still being formed given the sudden change in fortune that New Zealanders, and everyone around the world, faced. Despite the virus, the online public engagement survey Vote Compass found that healthcare fell from being the top issue in 2017 to third in 2020, whilst the environment rose from sixth to fourth. The economy was the most important issue, followed by COVID-19. Housing, which had been third in 2017, fell to sixth. This made designing a product that responded to voter demands more challenging than normal. Furthermore, communication of delivery of past promises was subsumed by crisis communication, which also left little space to convey new products. This analysis will therefore reveal how parties use marketing under very constrained circumstances.

Methodology The chapter will use qualitative and quantitative analysis as well as primary sources and data. It utilises primary sources related to party behaviour during the three-year term and campaign, including: the leaders’ speeches and communication; party figures, policies and communication; as well as developments and events in the 100 days to the original election date, plus 28-day extension. Secondly, it integrates data from the Vote Compass main and post-election surveys.1

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Labour in Government: High Fliers but Questionable Delivery on the Ground Labour leader Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister in 2017 after New Zealand First opted to form a coalition government with them. The party promised to be a transformative government. In practice it struggled to deliver on core promises especially in the area of housing and became subsumed by COVID-19 management. Nevertheless, Ardern maintained and increased her responsiveness, whilst effective crisis management resulted in them attracting significant support in 2020. At the start of their term, Labour engaged in effective delivery and delivery communication with its 100 days delivery plan checklist, which included passing fees-free study for first-year tertiary students, the Healthy Homes Guarantee Bill, increasing the minimum wage and passing the Families Package. However, failures in delivery of flagship policies, such as on KiwiBuild, became quickly apparent. Despite a tax-working group recommending a capital gains tax, Labour abandoned any such plans when they could not get support from coalition partner New Zealand First. As Ardern’s Chief of Staff conceded, “a lot of the policies that Labour went to the last election with and published in a manifesto [were] enacted in a much more diminished form… because they’ve had to give way to New Zealand First and the Greens in order to get it through the parliament” (Munro, 2019). As Chapter 6 makes clear, Labour acknowledged problems in delivery, declared 2019 the “Year of Delivery”, but never really had a solution for it. Nevertheless, Ardern’s responsiveness was communicated via videos from the Prime Minister’s office and Facebook live videos. The birth of her daughter whilst in office increased her relatability for working women. Market research found that she was seen as positive, honest, a leader, caring, good, smart, strong personable, progressive and inspirational (UMR, 2018). Once COVID-19 hit, voters became more concerned about the economy. Labour responded by labelling the May Budget as being about “jobs jobs jobs”. During the campaign, they adopted classic positioning for parties seeking a second term and adopted a slogan that asked for more time, “Let’s Keep Moving ”. As Chapter 3 details, another layer to their strategy was to brand it the “COVID-19 election”. Adverts reinforced the impact of the crisis and focussed on the recovery, with a television ad acknowledging the challenge due to lockdown, then

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focussing on the future (Labour Party, 2020a). Ardern was also placed front and centre, illustrated by a one-storey high poster of Ardern hung at the newly built Newmarket shopping centre.2 Labour also engaged in cognisant targeting to undecided and National voters in the last week of the campaign through a video by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Ardern’s closing statement at the final TVNZ Leaders’ Debate: If you’re someone who values stability and consistency in these uncertain times, and maybe you’ve backed John Key or Bill English before, this is a message for you… We’ll do what it takes to keep people safe, protect jobs and businesses, and the economy… Don’t take a risk right now when it matters most. (Labour Party, 2020c) Some of you may have never voted for Labour before and my message is for you. Every vote for Labour is delivering strong and stable government and that’s what we need right now… And that’s why I’m asking that we stick together, that we keep moving and that you party vote Labour. (Labour Party, 2020d)

However, delivery continued to be a weakness in the campaign. Labour continued to use long lists, even though Ardern herself conceded at the campaign launch “I’m very conscious that if I run through every single one of the things we have done, I risk losing my audience” (Ardern, 2020), before proceeding to read out a long list. They offered a 5-point plan with effective headlines—investing in our people; jobs, jobs, jobs; preparing for the future; supporting small businesses; and positioning NZ globally (Labour Party, 2020b)—underneath which were more long lists. The plan had little sense of priorities or clear pledges they could deliver quickly once re-elected. Nevertheless, focussing on their effective management of the pandemic and Ardern’s responsiveness proved effective. A Vote Compass “Question of the Day” that ran during the campaign found that 77 per cent of voters rated the Labour-led Government’s handling of the pandemic as good and 64 per cent thought Ardern would do the best job of managing it going forward. Vote Compass data also showed Ardern’s likeability was very high and she attracted support from older voters not just young people.

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The Vote Compass post-election survey indicates that 78 per cent believed that Labour offered policies that were responsive to what New Zealanders wanted. 77 per cent agreed that Labour seemed capable of governing and only 13 per cent disagreed. 62 per cent agreed that Labour’s policy promises were believable. Crucially, 82 per cent of voters thought that Ardern was in touch with ordinary people’s concerns—see Fig. 1.1. Labour won the first majority since New Zealand introduced a PR system. Facing a major global crisis, they integrated management of that crisis with an already popular leader and combined responsiveness and being in touch with competence and economic management. The one caution for Labour is that, because they failed to articulate a clear vision or top policy priorities in the campaign, they do not have a clear mandate. Voters have bought an undefined product. In the last leaders’ debate, Ardern said people’s minds are on the future and they want to know where we go next, but failed to say where that would be.

Fig. 1.1 Perceptions of how in touch Jacinda Ardern was with ordinary people’s concerns (Source Vote Compass 2020 post-election survey, 19–29 October 2020, Scale: 0–10)

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Fig. 1.2 Trust in Ardern or Collins to manage the economy (Source Vote Compass 2020 post-election survey, 10–15 October 2020)

In the final stages of the campaign, only 40 per cent said they trusted Ardern to manage the economy, compared with 28 per cent who chose National leader Judith Collins—see Fig. 1.2. 31 per cent of undecided voters said neither Ardern nor Collins or “didn’t know”. Moreover, Labour’s majority is made up of diverse segments with different demands, meaning they will have to satisfy the new voters they attracted, whilst meeting the needs of their core supporters wanting delivery of that transformation that is both desired and needed to solve big issues such as housing affordability, child poverty and the environment.

New Zealand First: A Lost Kingdom New Zealand First began the 2017–2020 governing term in a strong position: determining which major party would lead government, choosing to form coalition with Labour. Yet as previously noted, they were at risk of losing supporters in government and needed to identify a new

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market position to create clear space and market share from other parties (Lees-Marshment, 2018). Unfortunately, they did not heed this advice and struggled to define and communicate a popular and targeted product for 2020. In government, despite leader Winston Peters being in the spotlight as Deputy Prime Minister whilst the party spearheaded the Provincial Growth Fund, the party was more known for stopping things—such as the capital gains tax—than offering anything new. They found it impossible to satisfy diverse supporters’ market demands. Although Minister Tracey Martin was well respected for her work as Minister for Children, this overlapped with traditional Labour territory and was overshadowed by Ardern being Minister for Child Poverty Reduction. In the campaign, Peters spoke against the government he was part of, making it impossible to then get credit for the coalition’s achievements. Vote Compass likeability data showed a decline in Peters’ rankings, from 3.8 out of 10 in 2017 to just 3.1 in 2020 and amongst his own party’s supporters from 7.7 in 2017 to 7 in 2020. The party went from being kingmaker to losing all their MPs. Going forward, however, there are signs that there is an electorate that a party like New Zealand First could appeal to, if they renew. Hidden in the Vote Compass data were multiple sentiments that align with New Zealand First’s nationalistic and protectionist ethos: • 88 per cent thought the Government should impose a royalty on companies that export NZ water. • 82 per cent agreed that NZ should deport foreigners who are convicted of a criminal offence—and only 8 per cent disagreed. • 78 per cent thought NZ should admit fewer or the same amount of immigrants. • 71 per cent believed the Government should prevent foreign ownership of residential properties. • 68 per cent thought NZ should be less reliant on other countries for its goods and services. To attract this market, they need to define it, design a product that responds to its needs and wants, stay focussed on serving it as well as maintain a distinctive position in relation to other parties.

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The Greens: Carving a Path Through the Complexities of Power In 2017, the Green Party signed a confidence and supply agreement with a governing party for the first time. In Parliament, they were able to demonstrate competence through their co-leader James Shaw’s delivery of the Zero Carbon Act. Nevertheless, power comes at a cost, and constraints of working with New Zealand First meant they failed to get stronger environmental policies through. A ministerial advisor who worked on this recalled, “we were just fighting to get it through—and there were two times there that it was really touch and go” (Baker-Jones, 2019). For the 2020 election, the Greens put forward visionary, strategic policy thinking with a policy vision document called Think ahead, Act now (Green Party, 2020a) with the theme “healthy nature, fairer communities and a clean economy”. Its policies were future-oriented and in areas such as thriving oceans, the future of transport and farming for the future (Green Party, 2020b). For example, their transport plan proposed investing in large-scale rapid rail to reboot the regions between major cities, transforming the public transport networks within major cities, setting up a $1.5 billion Cycle Superhighway fund, introducing a target date for only zero emission light vehicles to be able to be imported to Aotearoa, setting up a nationwide Go Anywhere transport pass that would work on all public transport as well as providing access to electric car share, e-bike subscriptions and e-scooters in the main cities across the country (Green Party, 2020b). They also proposed a wealth tax to address inequality. Vote Compass data suggested support for action in these areas, with 60 per cent believing the Government should do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—including 27 per cent think much more—69 per cent believing the Government should invest more in the development of railways and 60 per cent agreeing that wealthier people should pay somewhat or much more tax. However, just as in 2017, the Green Party brand was damaged by last minute issues. There was controversy over a decision made by Greens coleader James Shaw to approve funding for The Green School, a private school that went against traditional Green values. The wealth tax also attracted negative attention in the last few weeks of the campaign, with Labour saying they would refuse to support it and National arguing a vote for Labour would lead to the wealth tax. The co-leaders likeability

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amongst their own supporters was lower than Ardern’s. Greens supporters rated Ardern at 8.5 out of 10, compared with Shaw’s 6.1 (down from 6.6 in 2017) and Marama Davidson’s 6.7. Satisfying your own supporters whilst part of a government is difficult. Nevertheless, the Greens avoided the same fate as New Zealand First, securing 7.9 per cent of the vote, won the Auckland Central electorate and returned to Parliament with 10 MPs, two more than in 2017. Even though Labour could govern without them, the Greens secured a co-operation agreement covering climate, environment as well as child and community well-being issues, whilst both co-leaders were awarded ministerial portfolios outside of Cabinet.

National: Struggling in Opposition The National Party went from getting the most votes in 2017 to one of their lowest results ever in 2020, whilst at the same time destroying their reputation for governing. It clearly shows the need to listen to voters, be seen doing so and then respond to what they hear. At the start of the 2017–2020 term, there were signs of responsiveness. Under new leader Simon Bridges, National launched a consultation process in 2018, with Bridges noting that “one of the most important things that a political party can do in opposition is look at its policies and plan for the future, look at what worked and what could be done better” (National Party, 2018a). This led to a range of discussion documents. Bridges positioned himself as someone who cared and was leading a new team, with the by-line “New Team. New Ideas. New Zealand” (National Party, 2018b). He also embarked on a road show to reconnect. This was exactly what parties seeking to regain a market-orientation should do. However, this was undermined by a series of problematic decisions. When the expenses for this road show were leaked to the media, rather than emphasise the importance of listening to New Zealanders, Bridges focussed on the leak, blamed Labour, only to find it was a National MP who had leaked the information. Perceptions of Bridges turned negative, being described as untrustworthy, unsure, idiot, arrogant, incompetent, ineffective and dodgy (UMR, 2018). Bridges constantly attacked Labour and Ardern, even making jokes about Ardern dyeing her hair during lockdown. As Ardern’s popularity continued to rise, this made National seem more out of touch. In 2020, National then changed leaders twice. Todd Muller became leader on 22 May. Muller started with voter-centric phrases, talking of

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“your butcher”, “your farms”, “your shops”, “your families” and “your economy” and “I’m about what’s best for you and your family, not what’s wrong with the Government” and that he was not “interested in opposition for opposition’s sake”. He then claimed National had the better plan, without detailing what that plan was. The party’s slogan Strong Team, More Jobs, Better Economy was then undermined when Muller had to resign on 14 July for mental health reasons. The impact this took on National’s brand is discussed in Chapter 4. The party elected Judith Collins to succeed Muller, giving her four months to salvage the campaign. Not surprisingly, this turned out to be impossible. On the positive side, the party proposed a policy in response to the COVID-19 environment, to invest $1.25 billion in the tech sector, creating 1000 tertiary scholarships a year to allow students from lowdecile schools to study science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees, establishing a special charter school focussed on STEM subjects and creating a Minister of Technology. However, like Bridges, Collins took an attack-dog like position towards Ardern, including Ardern’s health-driven decisions on COVID-19, suggesting National cared about money over people. National also appeared out of alignment with public opinion in other areas. When the issue of housing came up in debates, Collins often talked about the need for reforms to the Resource Management Act. But Vote Compass data suggested opinion was divided on this, with only 35 per cent agreeing that restrictions on property developers should be eased. Collins performed better than expected in early debates, but attacked Ardern too much and failed to make clear what National would do differently. The Vote Compass data also suggests Collins was not seen as very likeable, especially for a major party leader, at 3.8 out of 10. This was even lower amongst younger voters aged 18–29 at only 2.9. Even amongst traditionally more supportive older voters (65+), Collins’ likeability score was 4.9 compared with Ardern’s 6.4. Vote Compass post-election data conveyed the impact this had. 68 per cent of respondents, and even 39 per cent of National supporters, thought Collins was not in touch. 61 per cent thought National offered policies that were unresponsive to what New Zealander’s wanted. 80 per cent disagreed that National seemed to be a united team capable of governing, almost reversing the figures from 2017—see Fig. 1.3. Worse, only 24 per cent of National’s supporters thought they were capable of governing, with 55 per cent disagreeing.

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Fig. 1.3 National’s perceived ability to govern in 2017 and 2020 (Sources: Vote Compass 2017 post-election survey, 10 October–14 December 2017; Vote Compass 2020 post-election survey, 19–29 October 2020)

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National lost the election badly, getting only 25.6 per cent of the party vote, winning 33 seats and losing 23. They were not market-oriented, as Collins conceded after the election: We have to connect better with the New Zealand population… I think we really have to try much harder to reach out all across the country and listen a lot more. I think it’s really important to listen… [Voters] want us to be there for them. (Collins, 2020)

Act: Dancing and Delivering in Opposition The ACT Party’s political marketing provides a more positive illustration of that what happens in the years before the campaign matters most. It is also an example of how a small party’s strategic use of political marketing within Parliament, as well as to the public, can pay dividends, even in system designed to favour bigger parties. After the 2017 election, ACT adopted a niche market-oriented attitude (Harada & Morris, 2012) and engaged in significant listening and market research. Leader David Seymour admitted the party offered a multitude of policies crossing different target markets (Lees-Marshment, 2018, 132) and carried out a listening tour to find out what went wrong. Seymour also appeared on the show Dancing with the Stars in 2018, which improved his reputation: It’s opened the conversation… most of the feedback I got from Dancing with the Stars was ‘this guy doesn’t have horns, he’s relatable actually, I kind of like him’. (Seymour, 2018)

As Seymour details in Chapter 9, ACT underwent a rebranding exercise, becoming more consistently focussed on personal freedom, seeking to attract voters beyond their traditional segment of older, rich, white men. The party relaunched in June 2019 with a new logo containing a magenta pink element. Product-wise, ACT offered distinctive policies that suited their particular market. They adopted unique positioning when they opposed the Government’s gun control legislation following the Christchurch mosque massacre, attracting a new segment of gun owners. Seymour’s staffer Brooke van Velden pioneered a private members bill, the End of Life Choice Act, through Parliament, which was a strong illustration of freedom of choice. But it was also more popular than opposing

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gun control after a crisis and thus appealed both to their supporter market and the wide public. Vote Compass data found that 75 per cent supported it and, of those, 49 per cent strongly agreed. During the campaign, Seymour made van Velden his deputy, adding gender balance to the leadership. They and other ACT candidates toured the country in a mini-van. Seymour repeated clear lines throughout the campaign, which acknowledged the changed situation due to the pandemic and argued that ACT would hold the bigger parties accountable, because “ACT can do the dance and the delivery” (ACT Party, 2020). Seymour’s appearance on Dancing with the Stars paid off. He was the second most likeable leader according to Vote Compass. ACT gained 7.6 per cent of the vote and went up from 1 to 10 MPs.

¯ The Maori Party: Restoring Their Niche Market The M¯aori Party, similarly, took a highly niche-targeted approach in 2020 and succeeded in getting themselves back into Parliament with two MPs by aligning themselves with their traditional voter’s demands. Data from Vote Compass suggests that the views on M¯aori issues of voters on the M¯aori electoral roll were distinctly different than the population at-large. In June 2020, M¯aori Party co-leader Debbie NgarewaPacker called for an inquiry to identify and remove colonial monuments, statues and place names that symbolised racism and oppression, noting: It may not appear racist to some, but to those who it affects and to those whose history was most impacted, it does. It just simply does. (Ngarewa-Packer, 2020)

68 per cent of those on the M¯aori roll agreed, compared with 29 per cent of other voters. Similarly, 60 per cent of those on the M¯aori roll thought that more should be done to make amends for injustices committed against M¯aori, compared with only 27 per cent of other voters. Ngarewa-Packer attracted a good likeability rating for a non-incumbent leader of a minor party, at 2.5 out of 10 overall and 6.4 amongst M¯aori Party supporters. The party were rewarded, with Rawiri Waititi winning Waiariki and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer becoming a list MP.

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Conclusion The 2020 New Zealand General Election took place during a global pandemic, making political marketing undoubtedly more challenging. Any policies parties had already designed had to be altered or abandoned in light of the health and economic crisis. Market research prior to 2020 to determine what the public wanted was suddenly defunct and it was harder to have a feel for, or measure, public views. Communication of delivery regarding past promises in government, which Labour began in December 2019, became subsumed by crisis communication. Despite this, some parties thrived. Labour’s effective leadership brand through Ardern only became stronger during the crisis. ACT and the M¯aori Party succeeded in finding their niches and responded to its needs. ACT’s reflectiveness, responsiveness and strategic repositioning stands out as a model example of how minor parties can use political marketing effectively. The Greens survived the constraints of being part of the government and grew their market share. Yet, for the two parties that lost support, the story is more conventional. New Zealand First failed to satisfy their supporters and were thrown out of Parliament, whilst National failed to recognise the need to respond more effectively to voters’ needs. Going forward, key lessons are clear for all parties—see Table 1.1. The rest of the book will delve into these themes in more detail. Chapter 2 will explore what the Vote Compass data says the market wanted. Chapters 3 and 4 discuss the main party brands and impact of the COVID-19 crisis. Chapter 5 outlines the support parties attract from party supporters, key demographic segments and undecided voters. Chapter 6 focusses on Labour’s delivery in government as well as the influence of crisis management and polite populism. COVID-19-related communication by the two major party leaders is discussed in Chapter 7, whilst targeted communication is discussed in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 presents and discusses practitioner perspectives from Robin Campbell, David Farrar, Tom James, Neale Jones, Mike Munro, Shai Navot, David Seymour and David Talbot. Finally, the editors provide an overall conclusion with lessons for future practice in Chapter 10.

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Table 1.1 Political marketing lessons for New Zealand parties Labour

National

ACT

The M¯aori Party

The Greens

New Zealand First

Lead with humility through uncertain times and shifting sands of support • Understand the large market share won in 2020 at least partly reflects poor political marketing by the opposition • Conduct qualitative market research into what the different segments of Labour’s 2020 electoral coalition want, including the transformational action traditional Labour supporters desire • Defend the market share by delivering key initiatives for the different segments to convert them into a long-term support base • Focus on developing solutions to the economic losses from effective COVID-19 management Be reflective, respectful and then entrepreneurial • Be reflective and accept the election loss, avoid blaming it on the crisis and listen to voters • Show respect for the Government’s handling of the health crisis to convey National are still aware of what it is like to run government • Be entrepreneurial by focusing on creating exciting and interesting proposals to help New Zealand adapt, innovate and thrive through the challenges ahead Remain distinctive and deliver freedom-oriented action • Convey the impact of their new 10 MPs • Maintain the freedom-focussed brand • Avoid sliding into being the party that always criticises the Government Rebuild and grow their niche • Utilise parliamentary resources and visibility from having two MPs • Maintain and develop their niche Navigate a distinctive path • Utilise their ministerial positions to deliver • Navigate a leadership path that partners with, but is distinctive from, Labour Create a route to recovery focussed on voters’ increasingly protectionist views • Research voters’ economic concerns, uncertainty about the future and increasingly protectionist views • Create unique responses to these concerns

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Notes 1. Acknowledgements are due to Justin Savoie at Vox Pop Labs for providing updated Vote Compass main and post-election survey data; and the Dean of Arts and School of Social sciences at the University of Auckland for grants that enabled Vote Compass NZ 2020 to go ahead. 2. Acknowledgement goes to Doctoral Candidate Salma Malik for reporting this.

References Primary ACT Party. (2020, October 7–10). Holding them accountable Facebook ad. Facebook. Ardern, J. (2020, August 8). Speech: Labour campaign launch 2020. Baker-Jones, M. (2019). Interview with Ministerial Advisor to Minister for Climate Change James Shaw. Collins, J. (2020, November 12). Collectively there is an issue. 1 News. Green Party. (2020a, July 25). Think ahead, act now: Greens unveil vision for Aotearoa. Green Party. (2020b). 2020 election plans. Labour Party. (2020a, October 4). TV campaign advert. Labour Party. (2020b, July 30). Our plan to keep New Zealand moving. Labour Party. (2020c, October 14). WATCH: An important message from Grant Robertson. YouTube. Labour Party. (2020d, October 16). #Highlights: Jacinda Ardern’s closing statement at the final TVNZ leaders’ debate’. YouTube. Munro, M. (2019). Interview with the Chief of Staff to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. National Party. (2018a, November 14). Launch of ‘Have your say’ consultation. Facebook. National Party. (2018b, July 30). New team. New ideas. New Zealand. YouTube. Ngarewa-Packer, D. (2020, June 11). Quoted in ‘M¯aori Party co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer calls for removal of colonial statues in New Zealand’. Newshub. Seymour, D. (2018, August 13). Quoted in ‘Why are you relevant?’—‘David Seymour grilled on breakfast as he mulls an ACT Party rebrand’. 1 News. UMR. (2018, December 10). Quoted in ‘What the public is saying about Simon Bridges, according to Labour’s pollsters’. Stuff .

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Secondary Lees-Marshment, J. (2001). Political marketing and British political parties. Manchester University Press. Lees-Marshment, J. (2018). Conclusion: Political marketing and management lessons for research and practice. Chapter 8 in Political marketing and management in the 2017 New Zealand election (pp. 117–137). Palgrave. Harada, S., & Morris, H. (2012). Niche marketing the greens in Canada and Scotland. In J. Lees-Marshment (Ed.), Routledge handbook of political marketing (pp. 93–106). Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

What the Market Wanted: Vote Compass 2020 and Public Views on Issues and Leadership Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Lisa Chant, Danny Osborne, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden

Abstract This chapter presents detailed analysis of descriptive statistics from the 182,399 unique respondents who engaged with the Vote Compass engagement tool during the 2020 election campaign. In doing so, it provides a better understanding of what issues the New Zealand public were concerned about and what they wanted a government to do about them. It also outlines how well Labour, National, New Zealand First, The Greens, ACT and the M¯aori Party’s policy positions aligned with them and how this, along with other factors, contributed to each

E. Elder (B) · J. Lees-Marshment · L. Chant · D. Osborne University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. Lees-Marshment e-mail: [email protected] L. Chant e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_2

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party’s electoral results. It also provides detail about the public views on the likeability of each party’s leader(s) along with lessons moving forward. Keywords Vote Compass · Data · Voter alignment · Likeability

Introduction This chapter analyses the views of the New Zealand public, key demographics and party supporters on policy positions and party leaders collected through the voter engagement tool Vote Compass during the 2020 election campaign. It outlines the methodology, before outlining relevant data as well as discussing key findings and lessons for political marketers going forward.

Methodology Vote Compass is a voter engagement tool developed by Vox Pop Labs in Canada which has been used in elections around the world, including in New Zealand in 2014 and 2017. It asks voters for their views on 30 propositions and correlates them with official party policies and stated positions. It also asks respondents what they consider the most important issue in the election as well as how much they like each party’s leader(s). This provides valuable insight into public opinion and how well party policy positions align with public views.

D. Osborne e-mail: [email protected] J. Savoie University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] C. van der Linden McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

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This chapter provides insights from analysis of descriptive statistics calculated from the survey data of 182,399 unique Vote Compass respondents who utilised the tool between 30 August and 19 October 2020. It explores the data in relation to the policy positions held by the six political parties who won seats at either the 2017 or 2020 New Zealand General Elections: Labour, National, the Greens, ACT, the M¯aori Party and New Zealand First. It also discusses the issues respondents considered most important and how likeable they considered the six parties’ leaders. The original Vote Compass survey used a five-point Likert scale. However, to alleviate some of the individual subjectivity in respondents’ interpretations of, for example, the difference between “somewhat more” and “more” (Carifio & Perla, 2007), the Likert scale in this chapter and Chapter 5 were truncated to a three-point scale (e.g. Less, About the same as now, More). The “averages” around the Vote Compass propositions were calculated by adding up the percentage of the public who agreed with a position and then dividing that by the number of percentages added up. For example, the average percentage of the public who agreed with Labour’s positions on all 30 Vote Compass propositions was calculated as follows: Average = (Sum of percentages of the public who agreed with Labour on the 30 VC propositions = 1266.38%) 1266.38% ÷ 30 = 42.21% The following sections explore public views on issues and propositions, the alignment of the parties’ positions with public views and the likeability of the party leaders.

Public Views on Issues and Propositions The Most Important Political Issues for New Zealanders Despite COVID-19’s issue dominance during the campaign, respondents had a range of concerns about the post-pandemic recovery as well as longstanding public issues. Politicians need to consider these going forward, rather than assume COVID-19 will continue to shape public opinion. Table 2.1 shows that the issue area considered most important to respondents overall was the economy, which received more than 2.5 times

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Table 2.1 Top issues by voting intention Party

Type

ECO

COV

HEA

ENV

LAB

HOU

Overall

Rank Per cent Rank Per cent Rank Per cent Rank Per cent Rank Per cent Rank Per cent Rank Per cent

1 33.14% 2 16.46% 1 56.12% 2 10.87% 1 49.52% 2 12.84% 1 25.26%

2 12.44% 1 16.87% 2 9.82% 5 8.48% 2 8.36% 8 5.93% 5 8.78%

3 11.97% 3 16.43% 3 8.60% 4 8.54% 3 7.39% 4 9.94% 2 14.97%

4 7.35% 4 9.55% 8 2.16% 1 25.29% 10 2.91% 7 7.23% 10 2.98%

5 5.66% 7 6.67% 4 4.63% 9 4.52% 4 5.80% 10 4.87% 3 10.13%

6 5.30% 6 6.94% 5 2.82% 8 6.23% 5 4.16% 5 8.91% 6 6.78%

Labour National Greens ACT M¯aori NZ First

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 145,017 ECO = Economy, COV = COVID-19, HEA = Healthcare, ENV = Environment, LAB = Labour, HOU = Housing Question asked: What issue is most important to you in this election?

the votes of the next highest option, COVID-19. Healthcare, the environment, labour and housing rounded out the top six most important issues. However, what each party’s supporters thought was the most important issue often differed. For example, the economy was only ranked first by supporters of the more right leaning or centrist parties. Only 10.87 per cent to 16.46 per cent of the three more left leaning parties thought it was the most important issue. Not surprisingly, given each party’s niche support base and overall-brand, the Greens’ supporters viewed the environment as the most important issue by approximately 3.4 times the overall average, while M¯aori issues were picked by M¯aori Party supporters approximately 15.9 times more the overall average. Policy Propositions That Respondents Expressed Most Agreement With Table 2.2 shows the propositions where at least 50 per cent of respondents held the same position. These findings suggest that a clear majority of voters wanted more proactive governance, consistent with the findings

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Table 2.2 Propositions with a majority (+50%) position held by respondents Proposition

Most common position

%

The government should impose a royalty on companies that export New Zealand water New Zealand should deport foreigners who are convicted of a criminal offence Patients with terminal illnesses should be allowed to end their own lives with medical assistance The government should prevent foreign ownership of residential properties The government should cover the cost of dental care for adults with low incomes How much money should the government invest in the development of railways? New Zealand should be less reliant on other countries for its goods and services How much should the government spend on rehabilitation services to address drug abuse? How difficult should it be to purchase a gun in New Zealand? How much tax should corporations pay? How much should wealthier people pay in taxes? How much should New Zealand do to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions? Violent offenders under 18 years old should be sentenced as adults Statues of historical figures deemed as racist should be removed from public spaces How high should the minimum wage be? The government should provide free lunches to students in state schools

Agree

88.54

Agree

81.57

Agree

74.90

Agree

71.83

Agree

69.49

More

68.81

Agree

67.52

About the same as now

67.21

More

64.46

More More More

61.56 60.16 59.68

Agree

58.72

Disagree

53.80

Higher Agree

51.14 50.93

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 Election n = 182,399

from 2017. For example, almost 70 per cent believed the government should cover the cost of dental care for adults with low incomes, almost 60 per cent believed New Zealand should do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, while over 60 per cent believed corporations and wealthier people should pay more in taxes. These findings also suggest that a clear majority of voters wanted a more protectionist approach to governance. For example, almost 90 per cent wanted the government to tax companies that export New Zealand

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water, over 80 per cent wanted the government to deport foreigners convicted of a criminal offence, over 70 per cent wanted the government to prevent foreign ownership of residential properties, while almost 70 per cent felt New Zealand should be less reliant on other countries for its goods and services. The data also indicates there is room for leadership from government on the environment, M¯aori rights, social welfare, property development and cannabis. This is because opinion on either end of the Likert scale was more divided (within a 10 per cent margin) and/or +30 per cent of respondents held a “neutral” position on these propositions, as shown in Table 2.3. This suggests there is room for politicians to persuade the public one way or the other. Table 2.3 Propositions where opinion was divided and/or a significant number of voters were neutral Proposition

Less (%)

The same (%)

More (%)

How much should the government limit oil and gas exploration in New Zealand? How much of a role should the Treaty of Waitangi have in New Zealand law? How difficult should it be to access welfare in New Zealand? How much should the government do to make amends for injustices committed against M¯aori?

36.45

25.92

33.43

35.60

35.64

26.01

32.45

40.05

25.40

35.32

32.46

29.69

Proposition

Disagree (%)

Neutral (%) Agree (%)

The government should guarantee a minimum income for all New Zealanders regardless of whether or not they have a job The government should ease restrictions on property developers Cannabis should be legalised

46.08

13.79

38.83

37.31

23.99

34.93

41.48

9.37

48.05

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399

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The Alignment of Party Positions with Public Views Analysis of the parties’ positions against public views provides important and surprising lessons that correlate with political marketing theory about the importance of: being responsive on core rather than all issues; targeting; positioning in relation to other parties; and that a political product is greater in scope than just policies. As shown in Table 2.4, the percentage of respondents who chose the most commonly held position on average across the 30 Vote Compass propositions in 2020 was 54.77 per cent. This was only 0.6 per cent lower than in 2017, despite many of the propositions changing. This means that the ability of each party to correlate with the average views of the public was comparable between elections. Labour’s positions on the 30 propositions were not as well aligned with the average respondent as might be expected, given their landslide election win. In fact, Labour’s positions on average correlated 3.79 per cent less with respondent views than in 2017. However, they were more aligned than the other established major party, National. They also aligned with the average respondent on propositions which gained high support, such as the government preventing foreign ownership of residential properties, the government covering the cost of dental care for adults with low incomes as well as wealthier people pay more in taxes— all of which had more than 60 per cent respondent support and were in contrast to National’s position. They were also as well aligned with respondents’ views as possible on two of the three most important issues, COVID-19 and healthcare. Given the election results, it is not surprising that National’s positions on average were in line with less than a third of respondents’ views, the second lowest of the six parties examined and only 0.19 per cent higher than in 2017. This included their positions on the economy, the most important issue for National’s supporters and an area where National have traditionally been viewed stronger than Labour. National were more often better aligned with the average respondent in areas considered less important, such as law and order. Looking at the most important issue areas, National did show some degree of alignment with respondents views on imposing a royalty on companies that export New Zealand water, not allowing international students into New Zealand immediately and

63.08% 34.20% 7.61% 63.08% 7.61% 63.08% 43.38%

42.21% 32.60% 47.08% 27.64% 44.94% 47.81%

ECO

54.77%

Overall

Average public alignment with the parties’ positions

46.78% 38.67% 35.28% 30.17% 35.28% 46.78%

46.78%

COV

64.38% 15.61% 64.38% 40.43% 47.71% 47.71%

64.38%

HEA

Average percentage of respondents who agreed with the parties’ positions

60.55% 45.37% 60.55% 17.10% 60.55% 58.05%

61.56%

ENV

28.09% 28.16% 36.44% 28.16% 36.44% 42.55%

48.34%

LAB

53.38% 25.00% 54.57% 25.00% 54.57% 53.38%

54.57%

HOU

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399 ECO = Economy, COV = COVID-19, HEA = Healthcare, ENV = Environment, LAB = Labour, HOU = Housing Note The ‘Overall’ percentages show the average public support for the parties’ positions over all 30 Vote Compass propositions, including other issues such as immigration, transport, education

Public (baseline) Labour National Greens ACT M¯aori NZ First

Party

Table 2.4

26 E. ELDER ET AL.

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not introducing a guaranteed income. However, these positions did not differentiate National from the other parties besides ACT. The Greens and the M¯aori Party had higher correlations with the average respondent than both National and Labour, despite targeting their appeals and branding to niche audiences. Both parties averaged a slightly lower correlation with respondents overall compared to 2017, 2.47 per cent and 1.73 per cent lower, respectively. However, as noted elsewhere in this book, the Greens effectively coupled themselves with a very popular major governing party and Prime Minister while highlighting how they could be a constructive governing partner, something that had been questioned in previous elections. Similarly, the M¯aori Party were able to effectively de-couple themselves from the previous Nationalled Government, a relationship their core supporters were uneasy with, while also effectively appealing for the M¯aori electorate vote. As a result, both parties gained seats in 2020. New Zealand First was the party most aligned with respondent’s views overall, 3.17 per cent higher on average than in 2017 when they won nine seats. Yet New Zealand First did not win any seats in 2020. Broadly speaking, this can be explained in two ways. First, political marketing theory argues minor parties need to cater to niche audiences, as the other three minor parties examined did. However, New Zealand First’s populist anti-establishment brand has traditionally catered to two niches, older socially conservative former Labour voters and older economically nationalistic former National voters. When New Zealand First goes into coalition with one of the major parties, they invariably go against the wishes of one of these two niches, and their own brand, even if the party becomes more aligned with the views of the New Zealand public more broadly. This also affects the leader’s ability to seem likeable to one of these niches, which is also important to a party’s success. The disparity between ACT’s correlation with the average respondent and their election result demonstrates this. Despite the 2020 results being ACT’s best ever, the party’s positions on the 30 propositions correlated with the views of the average respondent the least well of six parties examined and 0.63 per cent lower than in 2017 when they won only one seat. Their alignment with respondents on tax in particular, which has been the cornerstone of ACT’s brand since its inception, was particularly low. However, this low average correlation is a by-product of the fact that ACT often held unique positions compared to the other five political parties. Indeed, their rebranding as the party of freedom may not have resulted

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in them aligning any better with any one traditionally defined segment of voters. However, the party’s rebranding did help clarify their potential appeal to a small but diverse group of voters not catered to by the other parties. Furthermore, as covered in the next section, the effective promotion of their leader, David Seymour, during the governing term helped grow his appeal with the public in a way not present in 2017.

The Likeability of the Leaders The analysis below examines Vote Compass respondents’ views on the likeability of the eight leaders/co-leaders of the six parties examined. This is examined by respondents overall, by particular demographics and by party supporters. The findings reinforce the argument that party leaders are important to the political product and brand. Overall Perceptions of Leader Likeability As shown in Table 2.5, respondents on average rated Labour’s Jacinda Ardern the most likeable leader, more than 1.5 times more likeable than the second highest ranked leader and a 10.16 per cent increase over her 2017 rating. The second highest likeability rating was received by ACT’s David Seymour, unusual given minor party leaders’ average likeability ratings are normally lower than major party leaders. It was also 1.45 times higher than the average for the other five minor party leaders examined, an 88.87 per cent increase on his 2017 rating and higher than National’s Judith Collins. Collins’ likeability was low for a major party leader, 26.71 per cent lower than her predecessor Bill English received in 2017. Table 2.5 Party leaders’ average likeability Ardern (LAB)

Overall

6.73

Collins Davidson Shaw (NAT) (GRN) (GRN)

3.79

3.65

3.68

Seymour (ACT)

4.44

Ngarewa- Tamihere(MAO) Peters (NZF) Packer (MAO) 2.49

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399 Note Figure is out of 10, with 1 being least likeable and 10 being most likeable Question asked: How likeable do you find the following leaders?

2.42

3.07

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Demographic Segments More detailed analysis of the likeability ratings by comparative demographics, as shown in Table 2.7, identifies strengths and weaknesses for all eight party leaders among the 28 demographic groupings broken down across 10 demographic categories (Tables 2.6 and 2.7). Ardern was on average considered more likeable than any other leader among all 28 demographic groupings. Table 2.7 shows how Ardern’s lowest average likeability rating with a single demographic grouping (5.97 among people earning $100K+) was higher than any other leaders’ highest likeability among a single demographic grouping (5.94 for Davidson with gender diverse respondents). Table 2.6 Demographic categories and groupings examined

Demographic categories

Demographic grouping

Age

18–29 30–39 40–49 50–64 65+ High school or below Diploma or certificate Bachelor’s degree Graduate degree Female Male Gender diverse Less or equal to $30K $30–$60K $70–$100K More than $100K Born in New Zealand Born outside New Zealand North Island South Island M¯aori electorate Non-M¯aori electorate M¯aori descent Non-M¯aori descent Non-student Student

Education

Gender

Income

Birth place Location Electorate Descent Student

$100K+ 5.97

1st

Gender Diverse 1.75

M¯aori Descent 2.89 M¯aori Electorate 1.75

Male 4.10

65+ 4.57

$100K+ 4.78

Shaw (GRN)

65+ 3.03

$100K+ 3.13

50–64 3.24

Student 5.30

Diploma/ Certificate 3.38

50–64 3.45

$30–$60K 3.58

Gender Diverse 4.57

Graduate Degree 4.95 M¯aori Electorate Student 5.85 4.69

Gender Diverse 5.94

Davidson (GRN)

Gender Diverse 2.71

M¯aori Descent 3.77 M¯aori Electorate 2.77

65+ 4.60

Male 4.80

$100K+ 5.36

Seymour (ACT)

65+ 2.08

$100K 2.13

Male 2.23

Student 3.84

Gender Diverse 4.29

M¯aori Electorate 4.66

Ngarewa-Packer (MAO)

South Island 2.35 High School or Below 2.33 NonM¯aori Descent 2.30

M¯aori Electorate 4.04 M¯aori Descent 3.04 Student 2.94

Tamihere (MAO)

Born Outside NZ 2.77 Gender Diverse 2.68

$100K+ 2.79

M¯aori Electorate 4.44 M¯aori Descent 3.77 30–39 3.29

Peters (NZF)

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399 Note Figure is out of 10, with 1 being least likeable and 10 being most likeable. Question asked: How likeable do you find the following leaders? a Only one demographic rating from each category was ranked for each leader

Male 6.27

65+ 6.41

Graduate Degree 7.46

2nd

Lowest 3rd

3rd

Highest 1st M¯aori Electorate 8.17 2nd Students 7.57

Collins (NAT)

Demographic groupings the party leaders scored the highest and lowest average likeability witha

Ardern (LAB)

Table 2.7

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Collins and Seymour both received their highest and lowest average likeability ratings from the same demographic groupings—respondents making $100K+, respondents aged 65+ and male respondents at the highend, with respondents of M¯aori descent, respondents on the M¯aori roll and gender diverse respondents at the low-end—albeit in slightly different orders. These results also fit the traditionally viewed ideological persuasions and dominant voting tendencies of these demographic groupings. However, Seymour was considered more likeable than Collins among all 28 demographic groupings. For the two parties with co-leaders, the Greens and the M¯aori Party, the comparative differences in the demographic groupings who gave each co-leader relatively high and low likeability scores were noteworthy. The female co-leaders of each party appeared to be more polarising, as seen in their comparatively higher top-end likeability ratings and lower low-end likeability ratings compared to their male counterparts. This included being perceived as more likeable among demographics each party has traditionally appealed to compared to their male counterparts, while their male counterparts did better—or, more appropriately put, less poorly—with demographic groupings far outside their parties’ respective traditional voter bases. This may be due to the male co-leader from each party being branded as the more moderate of the pair. The results suggest New Zealand First’s Winston Peters failed to resonate with his core market of older voters in 2020. This is evidenced by the fact that Peters was viewed as more likeable by respondents aged 18–29 (between 3.13 and 3.29) than those aged 65+ (3.11). As mentioned earlier, this is likely due to Peters’ association with the Labourled Government, which would have hurt his appeal among the older more protectionist-oriented former National voters segment of the party’s core market. Given Peters’ importance to the New Zealand First brand, this may help further explain why the party did not do well in the 2020 election. Likeability by Voting Intention The perceived likeability of the leaders by each party’s own supporters, and their perception of other parties’ leaders, was atypical in 2020. Ardern was seen as almost as likeable among National supporters as Collins was with respondents overall. Ardern was also viewed as more likeable by the average Greens and M¯aori Party supporters than either of their respective

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Table 2.8 Party leaders’ likeability by voting intention Ardern (LAB) Labour National Greens ACT M¯aori NZ First

9.01 4.43 8.43 4.25 7.76 6.75

Collins Davidson Shaw (NAT) (GRN) (GRN) 1.60 6.62 1.44 5.31 1.74 3.12

4.82 2.10 6.69 1.99 6.37 2.99

4.67 2.55 5.95 2.37 4.67 2.83

Seymour Ngarewa- Tamihere Peters (ACT) Packer (MAO) (NZF) (MAO) 2.90 6.11 2.84 7.61 2.74 3.60

3.15 1.57 4.49 1.56 6.37 2.21

2.58 2.09 2.82 1.93 5.60 2.71

3.34 2.57 2.98 2.57 4.41 6.99

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399 Note Figure is out of 10, with 1 being least likeable and 10 being most likeable Question asked: How likeable do you find the following leaders?

parties’ co-leaders, while Collins had a lower likeability rating among her party’s supporters than Ardern, Davidson, Seymour as well as Peters did among theirs, and was 11.66 per cent lower than English’s rating in 2017. Peters perceived likeability among his supporters was reasonable, but was still 9.64 per cent lower than in 2017, while likely based on a smaller pool of ardent supporters given New Zealand First’s decline in popularity overall (Table 2.8).

Conclusion Analysis of descriptive statistics from 182,399 unique Vote Compass respondents has provided us with important marketing insights into public views on important issue areas, salient propositions, as well as the likeability of party leaders among the New Zealand public, key demographics, as well as each party’s supporters. New Zealanders’ Concerns and Demands Despite Ardern declaring 2020 to be the COVID election, this analysis highlights that New Zealanders’ concerns are more complex than that. The economy was considered the most important issue by a plurality of voters and, while COVID-19 ranked second, it was followed by healthcare, the environment, labour and housing. The findings also highlight the public’s desire for a more interventionist government, providing lower

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income adults with free dental care, free school lunches, doing more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the minimum wage— potentially partially financed through increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. It also suggests that voters want more protectionist action, with strong support for taxing companies that export New Zealand water, deporting foreigners convicted of criminal offences, preventing foreign ownership of residential properties and reducing reliance on other countries for goods and services. There is also room for leadership to move public opinion on issues such as oil and gas exploration, M¯aori rights, social welfare, property development and cannabis—where opinion was more divided or neutral. The Marketing Effectiveness of Parties’ Positions and Leadership On average, the positions held by New Zealand First and the Greens most closely aligned with views of respondents overall, National aligned poorly with respondents for a major party, while Labour offered the most likeable leader and aligned well with respondents on key issues. However, as has been the case every time New Zealand First has entered into a governing arrangement, the party fell victim to the fact that their populist antiestablishment brand makes it almost near-impossible to maintain a good chunk of their support while party of a governing arrangement. Collins’ lower likeability rating than Seymour suggests Collins was another potential weakness that contributed to National’s poor performance, while Seymour’s near-doubled likeability rating compared to 2017 is almost certainly one key factor in ACT’s change in electoral fortunes. Lessons Going Forward These data reaffirm the theory that simply having a broad selection of policy positions in line with public opinion is not enough to succeed. Understanding which broader issue areas and specific topics the public consider important and presenting the party’s policy positions on these through a consistent and appealing brand-image, accompanied by a leader (or leaders) people can connect to, is crucial to electoral success. Indeed, the results in this chapter would suggest that if election results were based solely on policy positions, New Zealand First and the Greens would be the two leading parties in New Zealand politics, followed by the M¯aori Party.

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But political marketing theory tells us policy alone does not determine electoral success. If New Zealand First are going to re-enter Parliament, they are going to need to do a better job highlighting how their product can appeal to a new generation of voters that is distinct from those targeted by the major parties, and do so in a way that allows them to be part of a government without the decline in support they have endured previously. The M¯aori Party will likely be seen as more electorally viable moving forward, given they will have the opportunity to promote their product more widely. Both the Greens and ACT should be comfortable with their respective positions. Despite ACT’s appeal being more limited, it is also unique and appeals across different demographics, as does their leader. While National were more in line with respondents than ACT overall, being a major party means their electoral goals are also more ambitious. To achieve them, National will need to update their product which, as it stands, is more suited to the electorate of 2008 than the 2020s. This will mean appealing to a broader, more pro-governmentaction electorate. They will also likely need to either undergo image management for leader Judith Collins, or find a new leader who is seen as more likeable. Labour and Ardern are, of course, in a strong position. However, they need to pay attention to voters’ concerns in a range of areas and ensure they can maintain Ardern’s positive public image as COVID-19 fades into the background and the public’s focus moves to recovery.

References Carifio, J., & Perla, R. J. (2007). Ten common misunderstandings, misconceptions, persistent myths and urban legends about Likert scales and Likert response formats and their antidotes. Journal of Social Sciences, 3(3), 106–116.

CHAPTER 3

The COVID-19 Election: How Labour Turned a Crisis into Its Biggest Branding Opportunity Ziena Jalil

Abstract This chapter looks at the political management and marketing demonstrated by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and the Labour Party in the leadup to the 2020 New Zealand General Election. In particular, the chapter examines how Ardern and Labour were able to utilise management, branding and leadership to strategically capitalise on the change in New Zealand’s political landscape that was a result of COVID19. Overall, the chapter highlights how Ardern and Labour were able to establish an effective brand that was reassuring, aspirational and symbolised positive values that resonated with the majority of the country, while negating their failure to deliver in other areas. Keywords Political management · Crisis management · Branding · Leadership

Z. Jalil (B) Auckland, New Zealand © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_3

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Introduction In late January 2020, when Prime Minister Jacinda Arden announced that the General Election would be held on 19 September, it was unclear whether Labour would be able to retain the Government benches. The National Party was proving to be a thorn in the Labour–New Zealand First Coalition Government’s side, highlighting a lack of delivery on key campaign promises: including KiwiBuild and light rail, while inequality appeared to be worse across most measures. Newshub’s Reid Research poll for the period 23 January–1 February 2020 showed National slightly ahead of Labour on party vote (Reid, 2020). National appeared to still be basking in the positive brand image from the John Key/Bill English days, while Labour was failing to demonstrate its competence in government. Fast forward a few months, and all that changed rather dramatically. On 19 March, Ardern shut New Zealand’s borders for the first time in history, to all but New Zealand citizens and permanent residents. Two days later, the Government launched a four-level alert system to guide health and social measures. On 25 March, a state of emergency was declared and the country moved into lockdown that midnight, for what was initially meant to be a minimum of four weeks. In the weeks and months that would follow, New Zealand came out of lockdown, went through the various alert levels, Aucklanders went into a second, shorter lockdown in August due to new cases of community transmission, before the entire country came out into Level 1 in time for a slightly delayed election on 17 October. This was not a normal election year. Campaigning was different, messaging was different, promises—or lack of—centred on one issue: keeping COVID-19 out of the country. Even more unusual, the outcome of that election will go down in history as the first under the Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMP) system which delivered an outright majority to a single party. Ardern’s Labour Party won 65 (of 120) seats and 50 per cent of the party vote; its best result in 50 years, and also the best nationwide result for a main party since 1951 (Coughlan, 2020b). Not only did Labour win in the cities, it also took out regional seats and overturned historically blueleaning seats, including Ilam and Upper Harbour, both held by previous National deputy leaders. This chapter looks at the political management and marketing demonstrated by Ardern and the Labour Party in those months between

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February and October, which changed New Zealand’s political landscape dramatically, exploring management, branding and leadership in relation to crisis.

Crisis Management as Political Management New Zealand’s management of COVID-19 has been hailed globally as among the best responses to the pandemic. New Zealand’s tyranny of distance was for once a blessing, but it was more than geography which led to this result. COVID-19 provided an immense challenge and opportunity for the Government, and will continue to do so for a while. While Ardern described the Government’s response as “we went hard and early”, the reality was a bit different. New Zealand reported its first case of COVID-19 on 28 February, and any people entering the country were asked to self-isolate rather than be in mandatory isolation. It took hundreds of medical professionals and other experts petitioning the Government to close the borders, before the borders eventually closed on 19 March (Coughlan, 2020a). Mandatory isolation and quarantine would also take a while to be put in place, as did the widespread use of masks, although this had been shown to work well in other parts of the world. However, throughout the pandemic, a hallmark of the Government’s response was its willingness to take advice from experts and act on it, even if the action was not as immediate as officials would have liked. There was a comprehensive, largely well-coordinated approach—positioned as the all-of-government response. This had clear objectives centred on protecting public health, encouraging Kiwis to maintain strong personal hygiene and to “stay home and save lives”. The Government aimed to maintain confidence in the health system, and operate essential services. While the health response was good, the communications—especially public communications—was exemplar, with Ardern and the Director General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield as the main sources of information. Communications were concise and consistent, user-friendly and personal. This included simplifying technical constructs into easy–tounderstand and memorable language, such as four alert levels and what each meant, the concept of the “bubble”, action-oriented messaging which gave each citizen something to do, such as “be kind”, “wash your hands” and “stay home”. Among the tactics used was active media management, with daily media conferences being among the highest

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viewed shows on television. The daily media briefings gave Ardern airtime in New Zealanders homes and lives in a way never before seen. This was supported by a programme of communications through Ministry of Health channels (Ministry of Health, 2020), social channels (New Zealand Government, 2020b), a dedicated website (New Zealand Government, 2020a)—which also provided resources including posters, translated materials and toolkits for businesses—as well as paid media, including extensive advertising. Influential spokespeople, including health experts and academics, were used as advocates for the Government’s messaging. There was good coordination across agencies. For example, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade helping Kiwis wanting to get home, and the Ministry of Education and schools helping to ensure students could still learn from home during lockdown. The Government also set up a Parliamentary Committee chaired by Opposition Leader Simon Bridges to ensure that the Government’s response was being reviewed and critiqued at a time when Parliament was not able to sit—again highlighting responsiveness. Similarly, a group of business leaders, led by highly regarded businessperson Rob Fyfe, was brought in to provide business guidance and leadership. Various agencies and ministries worked together to ensure that the economic, financial and social support was in place for people and businesses needing help. A $12 billion economic response package was announced in March, together with legislation changes including, for example, to the Companies Act, and additional funding through the Budget announcement, aimed to cushion the blow that the economy was taking as a result of the pandemic’s impact on economies globally (Strongman, 2020). The Government’s wage subsidy, a tactic borrowed from National’s response to the Christchurch earthquakes, was the cornerstone initiative to try and keep people in employment and support business cash flow. There was also a strong consumer response in conjunction with retailers. And throughout the various alert levels, the Government kept refining its criteria based on the feedback it was getting from the public and businesses, demonstrating effective responsiveness. When issues arose, they were dealt with promptly. For example, the Government moved to quarantine in-bound passengers rather than just require them to self-isolate, and demoting then accepting the resignation of Minister of Health David Clark when it became clear he had breached alert levels more than once.

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Team of Five Million: A Political Branding Masterstroke From the outset, Ardern positioned COVID-19 as the most significant challenge affecting New Zealand. In closing the borders, she said: I recognise how extraordinary this is… I’m not willing to take risks here… We have a window of opportunity to stay home, break the chain of transmission, and save lives. It’s that simple. (Strongman, 2020)

There is growing academic literature about the positioning of political parties and leaders as brands, and Labour and Ardern demonstrated this well. Needham (2006) suggests that political branding is useful in a range of ways to attract, secure and retain voters, including the “aspirational” factor, which evokes a particular vision or promise of something better. Ardern’s use of words, including “opportunity”, “break the chain” and “save lives” presented a vision for New Zealand where COVID-19 would be managed effectively. The response to COVID-19, and Ardern’s branding the nation as “Team of Five Million”, aligned well with Labour’s positioning as the party for everyone, not just business interests. The communications campaign, including the dedicated website and social channels, was called “Unite against COVID-19”—positioning the pandemic as the common enemy all Kiwis needed to get together to fight against. Needham (2006) suggests that, to be successful, brands need to be perceived as authentic and values-based. Labour delivered on this by ensuring its positioning aligned with New Zealand values around caring for one another and a strong sense of team. Ardern positioned herself as a team player, even as she was putting—what was in effect—among the strictest lockdown rules in the world. In a Facebook Live video at the start of the lockdown, wearing a faded green sweatshirt, after putting her daughter to sleep, Ardern told the audience to, “Stay at home, break the chain and you’ll save lives” (Ardern, 2020a). Moreover, the positioning around the collective response being needed to save lives engendered strong nationalistic sentiment, and anyone questioning the government response was viewed as almost unpatriotic. This manifest itself in interesting ways. In early February, the Government put in place entry restrictions on foreign nationals travelling to New Zealand from, or transiting through, mainland China. Those who could enter New

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Zealand had to self-isolate for 14 days. The impact of this decision on the international education market, which has China as the largest single source of international students to New Zealand, was significant and immediate. While many institutions lobbied hard and publicly for exemptions, the general view was that institutions were putting self-interest ahead of national interest and not being team players. That same sentiment would cost Simon Bridges the leadership of the National Party, and eventually lead to National losing the election. When Bridges questioned the Government’s actions, he came across as being negative for the sake of politics rather than as someone trying to ensure a stronger response. Ironically, a number of improvements that the Government brought into its response were initiatives National had advocated most strongly for, including mandatory isolation and quarantine. In the same vein, Winston Peters’ decision to question Labour’s response to the pandemic to try and differentiate New Zealand First during the election campaign backfired. In contrast, the Greens aligned themselves with Labour to the extent that Co-leader James Shaw even arrived at a Labour campaign event immediately prior to Ardern to make the most of their alliance. Ardern’s government used every opportunity to emphasise its “hard and early” stance and prioritising human life as the reasons for New Zealand’s privileged position. Messaging positioned Ardern and the Government as responding to New Zealand values. While businesses continued to lobby for borders to be opened by exemption, public sentiment showed strong support for keeping them closed (Neilson, 2020); a sentiment the government listened to. It was clear there would be no opening of borders, at least not before the election. Labour effectively sold the aspirational factor, with the majority of New Zealanders buying into the Government’s plan with the hope of a brighter and safer future. Labour’s campaign was positive and aligned with national values, meaning that anyone questioning it came across negative.

The Crisis Leader Research shows that political leaders are important for party brands. Images of leaders and parties have been proven to be a stronger determinant of voting behaviour than party policies, and orienteering around a popular leader is especially useful in a media environment focussed on personality (Smith, 2001). Communication is a key skill for leaders and

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one that is critically important during a crisis. While her government was questioned for a lack of delivery against a range of promises made during the 2017 New Zealand General Election, Ardern was generally lauded for her response during crises and particularly her strong communication skills. Even before COVID-19 reached New Zealand’s shores, Ardern had gained international recognition for her empathetic response to the 15 March (2019) terrorist attacks and the Whakaari White Island tragedy. These strengths were an asset during the COVID-19 crisis. Ardern’s ability to relate to people through direct communications had already been established through her social media channels in a way unmatched by any other politician in New Zealand. In analysing more than 40 speeches and public statements made by Ardern in March and April 2020, McGuire et al. (2020) found her messaging “clear and relatable” and her informal videos from her home a useful way of uniting the “Team of Five Million” in the fight against COVID-19. Throughout the lockdown and into the campaign, Ardern used Facebook Live to engage directly with voters—giving them access to her day, the challenges she wanted to highlight and her government’s response to keeping New Zealanders safe and the economy as strong as it could be. This is an example of what Needham (2006) describes as the need to reassure to appeal to voters. In addition to her social media videos, Ardern added a human touch at a time when people could not gather together. She appointed the Easter Bunny an essential worker and participated in the “Great Teddy Bear Hunt”—a campaign encouraging people to put teddy bears in their windows for others to spot as they went for walks in a socially distanced manner. While the Christchurch attacks had helped position Ardern as an empathetic and inclusive leader, her role as leader during COVID-19 had further cemented this image. Ardern emphasised her empathetic and inclusive leadership style, rallying New Zealanders into a collective response to crises against common enemies—be that a terrorist, a natural disaster or a global pandemic, reinforcing the message that we are all in this together. At Labour’s election campaign launch, she told supporters: Whether it was March 15, or Whakaari White Island, or even COVID-19— these three entirely different events that devastated in very different ways— they drew out a response from kiwis that was the same. They drew out a sense of collective purpose, of determination, of kindness. (Ardern, 2020b)

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A Campaign with a Singular Focus: Strong, Stable Government to Beat COVID-19 Despite the stop–start nature of the election campaign, Labour and Ardern retained a singular focus and played to their strength. Having been perceived to have succeeded in managing the crisis, Ardern added credibility to her campaign from having effectively managed COVID-19, if not the promises in other areas. This was highlighted in Ardern’s Campaign Launch speech, which she started by noting: What an amazing privilege it is to see you all gathered in one place today. Thank you for all your work over these last few months, which has made this gathering possible. In a COVID world, our team of 5 million has been a steady ship and I am so grateful for that. (Ardern, 2020b)

Drawing on Needham’s simplicity criteria, Ardern went on to describe the election as “a COVID election” (Ardern, 2020b) and ensured the focus was centred on the Government’s success in managing the pandemic, rather than its failure to deliver in its “Year of Delivery”. In another highly unusual move, Ardern went as far as telling voters not to expect any new policies (Walls, 2020). Instead, Ardern used campaign speeches and leaders’ debates to contrast the freedoms we had in New Zealand against the death toll, lockdowns and economic carnage in other countries, sometimes implying that National did not fully comprehend the magnitude of COVID-19. What was noticeable in the tactics being employed by Labour, is what political marketing literature describes as relationship marketing—a useful strategy which moves away from a transactional focus on the election and is in effect a permanent campaign, blending campaigning and governing into one (Needham, 2006). Such an approach requires appealing to the aspirations and instincts of voters as well as showing competent policy delivery. Again, this can be seen in Ardern’s campaign launch speech: … And so, when people ask, is this a COVID election, my answer is yes, it is… In fact, it’s the very reason why this is election is more important than ever. It’s about the future. It’s about leadership and it’s about values. It’s about whether we stop and change to another team, or whether we keep those we know and we trust. It’s about whether we build a few roads, or whether we rebuild New Zealand. It’s about whether we stop and start again, or whether we keep up the momentum we already have…. (Ardern, 2020b)

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Labour demonstrated good political marketing strategies in action— clearly differentiating itself from the competition and appealing to voter aspirations (Needham, 2006). Interestingly, Labour borrowed the phrase “strong, stable government” from National, made it its own and used it against them. The Government’s management of COVID-19 and Ardern’s almost complete domination of national media for several months leading into the election meant National leadership struggled to get traction. This saw Simon Bridges being ousted as National Party Leader by relatively unknown Todd Muller, who was replaced less than a month later by Judith Collins. National also saw several senior Members of Parliament (MPs), including many experienced women, for example, former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett, retire. National had often accused Labour of not having a strong team, saying that other than Ardern and a handful of key Ministers, the government did not really have talent. This was evidenced further when Ardern replaced David Clark as Health Minister with Chris Hipkins—a Minister who already had a massive portfolio as Minister for Education, State Services and as Leader of the House. But Labour used the National leadership changes and ill-discipline within the party, including unprofessional and unethical behaviour by some National MPs, to contrast with its own “strong, stable” position. The underlying sentiment, that if you cannot even manage your party, you cannot be trusted to manage the country during its worst crisis.

Conclusion and Lessons for the Future From a political perspective, it is clear that the election outcome was influenced by the global pandemic and the Government’s response to it. In managing the COVID-19 crisis in government, Labour established an effective brand that was reassuring, aspirational and symbolised positive values that resonated with the majority of the country. Branding the election as “the COVID election” and using that to deflect attention away from a failure to deliver in other areas worked in Labour’s favour. Ardern’s domination of media—traditional and social—and her ability to unite the public behind a common cause meant that any opposition towards the Government had the possibility of being seen as unpatriotic. Political branding—including the use of aspiration, symbolic values, reassurance, simplicity and differentiation—was as effective in this crisisdriven election as standard elections, albeit the concepts were applied in

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unusual ways. While this strategy delivered Labour a historic victory in 2020, the next election could look entirely different. The public is willing to adapt to a crisis for a defined period of time; it is not willing to do so perpetually. While it managed to put some failure of delivery down to coalition politics, given the strong mandate Labour was given at the election, there will be a corresponding high expectation of delivery. Labour can learn from its electoral success and adapt the strategy for the future. This requires: • Rallying the public behind a shared vision • Outlining a clear plan which delivers on the vision • Delivering the plan and providing regular updates to communicate progress. The concept of team is also an important one. Ardern’s team and the way in which it rallied around its star was in stark contrast to National’s in-fighting. In preparing for the next election, Labour needs to ensure it makes the most of its large team of MPs to appear to be more than a party of Ardern and a handful of her trusted ministers. Succession planning is important; over dependence on one individual leads to the sort of instability that Labour witnessed after Helen Clark’s retirement and what has been witnessed more recently with National. The COVID-19 election has delivered Ardern and Labour a unique opportunity to put in motion their vision for a more prosperous and an inclusive New Zealand. How they respond to this opportunity could determine the outcome of the next election.

References Ardern, J. (2020a). Evening everyone. Facebook, March 25. Ardern, J. (2020b). Speech: Labour Campaign Launch 2020. Labour, August 8. Coughlan, T. (2020a). Coronavirus: Doctor group—Raise threat level now or risk becoming like Italy. Stuff , March 22. Coughlan, T. (2020b). Election 2020: Jacinda Ardern claims biggest Labour victory in 50 years. Stuff , October 18.

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McGuire, D., Cunningham, J. E. A., Reynolds, K., & Matthews-Smith, G. (2020). Beating the virus: An examination of the crisis communication approach taken by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during the Covid-19 pandemic. Human Resource Development International, 23(4), 361–379. Ministry of Health. (2020). COVID-19 (novel coronavirus). Needham, C. (2006). Brands and political loyalty. Brand Management, 13(3), 178–187. Neilson, M. (2020). Covid 19 coronavirus: Majority of Kiwis want to keep borders closed, but are concerned about economy, jobs. New Zealand Herald, July 11. New Zealand Government. (2020a). Unite against COVID-19. New Zealand Government. (2020b). Unite against COVID-19. Facebook. Reid. (2020). TV3 Poll Results. Reid Research Services Limited. Smith, G. (2001). The 2001 general election: Factors influencing the brand image of political parties and their leaders. Journal of Marketing Management, 17 (9/10), 989–1006. Strongman, S. (2020). Covid-19 Pandemic Timeline. Radio New Zealand. Walls, J. (2020). Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern warns voters not to expect big Labour Party policies this election. New Zealand Herald, August 3.

CHAPTER 4

Trashing the Brand: How Brand Damage Dented National’s Chance at the 2020 Election Heather Du Plessis-Allan

Abstract The National Party were, until 2017, the party of government. They enjoyed a well-established brand for economic competence and delivery. This chapter explores how National were able to trash that brand in opposition, particularly once COVID-19 struck. It outlines how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problems with National’s brand, but that these problems were also self-inflicted thanks to internal disunity and multiple changes in leadership. It shows how National’s behaviour, policies, promises, statements and advertising in the leadup to and during the campaign failed to meet key branding criteria, most notably with regard to credibility and internal values. Keywords Branding · Credibility · Internal values · Political opposition

H. Du Plessis-Allan (B) Wellington, New Zealand © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_4

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Introduction For the majority of the electoral term leading up to the 2020 election, National looked on track to pose a serious threat to re-election of the Labour-led Government. National consistently polled near, or even above, Labour in party vote polling. But then, seven months before the final election date, COVID-19 struck, National’s polls fell and never recovered. The sudden poll drop coincided with—and precipitated—a cascading series of events which arguably led to unsurvivable brand damage for the National Party. That is not to say National bore no responsibility for the election result and can simply blame the pandemic. Instead, as National sought to rebuild while in opposition for the post-John Key/Bill English era, the party’s problematic marketing became visible during this time, which in an election year is fatal. Needham outlines six criteria for a successful brand. It must be: simple, unique, reassuring, aspirational, symbolic of better internal values and credible (Needham, 2005). This chapter will explore how National’s behaviour, policies, promises, statements and advertising in the lead up to and during the campaign failed to meet Needham’s six branding criteria, most especially with regard to credibility and better internal values.

Simple National failed to simplify its message so voters could easily understand what the party offered. The party’s branding strength has historically been the perception of it as a better manager of the economy than Labour. However, it failed to capitalise on this with a simple economic message. Instead, the party confused voters about what their economic priorities were through mixed messages around what they were offering. This included announcing big spending packages, such as a $31 billion infrastructure plan, while at the same time seemingly attempting to make similar offerings to those that had worked for them in the past by promising to cut debt and cut taxes (Sachdeva, 2020). Even the party’s original billboard statement was not simple. It had three slogans, “Strong Team, More Jobs, Better Economy”, which was far more complicated than Labour’s one slogan, “Let’s Keep Moving”, or their own “Delivering for New Zealand” from 2017. Later, in September, National changed its billboard slogan to the simpler “Your Economy,

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Your Future”. But it was too late to have an impact; it lacked simplicity as it was undefined, and then also failed Needham’s test of being unique, as Labour also argued that it was the party to rebuild the economy, regularly telling voters the COVID-19 health response was the best economic response.

Unique National struggled to find ways to differentiate itself from Labour. Both parties announced massive infrastructure spending, massive education spending and massive health spending, even mirroring each other’s promised funding boost for Pharmac. This made the parties close to indistinguishable from each other on significant policy areas. On one hand, National did attempt to distinguish itself by promising to cut taxes when Labour had signalled an increase. However, this then led to failures in terms of credibility due to the change in context from previous elections, as offering tax cuts during a global pandemic and rapidly approaching world recession did not convey sound economic management in the way it had when National made similar offerings during times of economic growth and stability. It also lacked consistency because Collins had previously ruled them out. Moreover, the party doomed the voter uptake of the policy by inexplicably announcing it on a Friday—the lowest point in the weekly news cycle when new policies get least attention. National attempted to differentiate itself as a strong team, given the difficulty Labour had over the course of the term with underperforming members of its team. However, National’s own team was embroiled in a series of sagas, including two leadership changes and the resignation of two embattled MPs in the year of the election. Additionally, Labour were better positioned than in 2017, or even 2019, to claim to have a strong team, evidenced by their COVID-19 response, once again neutralising National’s attempted point of difference. Even the National Party’s video adverts were not unique when compared to Labour’s. Both featured the party leader, both had them promising improved infrastructure, jobs, help for business, consideration of the environment and a “plan”. This was in stark contrast to the party’s adverts from the previous two elections that had explicitly highlighted National’s strengths in relation to Labour and Labour’s potential minor party partners.

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Reassuring In the context of a global pandemic, this particular branding criteria possibly took on added significance. However, any attempts to reassure voters it was “not risky” to vote for the post-Key/English National Party were likely undermined by then-leader Simon Bridges’ failure to acknowledge the importance of voters’ concerns over their health and the following two changes in the party’s leadership close to the election. Following the Labour-led Government’s decision to extend the first Level 4 lockdown by five days, Bridges posted criticism on his Facebook page (Bridges, 2020). Bridges fell on the wrong side of public opinion, given as many as two-thirds of New Zealanders felt the lockdown length was “about right” and 22 per cent even thought it was too short (Brain, 2020). As a result, Bridges received massive public backlash with huge numbers of critical comments posted by members of the public to his original message. Despite this, National continued to push for unpopular policies, including promising to allow travellers from low-risk countries to skip the full two-week quarantine at the border. Only the previous month, a poll had showed that more than two-thirds of New Zealanders surveyed wanted the existing border settings to remain (NZ Herald-Kantar, 2020). On the economic front, National struggled to reassure voters that it was best placed to rebuild the economy, something the party had built their brand around following the party’s handling of the post-Great Recession economy. Parties regularly release alternative budgets ahead of elections to assure voters they are fiscally credible. But in his alternative budget, then-Finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith made an error amounting to $4 billion. While Goldsmith admitted the error, it overshadowed the party campaign launch and continued to dog the party for days thereafter with further accusations of more errors emerging. This likely reinforced existing voter sentiment that Labour was the best party to manage the economy (TVNZ, 2020) and that National were no longer the same steady hands they had been under Key and English.

Aspirational National failed repeatedly to meet Needham’s criteria of conveying “a positive vision for a better way of life” (Needham, 2005). While it is normal for an opposition party to criticise the government of the day, National were regularly accused of “barking at every car”, especially under

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the leadership of Bridges. This was most notably seen in the aforementioned Facebook post and Bridges “tone deaf” criticism of the Labour-led Government’s welfare increases as part of a pandemic recovery package (Moir & Dreaver, 2020). Ethnic and gender diversity within a party is a way to appear aspirational by reflecting voter diversity back to them. However, National failed most obviously at this during the brief leadership of Todd Muller. The party had no M¯aori MPs on its front bench. This led to an awkward error where then-deputy leader Nikki Kaye wrongly labelled P¯akeha MP Paul Goldsmith as Ng¯ati Porou. This error only further underscored the lack of diversity and led to ridicule of the party. National also failed to transition from an opposition into a “government in waiting”. During the campaign, Collins took a negative tone focussed on attacking Labour’s record in Government rather than selling a positive vision for what National offered. She accused Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of having “lied” over COVID-19 (Collins, 2020b) and used the leaders’ debates to patronise Ardern with quips like “what for, dear?” (Collins, 2020a). While Collins displayed spirit and likely appealed to some core National supporters, the attitude on display was not positive or aspirational in a way appealing to the broader electorate. Further, Collins used her video adverts to remind voters “communities, livelihoods, futures are at stake”, she offered only vague generalisations like “a plan” but no positive vision for New Zealand (Collins, 2020c).

Symbolic of Better Internal Values As mentioned earlier, this was one of two of Needham’s criteria National most struggled with. The party damaged its brand badly through a series of well-publicised internal squabbles, leaks and bad behaviour. National’s problems on this front began well before the election campaign, with Jami-Lee Ross’ fallout with the party. Ross released unflattering secret recordings of his then-leader Bridges in which he described one of his MPs, Maureen Pugh, as “fucking useless” and discussed the comparative value of Indian and Chinese MPs (Bridges, quoted in Coughlan et al., 2018). The fallout became increasingly sordid, with a number of women accusing Ross of grooming, abuse and harassment, and Ross in turn claiming that the complaints were an orchestrated “nasty” campaign by his opponents within the party (Ross, 2018). The saga painted an unappetising portrait of nasty, vindictive behaviour within

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party ranks that had not been present, or at least publicly visible, under the leadership of Key and English. While the party was able to put this behind them, election year brought a constant series of scandals for National. The dramatic leadership changes within the party—Muller rolling Bridges, then Muller resigning and being replaced by Collins—hinted at instability and internal disagreement. This was reinforced by persistent leaks, the most notable being the leaking of an email criticising then-leader Collins. In the email, Auckland MP Denise Lee complained to her caucus colleagues that Collins had displayed “incredibly poor form” by designing policy in Lee’s portfolio without her input (Lynch, 2020). Another MP then complained to the same media outlet, Newshub, that Collins was “making up policy on the hoof” and “creating division” (Anonymous, quoted in Lynch, 2020). Following that, an unnamed MP told a second media outlet, 1 News, that party leadership had failed to share internal polling for weeks, complained that there was a culture issue in the party and claimed Collins had “bullied” Lee (Anonymous, quoted in Mutch-McKay, 2020). Collins later claimed the result of the Lee email leak cost the party five points in internal polls. The resignation of two of National’s young male MPs within three weeks of each other further dented the party’s claim to represent better internal values. Less than four months before the election, CluthaSouthland MP Hamish Walker resigned after leaking private COVID-19 patient data to the media in a bid to prove his claim in an earlier press release criticised as racist. The saga also prompted former National Party President Michelle Boag to stand down from her roles as Auckland Central MP and then-deputy leader Kaye’s electorate and campaign committees, and saw Michael Woodhouse stripped of his shadow health portfolio for also receiving the info and not immediately deleting it. Within three weeks of that saga, National’s Rangitata MP Andrew Falloon also resigned after five women complained of receiving explicit text messages, prompting a police investigation. There were also a series of smaller mishaps which added to criticism of the party’s internal values, including the news that then-leader Muller displayed a Donald Trump MAGA hat in his office; National MPs Harete Hipango, Matt King and Alfred Ngaro criticised for posting false claims to social media; a talkback caller named “Merv” being unmasked as National Party board member Roger Bridge; claims Party President Peter Goodfellow broke party rules in the selection process for the Auckland Central seat and a spat in that seat that led to one candidate launching legal action

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to prevent a campaign that wrongly suggested she had previously worked as a stripper. The persistent scandals that dogged National spoke of problematic internal values: vengeful behaviour, untrustworthiness, unfaithfulness, a transactional attitude to politics, instability and internal disagreement. Given this, there was no way they could convey appealing symbolism to voters, especially when contrasted with Labour softer and kinder brand.

Credible Equally, the party struggled to prove itself as credible on many fronts. The constant negative headlines possibly dented voters’ belief that the party would be able to deliver on its promises, given its inability to unify itself during the campaign. While the party had attempted to brand itself as a strong team, that message’s credibility was undermined by the constant stream of resignations and departures. Of the top 20 MPs at the start of 2018, only 9 remained by July 2020. That “Strong Team” message was ridiculed by the party choosing to keep the original slogan “Strong Team, More Jobs, Better Economy” used on the billboards featuring leadership combination Muller and Kaye, despite changing the leadership team—and billboards—to Collins and Gerry Brownlee. In the months before the election, events involving the final leadership team of Collins and Brownlee further damaged the party’s credibility. Arguably the most awkward campaign moment for Collins came during a pre-arranged walkabout on Auckland’s Ponsonby Road, where media discovered campaign organisers had pre-arranged party faithful to bolster crowd numbers and witnessed staff at an optometrist barring her from entering. This excruciating event was broadcast in the same TV news bulletins as footage of huge crowds meeting Labour leader Ardern at Otago University. Collins further dented the party’s credibility by insisting Labour would introduce the Green Party’s proposed wealth tax, despite Labour ruling it out, and then shrilly claiming Ardern had “lied” about her COVID-19 border response (Trevett, 2020). Similar to then-Minister of Finance Steven Joyce’s $11.7 billion hole claim against Labour in 2017, Brownlee faced loud opposition to his attempt to suggest a conspiracy theory that the Government’s COVID19 response team—including Ardern and Director-General of Health Dr. Ashley Bloomfield—might have known about an outbreak before making the information public. He later backtracked, but the damage was likely

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done: he had already introduced the idea that even statements from National’s leadership team could not be counted on as credible and was compounded by its symbolism of a growing negative theme in National’s brand. On the policy front, the party faced criticism over its shifting positions. After making a big play on the need to reduce debt, the party was forced to revise its own ambitious debt target up, and then backtracked on Collins’ statement that she would not introduce tax cuts. There were questions about the party’s ability to fund its promises which were not helped by Goldsmith’s fiscal hole.

Conclusion Overall, the National Party performed badly on all six brand attributes: simple, unique, reassuring, aspiration, symbolic of better internal values and credible. Like in 2017, the party failed to simplify its message into an easy-to-understand vision for voters. However, unlike in 2017, what vision National did try to sell was not unique but was already on offer from Labour. The party failed to reassure voters who were concerned about the pandemic and instead offered policies that were the opposite of what many voters wanted, even if similar offerings had worked in previous elections fought under different circumstances. Instead of offering an aspirational vision to voters, the party chose to attack Labour’s record. This painted the party as persistently negative, damaging the perception of its internal values. That was also further damaged by the party’s rolling scandals, which then also dented its credibility. Surveying the list of things that went wrong for National’s branding, it is apparent why the party suffered such a massive loss at the election. Advice for the National Party To avoid repeating the brand damage the National Party suffered during the 2020 campaign, it must: • Decide what it represents to voters. That message must be simple, it must be different from its main competitors and it must be reinforced through policies and actions.

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• Be disciplined. National cannot allow public displays of disunity to undermine its own credibility and suggest to the public that it does not hold better internal values than other parties. • Listen to what voters want. Voters will be reassured if parties promise the things they want, rather than the very changes they are possibly afraid of. • Be positive. Attacking the opposition’s record is only successful if you are able to offer a better alternative.

References Brain, D. (2020). Exclusive: New poll shows support for level four extension despite economic pain. The Spinoff , April 27. Bridges, S. (2020). [Post]. Facebook, April 19. Collins, J. (2020a). Quoted in “Newshub Leaders Debate: Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins’ best one-liners”. Newshub, October 1. Collins, J. (2020b). Quoted in “Election 2020: Judith Collins calls Jacinda Ardern a ‘liar’ over Covid-19”. New Zealand Herald, October 13. Collins, J. (2020c). Quoted in “National Party releases first TV advertisement ahead of next month’s election”. TVNZ , September 13. Coughlan, T., Walters, L., & Sachdeva, S. (2018). “Tape embarrasses but doesn’t convict Bridges”. Newsroom‚ October 17. Lynch, D. (2020). Leaked email: National MP criticises Judith Collins’ ‘highly problematic idea’ of reviewing Auckland Council. Newshub, October 5. Moir, J., & Dreaver, D. (2020). Coronavirus: Simon Bridges criticised for ‘politics-as-usual’ pot shots amid covid-19 crisis. Radio New Zealand, March 18. Mutch-McKay, J. (2020). National MP says Judith Collins ‘bullied’ another MP in her party. TVNZ , October 6. Needham, C. (2005). Brand leaders: Clinton, Blair and the limitations of the permanent campaign. Political Studies, 53(2), 343–361. NZ Herald-Kantar. (2020). NZ Herald-Kantar Vote 2020 poll. New Zealand Herald, August 6. Ross, J.-L. (2018). Quoted in “Dragging Jami-Lee Ross’ private life into National’s spat ‘close to a very dangerous line’ in NZ politics, says Peter Dunne”. TVNZ , October 17. Sachdeva, S. (2020). Tax cuts in, debt target out in National’s fiscal plan. Newsroom, September 18. Trevett, C. (2020). “Election 2020: Judith Collins calls Jacinda Ardern a ‘liar’ over Covid-19”. New Zealand Herald‚ October 13. TVNZ. (2020). Kiwis now trust labour more than National to repair the economy, poll suggests. TVNZ , May 25.

CHAPTER 5

Targeting Party Supporters, Key Demographics and Undecided Voters Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Lisa Chant, Danny Osborne, Justin Savoie, and Clifton van der Linden

Abstract This chapter presents detailed analysis of descriptive statistics from the 182,399 unique respondents who engaged with the Vote Compass engagement tool during the 2020 election campaign. In doing so, it outlines how well Labour, National, New Zealand First, the Greens, ACT and the M¯aori Party’s policy positions aligned with the views of their

E. Elder (B) · J. Lees-Marshment · L. Chant · D. Osborne University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. Lees-Marshment e-mail: [email protected] L. Chant e-mail: [email protected] D. Osborne e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_5

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own supporters, undecided voters as well as key demographics. In doing so, the chapter highlights the importance of key issues and propositions to, as well as other influences on, the electoral success of a political party. The chapter also highlights what this means for the parties and the lessons they need to take from this as they move forward. Keywords Vote Compass · Undecided voters · Party supporters · Demographics

Introduction A crucial component of successful election campaigns is the ability to target and appeal to key voters. This chapter explores the extent to which the policy positions of six political parties aligned with the views of their supporters, key demographic segments and undecided voters, and what that says about the appeal of the parties’ policies with these groups. It utilises analysis of descriptive statistics calculated from more than 180,000 unique Vote Compass respondents, before it summarises the findings and offers lessons for the future.

Methodology As noted in Chapter 2, Vote Compass is an online engagement tool developed to promote electoral literacy (for further detail, see Lees-Marshment et al., 2015). This chapter utilises survey data from 182,399 unique respondents who participated in Vote Compass from 30 August to 19 October 2020. As in Chapter 2, the Likert scale was reduced from a 5- to a 3-point scale (i.e. Disagree, Neutral, Agree), and the averages

J. Savoie University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] C. van der Linden McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected]

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around the 30 Vote Compass propositions were calculated by adding up the percentage of respondents who held a particular position on the Vote Compass propositions then dividing that by the number of percentages added up.

The Alignment of Party Positions with Party Supporters This section analyses the views of respondents who indicated their intention to vote for one of the six political parties examined, who we refer to as “party supporters”. These groups of respondents include their traditional bases and, while parties need to get support beyond this group to win, they also need to retain them to attract and maintain members and donations (Table 5.1). The Labour Party’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters Labour’s policy positions were on average in line with just under half of their supporter’s views. This was 6.19 per cent lower than in 2017. This disparity is understandable given Labour’s larger, and thus more ideologically diverse, supporter pool in 2020. Furthermore, Labour aligned as well as possible with their own supporters on COVID-19, healthcare and the environment. For example, a clear majority agreed with the party that the Government should accrue about as much debt as they were to address COVID-19 (59.39 per cent), that the Government should cover the cost of dental care for adults with low incomes (82.14 per cent) and that New Zealand should do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions (59.68 per cent). However, Labour’s positions were also less in line with their supporters on propositions around the economy. For example, Labour’s views that New Zealand should not rely less on other countries for its goods and services (10.06 per cent) and that the corporate tax rate should remain about the same (17.62 per cent) were not the most common position held by their supporters, where over 70 per cent wanted more action taken. This may cause problems for the party at the next election if they are unable to satisfy the expanded pool of supporters who voted for them in 2020.

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Table 5.1 The percentage of parties’ supporters who on average held their parties’ positions on all 30 Vote Compass propositions Party/supporters (baseline) Labour supporters Labour National supporters National Greens supporters Greens ACT supporters ACT M¯aori supporters M¯aori NZ First supporters NZ First

Average supporter alignment with the parties’ positions Overall

ECO

COV

61.97%

76.23% 56.68% 71.92% 71.28% 59.91% 64.40%

47.98% 56.93%

36.39% 56.68% 71.92% 71.28% 37.44% 52.61% 54.07% 48.13% 56.35% 61.14% 57.05% 54.01%

38.73% 68.56%

11.80% 44.74% 20.52% 54.14% 43.49% 37.93% 80.40% 47.86% 81.20% 83.52% 64.29% 67.69%

65.97% 56.43% 36.08% 66.66%

80.40% 54.32% 13.10% 78.39%

60.15% 59.17%

78.39% 43.80% 59.41% 74.92% 56.12% 68.91% 71.02% 54.49% 61.22% 60.19% 50.45% 61.09%

45.70%

43.54% 54.49% 50.27% 56.81% 43.32% 58.91%

41.22% 49.39% 46.15% 50.84%

HEA

81.20% 59.85% 47.18% 69.94%

ENV

83.52% 58.99% 26.77% 74.92%

LAB

58.46% 54.48% 42.99% 61.90%

HOU

67.69% 56.84% 35.47% 68.91%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 147,515 ECO = Economy, COV = COVID-19, HEA = Healthcare, ENV = Environment, LAB = Labour, HOU = Housing Note The “Overall” percentages show the average public support for the parties’ positions over all 30 Vote Compass propositions, including other issues such as immigration, transport, education

The National Party’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters National’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of less than 40 per cent of their supporters, 1.21 per cent lower than in 2017 and the second lowest correlation of the six parties examined. There were only 13 propositions where a majority of National’s supporters agreed with the party’s position. Furthermore, although the economy was clearly the most important issue for National supporters, less than 10 per cent agreed with the party that wealthier people and corporations should pay less in taxes, while only 17.59 per cent agreed that New Zealand should not be less reliant on other countries for its goods and services. The party was more in line with their supporters in issue areas not considered important to them, such as the environment (ranked 8th out of 16) and law

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and order (ranked 14th out of 16). Their supporters also agreed with them that cannabis should not be legalised (63.68 per cent) and that the government should incur less debt to address COVID-19 (50.62 per cent). Overall, National’s supporters were more economically moderate, or even progressive, than where the party stood, at least on the issue area they clearly considered most important. The Green Party’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters The Green Party was the most successful of the six parties examined at holding positions in line with their supporters, being on average in line with the views of almost two-thirds of them, a slight 1.09 per cent drop from 2017. The party’s positions were also in line with the most common view of their supporters on all but three propositions, as evidenced by the fact that the Greens aligned as well as they could with their own supporters around four of the six most important issue areas during the 2020 election. Not surprisingly, this included aligning as well as possible with their own supporters around the issue area they considered most important, the environment. For example, 92.45 per cent of the party’s supporters agreed with the party that New Zealand should do more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, while 67.84 per cent agreed that the Government should do more to limit oil and gas exploration in New Zealand. Where the Greens did not hold the most common position held by their supporters, the party normally held a more liberal view than their supporters, such as on whether the Government should incur more debt to address the COVID-19 crisis, where their supporters wanted to incur the same amount, while the party wanted to incur more. The ACT Party’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters Despite winning more seats in 2020 than ever before, ACT’s policy positions were generally not in line with those of their supporters. Just over a third of ACT’s supporters on average aligned with the party’s position on the 30 propositions, 7.24 per cent lower than in 2017. This is despite a majority of ACT’s supporters holding a uniform view on 19 of the 30 propositions (averaging 56.43 per cent). Like Labour, this suggests the growth in the pool of ACT supporters meant that the party’s supporters had a more diverse range of views than in 2017. Even though the economy was clearly the most important issue for ACT’s supporters,

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the party’s positions were not well aligned with them. While ACT had previously branded itself as the party of lower taxes and limited government, less than 15 per cent of their supporters agreed with the party’s position that wealthier people and corporations should pay less in taxes— with at least 47 per cent believing both should pay more. However, as discussed elsewhere in this book, ACT’s ability to unite these voters through a combination of rebranding the party away from tax specifically and towards freedom more broadly, as well as the growing appeal of their leader, clearly mitigated the differences in opinion between the party and their small but ideologically diverse electoral coalition. That said, they need to be cautious and reflective about assuming repeated success in 2023. The M¯ aori Party’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters The M¯aori Party were the second most successful of the six parties examined at holding policy positions that were in line with their supporters, likely contributing to their success in regaining two seats at the election. The M¯aori Party’s positions on average were in line with just over three-fifths of their supporters, up a slight 0.65 per cent from 2017. Furthermore, the M¯aori Party’s positions were also in line with the most common view of their supporters on all but six propositions and were as well aligned with their supporters as possible on the issue they considered most important and a cornerstone of the party’s brand, M¯aori rights. Between 87 and 90 per cent of M¯aori Party supporters agreed with the party that the Treaty of Waitangi should have more of a role in New Zealand law and that the Government should do more to make amends for injustices committed against M¯aori. The one potential tension for the party going forward is that in the few cases where the M¯aori Party’s position deviated from the most common position among their supporters, the party often held a comparatively conservative view. For example, while the party believed patients with terminal illnesses should not be allowed to end their own lives with medical assistance and that cannabis should not be legalised, between 64 and 70 per cent of their supporters believed they should be.

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New Zealand First’s Responsiveness to Their Supporters New Zealand First’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of just over 45 per cent of their supporters. This made them the only party of those examined who were less in line with the views of their own supporters than respondents overall (by 2.81 per cent). This is despite the party being 5.49 per cent more aligned on average with their own supporter’s views than in 2017, likely due to this pool of supporters being smaller than in 2020 and thus more ideologically homogeneous. Nevertheless, the propositions where the party’s positions correlated well with their supporters were often where the party stuck to their populist antiestablishment brand. These included strong support for the government deporting foreigners convicted of a criminal offence (89.52 per cent), preventing foreign ownership of residential properties (82.59 per cent) and New Zealand being less reliant on other countries for its goods and services (77.96 per cent). This last proposition in particular plays into New Zealand First’s traditional place as sceptical of economic globalisation. However, New Zealand First’s positions were less in line with the views of their supporters on taxing the wealthy and corporations, where between 24 and 29 per cent agreed with the party that they should be taxed the same, while between 66 and 69 per cent believed they should be taxed more.

The Alignment of Party Positions to Demographic Segments Targeting voters by demographic is a well-established tool of political marketing. This section analyses how in line the parties’ policy positions were with certain demographics to uncover a range on insights into the parties’ potential target markets. The Left-Wing Parties’ Targeting Effectiveness: M¯ aori Electorate Voters, Gender Diverse People, Students and People with Graduate Degrees The overall platforms of Labour, the Greens and the M¯aori Party were most in line with the views of people on the M¯aori electoral roll, gender diverse people, as well as students and people with a graduate degree, as shown in Table 5.2. In terms of trends, all three parties’ policy positions

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correlated on average better with younger age groups compared to older, with people who hold high levels of academic qualification compared to lower, as well as with lower income earners compared to higher. Labour and the Greens were least in sync with the average views of respondents over the age of 50, respondents making over $70K annually, and male respondents. For the M¯aori Party, it was respondents earning over $70K annually, male respondents, people with high school or below and, interestingly, people from the South Island. Given the North Island has a greater ratio of M¯aori New Zealanders than the South Island, such geographical targeting makes sense. It should also be noted that in all but one case when comparing these three parties—respondents 65+—the Greens’ positions were most in line with the views of these demographics, the M¯aori Party second and Labour third. This is interesting, given Labour’s position as a major party would suggest they should do better across demographics. The disparities in alignment between demographics groupings within these categories are in line with what would be expected from the Greens and the M¯aori Party, given the niche audiences they aim to appeal to. Labour, however, have loftier electoral ambitions. Thus, being noticeably more in line with the views of less-populous demographic groupings within many categories—such as people with graduate degrees in the education category—is something that party may want to reflect on moving forward. This does not mean that they need to cater to these larger demographics—at the expense of less-populous ones. However, reflecting on potential demographics where targeted potential growth could be viable would be strategically wise, especially as voters’ evaluations of the party become less centred around a fleeting issue, COVID-19 (Table 5.2).

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Table 5.2 Support for the left-wing parties’ positions by demographic

Age 18–29 30–39 40–49 50–64 65+ Education High school or below Diploma or certificate Bachelor’s degree Graduate degree Gender Female Male Gender diverse Birth place Born in New Zealand Born outside New Zealand Income Less or equal to $30K $30–$60K $70–$100K More than $100K Location North Island South Island Electorate M¯aori electorate Non-M¯aori electorate Descent M¯aori descent Non-M¯aori descent Student Non-student Student Voting certainty Decided Undecided

Labour

Greens

M¯ aori

45.06% 43.18% 41.79% 41.03% 40.68%

53.11% 49.03% 46.15% 44.79% 43.69%

47.03% 45.29% 44.24% 44.27% 44.28%

41.55% 41.51% 43.31% 46.13%

45.79% 45.65% 49.13% 55.34%

43.98% 44.75% 45.87% 49.80%

42.79% 41.50% 48.31%

48.76% 45.02% 63.61%

46.39% 43.27% 53.99%

42.18% 42.97%

46.97% 49.45%

44.90% 45.84%

43.14% 41.96% 41.49% 40.12%

49.50% 46.48% 44.88% 41.71%

47.24% 44.52% 42.55% 39.45%

42.57% 41.99%

47.80% 46.41%

45.33% 43.99%

49.04% 41.98%

61.32% 46.58%

57.81% 44.50%

45.08% 41.67%

52.56% 46.05%

49.71% 44.05%

41.99% 46.24%

46.61% 55.58%

44.73% 48.91%

42.29% 41.59%

47.25% 45.67%

45.10% 43.70%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399* Note % = Average percentage of respondents to agree with party positions over all 30 Vote Compass Questions *A portion of these respondents were utilised, according to their voting intention. This number will remain undisclosed, as Vote Compass is not a vote intention poll

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The Right-Wing Parties’ Targeting Effectiveness: Higher Earners, Older Respondents and Male Voters National and ACT’s positions were most in line with the views of those where the left-wing parties were weakest: higher earners (people making more than $70K annually), older respondents (people aged over 50) and male voters. They were also least in line with the views of demographic groupings that the left-wing parties were strongest with: gender diverse respondents, respondents on the M¯aori electorate roll as well as students. However, in all cases, National correlated on average better with these demographic groupings compared to ACT. Moreover, despite National and ACT’s perceived strengths around the economy, this was the issue area out of the top six most important where National and ACT did the worst with these voters, in large part due to their position on taxing wealthier people and corporations noted elsewhere. Again, as with the findings overall, these results are more concerning for National than ACT, given National’s more ambitious electoral goals. Importantly, the evidence shows National’s policy positions had more potential appeal with older, whiter and more financially secure segments of the New Zealand population. Yes, these people can be trusted to turn out to vote in high numbers and have been a key to National’s past success. However, as New Zealand becomes less economically conservative in a way that has traditionally appealed to these voters—in part because younger voters are not ageing into conservative views in the numbers they once did—and as New Zealand becomes more ethnically diverse, National is going to need to reflect on how it can alter its product offering to appeal to a changing New Zealand electorate (Table 5.3).

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Table 5.3 Support for the right-wing parties’ positions by demographic

Age 18–29 30–39 40–49 50–64 65+ Education High school or below Diploma or certificate Bachelor’s degree Graduate degree Gender Female Male Gender diverse Birth place Born in New Zealand Born outside New Zealand Income Less or equal to $30K $30–$60K $70–$100K More than $100K Location North Island South Island Electorate M¯aori electorate Non-M¯aori electorate Descent M¯aori descent Non-M¯aori descent Student Non-student Student Voting certainty Decided Undecided

National

ACT

28.29% 31.15% 32.73% 34.21% 35.64%

25.18% 26.71% 27.71% 28.74% 29.20%

32.92% 33.32% 31.88% 29.76%

28.20% 28.12% 26.76% 24.63%

31.32% 34.06% 25.68%

25.48% 29.98% 21.80%

32.64% 31.80%

27.69% 26.46%

31.23% 32.83% 34.00% 36.00%

25.63% 27.94% 29.62% 32.81%

32.37% 32.70%

27.40% 28.03%

26.29% 32.82%

20.12% 27.90%

30.14% 33.06%

24.80% 28.17%

32.91% 26.99%

27.84% 23.90%

32.79% 30.99%

27.86% 25.74%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399* Note % = Average percentage of respondents to agree with party positions over all 30 Vote Compass Questions *A portion of these respondents were utilised, according to their voting intention. This number will remain undisclosed, as Vote Compass is not a vote intention poll

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The Populist Party’s Targeting Effectiveness: Lower Earners, M¯ aori and Seniors New Zealand First’s core target voters, mainly older voters, were the demographic the party’s policy positions correlated best with, relatively speaking. They also aligned well with those who had a diploma or a certificate level education, as well as non-students. That said, the issue areas where New Zealand First correlated best with these voters, the environment and housing, were not considered that important to these groups of voters. On the issue these demographics considered the most important, the economy, New Zealand First’s correlation with these demographics was mixed. New Zealand First correlated well with them when the party held more economically populist positions, in line with the results noted earlier. It is also worth noting that, while only a small difference, Peters likeability score with 18–29-year olds was slightly higher than with older voters, despite the party’s policy positions still being more in line with people aged 65+. Peters was also perceived relatively more likeable by people on the M¯aori electorate roll specifically and of M¯aori descent more broadly. However, New Zealand First was less aligned with these groups’ views than with people not on the M¯aori electorate roll or not of M¯aori descent, suggesting there might be room for growth with more socially conservative M¯aori voters with the right product adjustments (Table 5.4).

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Table 5.4 Support for New Zealand First’s positions by demographic Age 18–29 30–39 40–49 50–64 65+

41.90% 46.01% 48.39% 50.11% 51.32%

Education High school or below Diploma or certificate Bachelor’s degree Graduate degree

47.84% 49.04% 47.08% 45.09%

Location North Island South Island

47.63% 47.73%

Electorate M¯aori electorate Non-M¯aori electorate

44.70% 47.92%

Descent M¯aori descent Non-M¯aori descent

46.25% 48.11%

Ideology Left Centre-Left Centre Centre-Right Right

42.72% 46.34% 49.02% 50.17% 50.09%

Gender Female Male Gender diverse

47.97% 47.85% 38.10%

Birth place Born in New Zealand Born outside New Zealand

47.87% 46.57%

Student Non-student Student

48.22% 40.56%

Income Less or equal to $30K $30–$60K $70–$100K More than $100K

47.36% 48.12% 48.17% 48.01%

Voting certainty Decided Undecided

47.84% 47.57%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399* Note % = Average percentage of respondents to agree with party positions over all 30 Vote Compass Questions *A portion of these respondents were utilised, according to their voting intention. This number will remain undisclosed, as Vote Compass is not a vote intention poll

The Alignment of Party Positions with Undecided Voters Undecided voters are often key markets for parties to target, as they are more open to persuasion than those who have already formed voting intentions. This section analyses the parties’ alignment with these voters (Tables 5.5 and 5.6).

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Table 5.5 The percentage of undecided voters who held the parties’ positions on average over all 30 Vote Compass propositions Party

Average public alignment with the parties’ positions

Undecided voters (baseline) Labour National Greens ACT M¯aori NZ First

Overall

ECO

COV

HEA

ENV

LAB

HOU

54.66%

61.30%

48.02%

63.04%

61.18%

50.17%

56.19%

33.16% 30.99% 45.67% 25.74% 43.70% 47.57%

48.02% 6.67% 61.30% 6.67% 61.30% 43.61%

48.02% 36.90% 32.11% 27.33% 32.11% 48.02%

63.04% 14.92% 63.04% 39.23% 47.75% 47.75%

61.18% 40.78% 61.18% 12.72% 61.18% 60.56%

26.52% 27.49% 32.61% 27.49% 32.61% 41.53%

52.06% 20.22% 56.19% 20.22% 56.19% 52.06%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399* ECO = Economy, COV = COVID-19, HEA = Healthcare, ENV = Environment, LAB = Labour, HOU = Housing Note The “Overall” percentages show the average public support for the parties’ positions over all 30 Vote Compass propositions, including other issues such as immigration, transport, education *A portion of these respondents were utilised, according to their voting intention. However, this number will remain undisclosed, as Vote Compass would prefer the tool not be viewed as a vote intention poll

Table 5.6 The most important issues for undecided voters Type

ECO

COV

HEA

ENV

HOU

LAB

Rank Per cent

1 30.78%

2 12.47%

3 11.49%

4 7.50%

5 5.84%

6 5.72%

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399* ECO = Economy, COV = COVID-19, HEA = Healthcare, ENV = Environment, LAB = Labour, HOU = Housing Question asked: What issue is most important to you in this election? *A portion of these respondents were utilised, according to their voting intention. This number will remain undisclosed, as Vote Compass is not a vote intention poll

The Labour Party’s Responsiveness to Undecided Voters Labour’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of just over 40 per cent of undecided voters, down 5.58 per cent from

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2017. This included holding the most common position among undecided voters on 18 of 30 propositions. More importantly, Labour aligned as well as possible with undecided voters around three of the top four most important issues during the election. The most notable of these was healthcare where, for example, just under 70 per cent agreed that the Government should cover the cost of dental care for adults with low incomes. Importantly, Labour correlated with the most common positions of undecided voters on the COVID-19 propositions, with a 47–49 per cent plurality agreeing with Labour’s positions that the Government should incur about as much debt as they are to address COVID-19 and that international students should not be allowed to enter New Zealand immediately. However, certain positions Labour held that correlated least well with undecided voters were also in issue areas considered important, such as the economy and labour, as well as the high-profile propositions such as the legalisation of cannabis. This potentially highlights the importance of COVID-19 to the election, potentially permeating the public’s evaluation of other issue areas like the economy. The National Party’s Responsiveness to Undecided Voters National’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of just over 30 per cent of undecided voters, up a slight 0.57 per cent from 2017. Furthermore, National was relatively more in line with the views of undecided voters around issues areas these voters did not consider important, such as law and order, where over 80 per cent agreed with National that New Zealand should deport foreigners who are convicted of a criminal offence and over 50 per cent agreed that violent offenders under 18 years old should be sentenced as adults. Although the economy was the most important issue for undecided voters, National did not correlate with the most common position among these voters on any of the three economy-related propositions, with less than 5 per cent agreeing with the party that wealthier people and corporations should pay less tax. This, along with being more than 12 per cent less aligned with undecided voters than Labour on COVID-19-related propositions, were likely two reasons National performed so poorly with a block of voters crucial to major parties’ achieving their electoral goals.

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The Green Party’s Responsiveness to Undecided Voters The Greens’ policy positions were on average in line with the views of just under 46 per cent of undecided voters. While down 5.17 per cent overall from 2017, the Greens aligned as well as possible with undecided voters on four of the top six most important issues during the election. This included, notably, the economy, where just over 58 per cent of undecided voters agreed with the Greens’ positions that the wealthy and corporations should pay more in taxes, while 67.41 per cent agreed that New Zealand should be less reliant on other countries for its goods and services. However, the Greens’ support for incurring more debt to deal with COVID-19 was only supported by 15.39 per cent of undecided voters. The Greens were also on average least in line with undecided voters around diversity & inclusion. Only between 27 and 29 per cent of undecided voters agreed with the Greens that the people should be allowed to change the sex listed on their birth certificate, without having to undergo a medical treatment to change their gender, as well as that statues of historical figures deemed as racist should be removed from public spaces, while between 47 and 52 per cent disagreed. The ACT Party’s Responsiveness to Undecided Voters ACT’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of just under 26 per cent of undecided voters, the lowest of all six parties examined, despite being up a slight 0.86 per cent from 2017. However, the data on specific issues suggests that ACT’s rebrand as the party of freedom may have won over more right-leaning yet socially liberal undecided voters. For example, 74.58 per cent of undecided voters agreed with ACT’s position that patients with terminal illnesses should be allowed to end their own lives with medical assistance, a key issue during their campaign, while a plurality agreed with ACT’s position that the government should not guarantee a minimum income for all New Zealanders. Nonetheless, ACT’s positions on tax and COVID-19 were less in line with the views of undecided voters. Between 2 and 5 per cent of undecided voters agreed with ACT’s positions regarding lowering taxes for wealthier people and corporations and 2.81 per cent with ACT’s position that the Government should not impose a royalty on companies that export New Zealand water. Furthermore, only between 24 and 30 per cent agreed with ACT’s

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positions on COVID-19-related propositions, the lowest of the six parties examined. The M¯ aori Party Responsiveness to Undecided Voters The M¯aori Party’s policy positions were on average in line with the views of just under 45 per cent of undecided voters, 4.24 per cent lower than in 2017. This is a result of the party’s mixed correlation with undecided voters regarding propositions in most issue areas, despite aligning as well with undecided voters as possible on three of the top six most important issues during the 2020 election. For example, on the two most explicit healthcare questions—around dental care for adults with low incomes and rehabilitation services to address drug abuse—the M¯aori Party correlated well with undecided voters in the same way Labour did. However, when it came to conscience issues relating to healthcare, they did not align well. Only 16.65 per cent of undecided voters agreed with the party’s position that patients with terminal illnesses should not be allowed to end their own lives with medical assistance. Similarly, on COVID-19 propositions, 48.82 per cent of undecided voters agreed with the party that international students should not be allowed to enter New Zealand immediately, but just 15.39 per cent agreed that the Government should incur more debt to address the COVID-19 crisis. New Zealand First’s Responsiveness to Undecided Voters New Zealand First’s policy positions on average correlated the most with undecided voters, up 2.42 per cent from 2017. This suggests that, as expected, the party’s more populist-oriented positions were more likely to appeal to this group of voters, or at least be less polarising compared to the parties on the ends of the ideological spectrum. This is evidenced by the fact that New Zealand First only aligned as well as possible with undecided voters around one of the top six most important issue areas during the election, yet still aligned better overall with them than the Greens. On only one proposition did New Zealand First correlate with less than 20 per cent of undecided voters, with just under 16.65 per cent of undecided voters agreeing that patients with terminal illnesses should not be allowed to end their own lives with medical assistance. New Zealand First did correlate well with undecided voters on propositions where the party held positions you would expect from a centrist populist party, similar to

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the points made around New Zealand First’s correlation with their own voters. They also correlated with undecided voters on COVID-19-related propositions, in line with Labour’s correlation in this area. Again, this suggests that the heart of New Zealand First’s problems are less to do with policy and more to do with the incompatibility of the party’s brand with government incumbency.

Conclusion Analysis of Vote Compass data on the views of their supporters, demographic segments and undecided voters reveals important insights into the responsiveness of Labour, National, the Greens, ACT, the M¯aori Party and New Zealand First to key target markets. Effectiveness of Marketing to Voters While Labour’s policy positions were not as in line with their supporters, key demographics and undecided voters as the left-leaning minor parties, they were in line with these groups on the most prominent issue area in this election, COVID-19. Overall, while they may not have correlated as well, Labour’s actual policies that position them with these other parties were for the most part more moderate. This, along with a number of other aspects of their product and the electoral context, made them more appealing to undecided voters in particular, who often sit in the ideological middle. Given the key demographics both the Greens and the M¯aori Party targeted in 2020, the election results not mirroring how in line their positions were with undecided voters in particular would not be a worry. As minor parties, their target markets are smaller groups of voters who fit into the two other categories, party supporters and key demographics. National and ACT’s positioning were clearly out of line with the views of their supporters and undecided voters. While they were relatively more in line with the views of older, whiter and more economically comfortable voters than most others, National were only in line with on average about 35 per cent of them, while ACT were around 30 per cent. Again, this is more of a problem for National than ACT. ACT’s less ambitious electoral goals can be achieved with smaller percentages of a broad demographic coalition. National need to provide a product that is more attractive to

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a larger percentage of their own supporters, key demographics and especially those undecided voters, who often float between the two major parties, in order to once again become competitive. While New Zealand First did not correlate particularly well with the positions of their own potential supporters, they correlated the best of the six parties examined with undecided voters. However, they are the only party examined who did not enter the 53rd New Zealand Parliament. While New Zealand First’s more populist positions on many issues would have appealed to undecided voters, actually making those policies clear to those people who are more likely to be less politically engaged is important, especially given the party’s overlap with Labour in a number of salient issue areas like COVID-19. Lessons for the Future Parties should continue to balance the needs and wants of their own voters, key demographics and undecided voters moving forward. Parties need to formulate an effective strategy to attract a successful coalition of voters that enable them to occupy a unique position from their competition, both on their own and the other side of the political aisle. As COVID-19 falls into the background leading into the next election, Labour is likely going to need to alter their product to better suit the needs and wants of not only their own supporters, but the large block of undecided voters who broke their way in 2020. In particular, both these groups want more action taken by government in a number of areas, including being more protectionist in areas such as New Zealand’s reliance of goods and services. However, holding together the large coalition they compiled in 2020 will be difficult given some of the differences of opinion Labour supporters and undecided voters have around questions to do with guaranteeing a minimum income, the difficulty for businesses to fire new employees as well as the ease of which people can access welfare. Labour should also reflect on the fact that their product overall had more potential appeal among less-populous demographic groupings within certain categories, such as people with graduate degrees compared to people with undergraduate degrees, diplomas or high school level education. While there are a number of reasons National did poorly in 2020, the Vote Compass data highlights how they should make their policy platform more responsive to key target markets if they are to have a

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chance of increasing their share of the party vote moving forward. As seen with Labour in the early-to-mid 2010s, simply waiting for the incumbent government to collapse is not sufficient. The natural centre of the political market has shifted leftward on a number of key issues since National’s rise in the mid-2000s, notably around National’s traditional strength, the economy. National need to find a way to provide a product that allows government to take a more active role in dealing with public issues while still maintaining a distinct product from Labour. This is especially important, given the evidence that younger voters are not ageing into more economically conservative views like previous generations. This could, for example, mean agreeing that the government should invest in certain progressive healthcare initiatives, but in a more targeted way. In doing so, National may also be better positioned to appeal to the changing demographic makeup of the New Zealand electorate, including it becoming less white, and appealing to those who are less financially comfortable. The Greens and the M¯aori Party are in somewhat similar positions to one another. Both parties’ strategies moving forward should be about maintaining the momentum gained in 2020 with their own supporters and key demographics. Retaining and mobilising these voters will be key for both parties. For the Greens, this means balancing the need to highlight both how they are similar enough with Labour to work with them constructively, while also being different enough to give these groups a reason to vote for them, especially if Labour’s high popularity begins to fade as the issue of COVID-19 dissipates. The M¯aori Party may want to look at how they position themselves on conscience issues moving forward, as the evidence suggests their voters are more socially liberal than where the party currently stands. Having established themselves as electorally viable in 2020 alone will help them moving forward. However, doing more to target younger more socially liberal voters around unique issue areas could be fruitful. While the Greens and the M¯aori Party targeted their brand and appeals to particular niche audiences, ACT’s freedom-focussed brand and popular leader united support from a small but diverse electoral coalition, both demographically and ideologically. This means they do not have a deep electoral coalition like the Greens or the M¯aori Party. Instead, it is similar to the populist anti-establishment coalition New Zealand First relied on over several decades. As a result, like New Zealand First, the foundations of ACT’s current coalition could be quite volatile, especially if they enter into a governing arrangement with National. In order to provide a more

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stable foundation to ensure longer term electoral viability, ACT needs to do a better job understanding the diverse views of their supporters, and potentially pulling ahead of National with certain targeted demographics to carve out a pocket of supporters who, while maybe not providing the potential for unprecedented success moving forward, can shield the party from falling back to just one MP. For New Zealand First, the data suggests a strong potential market for the party to target to get back into power at the next election—a newer generation of more socially conservative yet economically nationalistic, potentially less well-educated/working class voters that no party currently in Parliament is catering to. They may also want to consider altering their product to better appeal to more socially conservative voters of M¯aori descent, especially if Peters remains leader. This would allow them to both hold popular positions in line with Labour or National, while also holding unique positions on issues such as the environment and especially housing that are likely to be important to these groups of voters moving forward. They may also want to change their position on taxing wealthier people and corporations to something more in line with their established populist brand. If they are successful in doing this, the next step is to find a way to remain firm electorally while having the ability to enter a government coalition. Something they have yet been able to do.

Reference Lees-Marshment, J., Dufresne, Y., Eady, G., Osborne, D., van der Linden, C., & Vowles, J. (2015). Vote Compass in the 2014 New Zealand election: Hearing the voice of New Zealand voters. Political Science, 67 (2), 94–124.

CHAPTER 6

Labour’s Delivery in Government: Limited Transformation Masked by Crisis Management and Polite Populism Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Edward Elder, Julia Büdler, Daniel Barraclough, Alexa Frost, Laura Hemingway, Zach Lee, Shai Navot, and ‘Olita Tu’ifua

Abstract This chapter draws on analysis of Labour and Ardern’s communication, an interview with Ardern’s first chief of staff, public polling data, Vote Compass survey data related to COVID-19 management and post-election survey data on delivery to better understand why Labour

J. Lees-Marshment (B) · E. Elder · J. Büdler · D. Barraclough · A. Frost · L. Hemingway · Z. Lee · ‘O. Tu’ifua The University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] E. Elder e-mail: [email protected] J. Büdler e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_6

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struggled to deliver the transformation change they had promised in 2017. In doing so, this chapter conveys how effective crisis management and Ardern’s polite populist strategy masked failures in delivery that was compounded by ineffective delivery marketing during a majority of their first two and a half years in government. In doing so, the chapter argues that Labour were able to boost public perceptions of their delivery capability, but that this is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. Keywords Delivery · Delivery communication · Delivery management · Polite populism

Introduction In 2017, Labour won power after promising to deliver key policies that aligned with voter demands. In Jacinda Ardern’s Speech from the Throne—delivered by the Governor General—she declared: This will be a government of transformation. It will lift up those who have been forgotten or neglected, it will take action on child poverty and homelessness, it will restore funding to education and the health systems to allow access for all, it will protect the environment and take action on climate change, and it will build a truly prosperous nation and a fair society. (Ardern, 2017)

However, while leading a complex coalition, Labour struggled to deliver such transformation, engaging in limited delivery marketing. Despite this, Labour won a landslide election in 2020. This chapter will explore why, drawing on analysis of Labour Party and Government communication as well as Ardern’s speeches and social media, an interview with Ardern’s

D. Barraclough e-mail: [email protected] A. Frost e-mail: [email protected] L. Hemingway e-mail: [email protected] Z. Lee e-mail: [email protected]

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first chief of staff, public polling data, vote compass survey data related to COVID-19 management and post-election survey data on delivery. This will convey how crisis management and Ardern’s polite populist strategy masked failures in delivery and boosted public perception of the Government’s delivery capability, but warn this mask could slip away during the second term. Thus, Labour should embark on significant changes in their delivery marketing.

Theoretical Framework for Political Marketing Delivery Existing literature argues that delivery is a crucial part of political marketing. Ultimately, parties need to deliver the product they promised in the previous election or risk dissatisfaction from voters. For example, the prompt delivery of select campaign promises is essential to establishing an early record of achievement and reputation for delivery, and leaders must ensure these quick wins are visible and clearly communicated to the public to show results in exchange for votes received. To gain credit for delivery, the announcement of delivered policy should be made visible through memorable photos and events. Governments should also personalise delivery communication so that voters can understand the benefits of policies. When delivery cannot happen, or is stalled, governments should communicate to voters that progress is being made in the right direction. Challenges and failure in policy delivery are inevitable. When they occur, it is best to be honest with the public and communicate a plan to rectify it. This chapter will therefore analyse Labour’s delivery against key criteria in the literature outlined in the framework in Lees-Marshment et al. (2019, pp. 227–228), as shown in Table 6.1, and thus consider pre-election delivery, action in government and communicating delivery progress as well as managing failures.

‘O. Tu’ifua e-mail: [email protected] S. Navot Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected]

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Table 6.1 Core principles of delivery in political marketing Think about delivery before you fight the election and use pre-election delivery tools • Create key pledges or priorities to build credibility that can be delivered easily once in power to help build initial support to help mitigate more difficult delivery • Reassure voters about the potential costs and benefits of proposed policies • Build a reputation for managing delivery • Communicate delivery challenges Make delivery happen once in power • Sit down with bureaucrats after election and go through promises & priorities • Facilitate networks, relationships and conversations to prevent fall outs, stepping on people’s toes and so forth and get legislation delivered • Create delivery units to help success Communicate delivery progress and success • Use good visuals with symbolic as well as specific delivery images • Create 100-day plans and deliver quick wins • Show progress if not completion • Convey the benefits of policies • Individualise delivery—localise central government stories and statistics • Remind voters of achievements and build a reputation for delivery Manage problems in delivery • Be honest about problems or failures in delivery • Propose a solution to the failures In coalition • Make sure all parties can show some delivery Source Lees-Marshment et al. (2019, pp. 227–228)

Analysis of Labour’s Deliver: 2017–2020 Pre-Election Delivery in the 2017 Campaign Labour put themselves in a difficult position on delivery, as the party did not engage in pre-election delivery effectively. While they issued a 100-day plan with 10 priorities (New Zealand Labour Party, 2017), they also made grand vague promises in the campaign such as “Labour will also invest in boosting our health system and making education free and accessible for all children” and “Labour’s got a plan to invest in [the regions] and make them even better. Better healthcare, better schools, cleaner rivers and decent jobs”. Without specific pledges, Labour failed to reassure voters about the potential costs and benefits of proposed policies or communicate delivery challenges. What key pledges they did offer, such as to build 1000 new homes in their first year, were unrealistic and set

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Labour up to fail. They failed to build a strong reputation for delivery, as shown by the fact that only 49 per cent of respondents in the 2017 Vote Compass post-election survey agreed that Labour’s policy promises were believable (Lees-Marshment, 2018, pp. 55 and 60–61). Delivery Management in Power Once elected, Labour’s battle to deliver was made worse by the fact that they were balancing a coalition agreement with New Zealand First and a confidence and supply agreement with the Greens. Labour effectively delivered on a few isolated policies, such as gun reform, where a majority of Parliament worked together in “spirit of unity and community” (LabourVoices, 2020a). But they failed to implement a capital gains tax due to an inability to reach an agreement with coalition partner New Zealand First. Ardern stated that “I have always been clear that we would not be able to proceed unless we were able to form a consensus” and Labour has “not been able to find support for this proposal” (LabourVoices, 2019). As Mike Munro (2019), Ardern’s Chief of Staff noted, “the authority of the Government is spread across parties… so, it is a lot harder to get things done. The processes are slow, there are niggles along the way, there is a lot of arguing that has to happen”. Concessions had to be made on the Zero Carbon Bill in 2019 and employment relations legislation in 2020. This meant that “a lot of the policies that Labour went to the last election with and published in a manifesto [were] enacted in a much more diminished form”. Labour could not “hold true to their positions as set out in the manifesto because they’ve had to give way to New Zealand First and the Greens in order to get it through the parliament”. However, Labour also failed to adopt key international delivery marketing tools that might help them, such as a delivery unit, to allow for more direct control and central oversight of prioritised commitments. The Policy Advisory Group situated within Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (2017) made recommendations regarding policy implementation, but instead of being monitored centrally, delivery management fell under the mandate of the relevant minister.

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Communication of Delivery Progress and Success Labour made more effort to communicate delivery progress. They worked quickly to achieve quick wins by delivering their 100-day plan within the first 100 days in government and communicating these on the party’s website and social media platforms. For example, Labour shared their quick wins through their Instagram account, featuring posts with policy headlines like “We’ve just extended paid parental leave” and the accompanying caption outlined further details of the policy and explained the increase was from 22 to 26 weeks (nzLabour, 2017). A comedic video published on the Labour Facebook page featured the Ardern being challenged to name as many of Labour’s successes during the first 100 days in government as possible in under a minute (New Zealand Labour Party, 2018). Labour also communicated successful delivery of key priorities to the wider public through press conferences and events covered by mainstream news media, such as when Ardern held a press conference at Aotea College to announce that the Government was enacting one of Labour’s flagship policies from the 2017 election, the first year free for university students (Walters & Moir, 2017). While there was some attempt from Labour to personalise delivery, there was more of a focus on conveying the sheer amount of delivery, rather than the individualised benefits of that delivery. Ardern did a video on Facebook about the Families Package while holding her baby (Ardern, 2018). The party also launched an online calculator that allowed voters to enter their demographic information to find out how they personally benefit from the policy. They tried to convey progress on KiwiBuild through photo opportunities with the Housing Minister Phil Twyford on building sites (nzLabour, 2018), holding a neighbourhood party on one estate, as well as featuring a young couple who had bought a KiwiBuild house (Fitzgerald & Cropper, 2018). Nevertheless, Labour repeatedly employed lists in their communication of delivery successes. Similar to the video released where Ardern highlighted Labour’s successes during their first 100 days, Labour released a video on the Government’s two-year anniversary where Ardern tried to list as many of their achievements in under two minutes (New Zealand Labour, 2019). This failed to communicate the benefits of the delivery for the voter. The party also regularly posted number-focussed delivery communication on their Instagram account on the increased number of midwives and police as well as the reduction in the unemployment rate (nzLabour, 2019,

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2020). In election year, the party’s webpage’s “our record” section contained 183 policy wins they had achieved during their time in government, but without any link to initial pledges or discussion of tangible benefits for voters (New Zealand Labour Party, 2020a). For voters to remember and give credit for delivery, they need to know how they are affected by it, which these lists did not do. Campaign communication was no different—with none of the 57 ads Labour paid for to appear on Facebook and Instagram from the campaign launch until the end of September addressing the delivery achieved (New Zealand Labour Party, 2020b). Because Labour was seeking to deliver long-term transformation, such as the reduction of child poverty and action on climate change, they needed to communicate that progress was being made in the right direction. But this was only done sporadically. The neighbourhood party to celebrate the first 18 KiwiBuild houses being sold was intended to celebrate and promote the flagship housing policy. But when it was discovered that the couple featured were a doctor and marketing professional, it generated negative press—with headlines such as “socialism for the rich” (New Zealand Herald, 2018). Following the challenges with KiwiBuild, some attempt was made to communicate progress in housing through the housing dashboard. But this was not made widely available to the public, as it was only available in PDF on the Ministry of Housing website (2020). The dashboard also did not align real progress with targets, so it did not give a full picture of the progress that was being made. Management of Problems in Delivery Despite declaring 2019 the “Year of Delivery” (see Cooke, 2019), and thus being very aware of the need to make more progress, the Labour-led Government failed to deliver on a number of key policy pledges in their first term and managed these with varying effectiveness. Again, KiwiBuild was meant to build 100,000 affordable homes by 2027, including 1000 being built the first year. But by the time of the election only about 600 KiwiBuild homes were completed (RNZ, 2020). Twyford demonstrated honesty, admitting that KiwiBuild was not going to meet the targets that had been initially set (see Lynch, 2019). However, Ardern attempted to minimise the lack of delivery by referring to the targets not met as only “interim”, undermining Twyford’s apology and the reliability of Labour’s

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election promises (see Bennett, 2019). Moreover, there was no communication around what was being done to fix this until the announced KiwiBuild “reset” in May 2019. When the revamp was announced a year later, the new minister Megan Woods dropped the targets completing and outlined a new policy as well as funding reallocation for a progressive homeownership scheme (see Walls, 2019). However, no other communication about this followed. Moreover, the party continued to refer to KiwiBuild into election year, with Labour’s Housing Minister Megan Woods stating that KiwiBuild had made a “great start”, announcing, “I’ve seen first-hand how excited new owners are to get into their KiwiBuild homes… and they are proving popular with home buyers who are looking for affordable homes” (Ardern, 2020c). This failed to reassure voters that Labour are doing something to ensure the same mistakes are not repeated or that they understand what went wrong. As such, in a 2019 Colmar Brunton survey, 69 per cent of voters responded “no” when asked if they thought the Government would achieve the overall target of their KiwiBuild policy promise, with many expressing concerns with the programme (Colmar Brunton, 2019). Auckland’s light rail was another highly publicised delivery failure for Labour, as they failed to launch the project as promised. When acknowledging this failure, Labour did at least convey a reason—challenges negotiating with governing partners. However, they failed to offer an alternative way forward (see Small, 2020) aside from promising that light rail would be a priority for Labour should they get re-elected. In the Herald 2020 Mood of the Boardroom Election Survey, the coalition was marked down on its inability to make progress on two of Labour’s 2017 campaign promises, getting 1.63 out of 5 on addressing the housing shortage and affordability issues and 1.54 out of 5 on progressing light rail in Auckland (O’Sullivan, 2020). Management of Delivery in Coalition As Ardern was juggling a coalition partner in New Zealand First and a confidence and supply partner in the Greens, it was important she give space to those parties to demonstrate their role in delivery success so they could secure re-election. Green Party Associate Minister for the Environment Eugenie Sage appeared in many media reports regarding the ban on single-use plastic bags in New Zealand and Climate Change Minister James Shaw did the majority of media interviews around the Zero Carbon

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Act. However, a search for Beehive releases on New Zealand First’s key policy, the Provincial Growth Fund, found that although New Zealand First’s Minister for Regional Economic Development, Shane Jones, made the most announcements on this, Ardern and her deputy Kelvin Davis made more references to it than New Zealand First leader Winston Peters. This suggests not enough room was made for New Zealand First to take the limelight on this issue. Furthermore, Labour frequently blamed their governing partners for delivery failure, attributing failure to lack of agreement. Overall, while Labour clearly made attempts to use delivery management in their first term, they also encountered significant issues in areas such as making delivery happen, communicating progress in a personalised way and managing failures in key areas. The next section will explore the impact of crisis and crisis management and its potential effect on the election result and voters’ perceptions of Labour’s ability to deliver on promises.

Masking Poor Delivery with Crisis Management and Polite Populism Impact of COVID-19 Crisis Management The COVID-19 crisis helped to mask failures in delivery, both by providing a rationale for a lack of delivery in other areas as well as a salient example of where Labour had delivered; this helped build an overall reputation for delivery competence in the run up to the 2020 election. Ardern’s handling of the crisis met core crisis management criteria (Boin & ‘t Hart, 2003; Boin et al., 2010; Stern, 2009), such as reassuring the public that existing infrastructure and institutions can deliver in crisis, delivering legislation and policy that is relevant in relation to the crisis, and conveying that the leader cared about the challenges people were experiencing due to the crisis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government was quick to reassure the public that they would have access to necessities. Ardern was clear in her message that supermarkets and other essential services would be open at every alert level. In attempts to calm the pandemic buying and stockpiling that was taking place at the beginning of COVID-19, the Government made sure to reinforce that supermarkets would not be closing. They communicated clearly to the public that they were working on returning to normal, through the

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Fig. 6.1 2020 Vote Compass data on government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Question: How would you rate the current government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic? (Source Vote Compass question of the day, 30 August–3 September 2020), n = 44,499

messaging of going “hard and early”. The strategy of going hard and early meant taking decisive action and putting the nation into lockdown for six weeks. The Government paired this lockdown with a COVID19 response package of $50 billion dollars. Furthermore, throughout the crisis Ardern used language and tone to foster unity and support of the Government’s strategy, stating that “we’re in this together and must unite against COVID-19” (Ardern, 2020a). Ardern also used Facebook live broadcasts during the lockdown to get across key messaging and reassure the public. Her non-scripted authentic communication style effectively presented herself to the public as someone relatable, “just like you” at home going through the same lockdown struggles (Ardern, 2020b). Vote Compass data from the 2020 campaign indicates that the public rated the Government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic highly, as shown in Figs. 6.1 and 6.2. Effective crisis management therefore helped overcome problems in delivery as it positioned Ardern as an effective manager of government and future crisis manager.

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Fig. 6.2 2020 Vote Compass data on public perception of the best leader to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. Question: Which of the following leaders do you think would do the best job in terms of managing the COVID-19 pandemic? (Source Vote Compass question of the day, 30 August–3 September 2020), n = 44,503

Impact of Ardern’s Polite Populist Strategy Additionally, Ardern adopted a strategy of a polite populist. While populism is often associated with right-wing and nationalist movements, it is more a political strategy than a traditionally placeable ideology (Stockemer & Barisione, 2017) which Ardern adopted to help mitigate failures in delivery. One key aspect to this is to make the leader a symbol whose image evokes emotional associations which then has powerful effects on swaying the opinion of the public (Taranu, 2015). Ardern capitalised on the emotional connection associated with her image in previous crises, which was then embedded by her management of COVID-19 crisis. Images of her in a hijab after the Christchurch mosque shootings, at COVID-19 press conferences, on the world stage, as a mother, or as a mother on the world stage strengthened Ardern’s position domestically. Another populist trope is that of the truth dealer, where populist leaders utilise public trust to craft a version of reality aligned to their political goals. Ardern talked of kindness as a leadership strength and

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cultivated an image of a “progressive” New Zealand, rather than engage in detailed discussion of significant underlying issues (Driver, 2020). This helped Ardern maintain high personal popularity over the whole of her first term, despite notable setbacks in delivery. Populist leaders also bypass traditional media gatekeepers, communicating directly with the people. Ardern did this throughout her first term via Facebook live videos, as well as using the bully pulpit of daily press briefings to convey her message uninterrupted during the pandemic. A populist strategy also utilises simple “Us vs Them” rhetoric, dividing the community into the “good” people and “bad” people to build solidarity with supporters, while delegitimising oppositional forces. Ardern took the opportunity to utilise “Us vs Them” appeals in the Covid-19 crisis but in an unusual way. Traditional populist rhetoric may focus on foreign people or wealthy elites when referencing “Them”, and Ardern did make calls to “Us” as “the team of 5 million” to unite together against what was foreign. However, in this case, what was foreign was not so much foreign people, but a foreign virus that threatened to invade our communities. 2020 Pre-Election Delivery Rhetoric The impact of crisis and the polite populist strategy can be seen further in Labour’s pre-election delivery for the 2020 election. Labour’s 2020 promises were broad, with vague goals such as “investment in critical public services” lacking measurability or a delivery plan. Their five-point plan had symbolically effective headlines: Investing in our people; Jobs jobs jobs; Preparing for the future; Supporting small businesses and Positioning New Zealand globally (LabourVoices, 2020b). But the highlights noted under each point included items already delivered or underway, while also lacking clear priorities they could deliver quickly. Despite this, the practice both aligned with the polite populist strategy well and ultimately worked with voters. A post-election Vote Compass survey indicated that voters did think their promises were deliverable, as shown in Fig. 6.3. When asked if Labour’s policy promises were believable, 62 per cent of respondents agreed or somewhat agreed, while only 26 per cent of participants disagreed.

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Fig. 6.3 Vote Compass data on voter perceptions of whether Labour’s 2020 policy promises were believable. Proposition: Labour’s policy promises were believable (Source Vote Compass post-election survey, 19–29 October 2020), n = 25,500

Conclusion In 2020, Labour won re-election despite failing to deliver on key policy promises, particularly in the areas of housing and transport, or engage in effective delivery marketing. Although Labour achieved progress on delivering a 100-day plan, they often focussed on listing achievements, without conveying the benefits they brought to people’s lives. However, effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic effectively built a reputation of delivery. This and Ardern’s polite populist strategy masked delivery failure, with the story becoming one of a leader who could deliver in a crisis and, thus, was seen as best able to deliver transformational change. This shows that, while delivery remains important, it can be downgraded when there is strong public sentiment, a strong leader and delivery in an extremely salient area. Going forward, Labour will face more pressure to deliver without the constraints of needing other parties to help them pass laws. But they will also face the challenge of delivering amidst the financial constraints that

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stem from dealing with COVID-19. The leadership and communication required for crisis is not the same as the slow burn of delivery over time within government. Moreover, Ardern’s polite populist strategy is unlikely to withstand the continued issues in areas such as housing and tourism. Labour thus need to take significant action to achieve effective delivery management in their second term. Thus, we offer a range of practical recommendations, as shown in Table 6.2. Table 6.2 Recommendations for the Labour Party’s delivery Create priorities from the 2020 5-point plan • Prioritise pledges from the Labour Party’s five-point plan, such as creating 2000 jobs, increasing benefits by $25 and free apprenticeships, because they are quick wins • Create and communicate a 100-day plan for the second term • Refine and communicate additional policies from the five-point plan to make sure they are things that they are able to deliver on them and claim credit Form an operationally focussed unit to drive delivery of key priorities • Follow other countries’ lead and create a delivery unit that is focussed on driving delivery of government priorities • Get the delivery unit to issue reports, with updates on priorities throughout the second term • Launch a public website for tracking delivery that categorises key pledges into three main categories: Completed; In Progress and No Longer Pursuing—to keep the government accountable to the public and publicise what is in progress Reframe delivery within the post-COVID environment • Ardern should admit and show she recognises the lack of progress on key areas such as housing to maintain—or restore—trust in her government’s ability to take action • Reframe and reposition the housing policy within the post-COVID-19 environment and maintain market intelligence to monitor voter perception • Address and respond to failures to deliver on areas such as the electric vehicle fleet—after communicating challenges and admitting to fault, develop a plan for recovery that limits policy failure in order to build voter trust Communicate progress towards transformation • Communicate progress over time to the public to give a sense of action and responsiveness • Communicate key milestones with signature photo opportunities • Use data visualisation, particularly where the policy goals are long-term to indicate progress—e.g. per cent of 1 billion trees planted

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References Primary Ardern, J. (2017, November 8). Speech from the throne. Beehive. Ardern, J. (2018, July 1). Today is the day the families package comes in. Facebook. Ardern, J. (2020a, March 23). New Zealand moves to Covid-19 alert level 3, then level 4 in 48 hours. Beehive. Ardern, J. (2020b, March 28). Quickly checking in on everyone’s Saturday. Facebook. Ardern, J. (2020c, October 2). Labour keeps housing sector moving. Labour. https://www.labour.org.nz/release-labour-keeps-housing-sector-moving. Colmar Brunton. (2019). 1 NEWS Colmar Brunton Poll 9–13 February 2019. Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. (2017, January 18). Roles and responsibilities of the Policy Advisory Group. LabourVoices. (2019, April 16). Our response to the Tax Working Group. Labour. LabourVoices. (2020a). Week that was: tightening our gun laws. Labour. LabourVoices. (2020b, July 30). Our plan to keep New Zealand moving. Labour. Ministry of Housing. (2020). https://www.hud.govt.nz/assets/News-and-Res ources/Statistics-and-Research/Housing-Dashboard-2020/Housing-dashbo ard-August-2020.pdfAugust. Munro, M. (2019). Chief of staff to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Interview by Jennifer Lees-Marshment. New Zealand Labour Party. (2017, September 10). Labour’s 100 day plan press release. Scoop. New Zealand Labour Party. (2018, February 16). 100 Days Challenge. Facebook. New Zealand Labour. (2019, November 4). ICYMI: @jacindaardern took on the challenge to run through two years’ worth of Government achievements in two minutes. Twitter. New Zealand Labour Party. (2020a, September 21). Our achievements. New Zealand Labour Party. (2020b). Let’s stick together and #LetsKeepMoving. Facebook advertising. NzLabour. (2017, November 6). We’re taking action on the things that matter in our first 100 days. Instagram. NzLabour. (2018, October 27). KiwiBuild is on track to deliver 1,000 homes by mid-2019, then a further 5,000 homes by June 2020, and another 10,000 homes by June 2021. Instagram. NzLabour. (2019, October 17). We’re investing in health—And our investment is paying off. Instagram. NzLabour. (2020, February 27). Today we’ve reached another milestone: over 2,000 new police officers on the beat! Instagram.

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Secondary Bennett, L. (2019). Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern speaks about troubled KiwiBuild programme. New Zealand Herald. Boin, A., ‘t Hart, P., McConnell, A., & Preston, T. (2010). Leadership style, crisis response and blame management: The case of Hurricane Katrina. Public Administration, 88(3), 706–723. Boin, A., & ‘t Hart, P. (2003). Public leadership in times of crisis: Mission impossible? Public Administration Review, 63(5), 544–553. Cooke, H. (2019, January 30). Jacinda Ardern says 2019 year of ‘delivery’ for government. Stuff . Driver, G. (2020, October 1). Can NZ PM Jacinda Ardern claim success on child poverty trends? RNZ . Fitzgerald, K., & Cropper, E. (2018, October 27). Jacinda Ardern, Phil Twyford welcome first families to new KiwiBuild development. Newshub. Lees-Marshment, J. (2018). Messy Marketing in the 2017 New Zealand Election: The incomplete market-orientation of the Labour and National Parties. Chapter 4 in Lees-Marshment, J. (ed.), Political marketing and management in the 2017 New Zealand election (pp. 43–65). Palgrave Macmillan. Lees-Marshment, J. (2019). Political delivery marketing. Chapter 8 in LeesMarshment, J., Conley, B., Elder, E., Pettitt, R., Raynauld, V., & Turcotte, A., Political marketing: Principles and applications (pp. 211–239, 3rd ed). Routledge. Lynch, J. (2019, January 23). KiwiBuild houses might not end up with firsthome buyers. Newshub. New Zealand Herald. (2018, July 5). Political Roundup: Kiwibuild is now ‘socialism for the rich’. O’Sullivan, F. (2020, September 28). Mood of the boardroom: Grant Robertson impresses the business leaders. New Zealand Herald. RNZ. (2020). Labour promised big on housing—Has it delivered? RNZ . September 30 Small, Z. (2020, October 21). Phil Twyford on how Labour can progress Auckland light rail without New Zealand First. Newshub. Stern, E. K. (2009). Crisis navigation: Lessons from history for the crisis manager in chief. Governance, 22(2), 189–202. Stockemer, D., & Barisione, M. (2017). The “new” discourse of the Front National under Marine Le Pen: A slight change with a big impact. European Journal of Communication, 32, 102–107. Taranu, A. (2015). The symbolism of populism. Atheneum Polish Political Science Association Review, 48, 64–75. Walls, J. (2019, September 4). KiwiBuild reset: Government axes its 100,000 homes over 10 years target. New Zealand Herald. Walters, L., & Moir, J. (2017, December 5). Government confirms details of its flagship education policy, and 80,000 will benefit in 2018. Stuff .

CHAPTER 7

Communicating Market-Oriented Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic Edward Elder and Julia Büdler

Abstract This chapter examines how the two major party leaders, Jacinda Ardern and Judith Collins, communicated the qualities of responsiveness, leadership and credibility in the leadup to the 2020 New Zealand General Election through both verbal and non-verbal cues. In particular, the chapter focuses on this communication in relation to the issue that dominated the 2020 New Zealand General Election, COVID-19. In doing so, the chapter highlights how Ardern was able to utilise campaign-oriented government communication, her established image as a compassionate governing leader and the success of the Government’s mitigation strategy to present a well-rounded leadership image. It also highlights how Collins, partly due to being new in the role as well as

E. Elder (B) · J. Büdler University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. Büdler e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_7

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some unforced errors in strategy, was unable to capitalise on being the challenger in order to present herself as a credible and compassionate alternative. Keywords Communication · COVID-19 · Responsiveness · Leadership · Credibility

Introduction The ability to communicate the personal leadership qualities expected in government is crucial for political leaders to gain the trust needed to successfully appeal for the public’s vote when campaigning and bring them with you when making decisions in government. This is even more important during a crisis, as was the case during the COVID-19 pandemic that dominated the 2020 campaign. This chapter will examine how successfully Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Leader of the Opposition Judith Collins were able to promote their personal leadership qualities through their COVID-19-related communication in the leadup to the 2020 New Zealand General Election.

Methodology This will be done using the Contemporary Governing Leaders’ Communication Model, which provides a prescriptive foundation of verbal and visual cues that can be utilised to highlight three key political leadership qualities: responsiveness , including evidence that the leader is listening to, and creating an emotional bond with, the public; leadership, including evidence the leader is strong and competent; as well as credibility, including that the leader is honest, authentic and relatable (Elder, 2018, pp. 102–103). In this study, the model was used to analyse 42 pieces of communication from Ardern and Collins on the subject of COVID-19 between 8 August and 16 October 2020. These included televised leaders’ debates, Facebook posts and sponsored advertising, press briefings, television advertising, speeches, interviews and press releases. Qualitative discourse and semiotic analysis were used to identify the visual and verbal messages and cues expressed by both party leaders and possible interpretations by the public (see Chilton, 2004; Rose, 2007).

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Case Studies: Ardern and Collins on COVID-19 During the 2020 New Zealand General Election Ardern enjoyed a high approval rating heading into the campaign, despite a lack of delivery in many areas promised during the previous election. Ardern had gained international attention for her response to the Christchurch mosque shootings in 2019 and, more pertinent to the campaign, the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. While Ardern had an established public image for responsiveness and credibility, Collins only took on the role of Leader of the Opposition three months prior to Election Day. Collins had been a high-profile politician for 18 years, but her public image was largely based on leadership toughness, epitomised by the nickname “Crusher Collins”. Collins also did not have the luxury of utilising high-profile government communication in a campaign-oriented manner as Ardern did, especially given the dissolution of Parliament and the election had been delayed after Labour’s campaign launch. Collins was also in the precarious position of having to convey an alternative vision to the widely popular COVID-19 strategy implemented by Ardern’s government. The following three sections highlight important findings and key differences between the two leaders’ COVID-19-related verbal and visual communication in the leadup to the 2020 election.

Responsiveness Discourse Creating an Emotional Bond Overall, Ardern was more successful than Collins at using discourse to maintain an emotional bond with the public. For example, Ardern continually reinforced the notion that, as Prime Minister, she still needed the public’s help to defeat a common opponent, COVID-19, both in her campaign-oriented government communication and in more explicit campaign communication. This included Ardern’s repeated use of the phrase “team of 5 million” in settings such as COVID-19 press briefings to create a sense of unity between herself and the public at-large. Ardern’s repeated emphasis of the Government’s “Unite against COVID19” social marketing campaign in such settings also explicitly highlighted Ardern’s plea that unity was a prerequisite to deliver a recovery from the pandemic.

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This was reinforced by Arden’s frequent use of first-person plural pronouns such as “we”, “our” and “us”, necessitated in government communication by her role as a governing leader attempting to mobilise a collective nationwide effort, but also when making reference to the Labour-led Government in campaign communication. For example, in Labour’s first TV campaign advert, Ardern stated: Together, we went hard and early to fight COVID. Our plan now is to rebuild the economy even stronger. We’ll create new jobs with infrastructure and environmental projects, make apprenticeships free to prepare for tomorrow’s jobs, and back business and grow trade with targeted support. These are uncertain times, but we’ve seen what we can achieve with a strong plan. So, let’s stick together and let’s keep moving. (Ardern, 2020b)

Along with communicating competence through explicit reference to delivery, the subtle interweaving of “we” and “us” (“let’s” being a contraction for “let us”) as an already established “team of 5 million” with “we” the Labour-led Government reinforces the notion of collective ownership between the Ardern, her government and the public. Collins, in contrast, favoured using first-person singular pronouns such as “me”, “my” and “I” far more frequently, including in relation to the potential future government she was campaigning to lead. This was exemplified through statements such as: My government will provide a strong defence against COVID-19. The threat of COVID-19 will be with us for years to come, but National is committed to safeguarding the health of all New Zealanders, as well as our economy. (Collins, 2020d)

While the quote does include reference to “us” and “our”, the initial reference to “My Government” implicitly frames ownership of such references back to Collins as an isolated entity, rather than back to the nation as a collective. In the rare instance where Collins did use first-person plural pronouns to effectively align herself with the public, she did so through criticism of the Government’s COVID-19 response. For example, in the text section of one Facebook post, Collins states that “It’s deeply concerning that the Government still can’t tell us how this new COVID19 outbreak got through the border” (Collins, 2020c). Such positioning is common among opposition leaders, as they are incentivised to highlight potential problems that can be blamed on the Government and, thus,

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provides an easy way to highlight an understanding of public concerns. In doing so, Collins effectively plays the role of Leader of the Opposition. However, even in this particular case, in the likely-more-consumed video this text previewed, Collins noted that “… people were promised that the borders were safe…”, creating a distinction between herself and “people”. Visual Evidence of the Leaders with the Public Ardern was also more effective than Collins at communicating responsiveness through visual evidence of interaction with the public, both in terms of quality and quantity, despite previous trends suggesting this is more difficult to achieve for a leader in power. A notable comparison between the two leaders can be seen in the way they were presented when speaking to audiences from a podium. In such settings, Collins was almost exclusively pictured alone. For example, in a Facebook image relating to National’s border control plan (Collins, 2020d), Collins is pictured at a podium in the centre of the frame with a stern look on her face. However, the background and border are darkened, as to emphasise Collins as the sole focus of the image. While this may have been encoded to promote Collins’ personal determination and leadership strength, it could also be decoded as Collins being visually isolated as leader. In other words, through the continued use of such imagery, along with Collins’ discursive trend mentioned previously, who she is leading is potentially less clear to the audience. This was particularly evident in contrast with the images of Ardern in similar contexts being presented at the same time, where Ardern was often placed in the foreground of the frame, with members of the public in the background or to the side (Ardern, 2020d). Furthermore, with regard to the quality of such visual evidence, Collins often lacked a sense of authenticity, while Ardern demonstrated more quality engagement with the public. In cases where Collins was presented with other people, these were often with fellow political elites (Collins, 2020a). Where members of the public were included, Collins and the public were either not presented within the same frames of a video or, similar to the point made previously, the imagery of the public within the shot were caught in the darkened boarder surrounding Collins (2020f). In contrast, one sponsored Facebook advert, for example, features multiple images of Ardern interacting with people in public and in their workplaces (Ardern, 2020e). This was further emphasised by the

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difference in the earned media coverage of both candidates. Notably, the news coverage of Ardern often focussed on how she was interacting with large crowds in public spaces across New Zealand—which both implied an authentic connection between Ardern and the public while also highlighting the success of the Government’s COVID-19 elimination strategy. This was in contrast to Collins, for example, walking down a sparsely populated Ponsonby Road in Auckland, interacting with people revealed to be planted by National as well as a mix of both positive and negative reactions from authentic locals.

Leadership Discourse Highlighting Leadership Competence Regarding communication promoting leadership competence, Ardern and Collins presented distinctly different strengths in their COVID-19 communication during the election campaign, which aligned with their respective roles as governing and opposition leaders. Notably, Ardern focussed on discourse highlighting successful delivery, the reasoning behind and benefits of the decisions the Government made in response to COVID-19. This was understandable, both because it helped overshadow the Government’s lack of delivery in other areas and, given the focus of COVID-19 at the time, both Ardern’s governing and campaign communication were being disseminated contemporaneously. For example, in a press release that could be described as government-oriented campaign communication, Ardern stated: Careful management of our border, backed by one of the strictest managed isolation and quarantine systems in the world, has seen New Zealand keep COVID-19 contained at levels that only few countries have managed to achieve… It has given us the opportunity to capitalise on New Zealand’s strong record and reputation globally when it comes to limiting COVID’s spread. The New Zealand Labour Party’s experience and robust border management policies will allow us to leverage opportunities to support our country’s recovery. (Ardern, 2020c)

By emphasising her government’s successful delivery on COVID-19, and the benefits of this for the public, Ardern drew attention away from their lack of delivery and thus helped present an image of a governing leader who will be able to provide similar results in the future.

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Given Collins’ position as Leader of the Opposition, especially given she had only taken the role three months before Election Day, she was not in a position to demonstrate delivery in the same tangible way. However, embracing this role, Collins effectively communicated other potential options, often in criticism of the actions taken by the Government. This was notably done in Collins’ communication around COVID-19 border control where, along with criticism of the Government’s approach, she outlined what she would implement if in government. For example, in one Facebook ad Collins stated: A third of New Zealand’s population are back in lockdown because the Labour led-Government has repeatedly failed to secure our border against COVID-19. Today, I have announced National’s plan to protect New Zealand against the threats that COVID-19 poses against our health and our economy. As Prime Minister, I will create a Border Protection Agency which is accountable to a single Government Minister, instead of a complicated mix of agencies, departments and ministers trying to manage this at the moment. (Collins, 2020f)

Collins did effectively play the role of Leader of the Opposition by emphasising the presentation of alternative policy options in her criticism of Ardern’s delivery. The difference between the two leaders’ communication in this area also highlight the contextual differences that can influence a leader’s ability to communicate certain qualities effectively. However, Collins’ communication starting in, and following on from, the quote above also focuses quite heavily on the inter-governmental connectivity and responsibilities of the mentioned agency in a way reminiscent of an out-of-touch leader in a long-serving government who is more focussed on the inner-workings of government than the people Collins was trying to reach. Such communication may be justified in non-campaign government communication to highlight leadership competence, but is less effective when engaging with the type of audience an opposition leader is trying to connect with through campaign advertising, even when targeted through social media.

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Visual Signs of Determination and Strength Overall, Collins was more effective than Ardern at utilising subtle visual cues to reinforce the image of leadership strength in her COVID-19related communication. For instance, Collins predominantly wore darker formal clothing, such as black or navy blazer jackets with squared shoulder pads (see Collins, 2020b), when out campaigning and in controlled communication—distinct from Ardern’s typically lighter coloured attire. This was reinforced through body language and facial cues Collins frequently displayed, including standing straight with shoulders back and squared, the use of firm hand gestures as well as stern facial expressions. This could be seen, for example, during the first TVNZ Leaders’ Debate (TVNZ, 2020) where Collins often had a stern look in her eyes and slanted eyebrows in COVID-19-related communication. Furthermore, while Ardern would often extend both palms out in an almost offering gesture when speaking, Collins would grip the podium with her right hand while moving her left hand up and down in rhythm with her words in a way that emphasised her determination regarding the point being made. Conversely, Ardern’s COVID-19-related communication often included imagery of her displaying softer and more welcoming facial expressions, such as smiling broadly and/or tilting her head to one side, even when her verbal cues implied determination and strength. This can be seen, for example, in one Facebook ad that Labour ran in October, where Ardern indicated determination and strength by noting: Thanks to our strong health response, we now have a head start on our economic recovery. Our five-point plan to rebuild and recover from COVID19 is already in motion - and now is not the time to slow down. (Ardern, 2020f)

While it could be argued that this communication should be attributed to the Labour Party more broadly, given the Labour Party sponsored the advert, its most prominent visual stimuli within the post was a medium close-up image of Ardern, implying at least some attribution to her. In this image, Ardern is still pictured smiling broadly to the side of the frame, seemingly in response to the campaign slogan “Let’s Keep Moving” on the left. This highlighted another trend in Ardern’s visual imagery insinuated earlier, where Ardern was often pictured at an angle or leaning forward in reaction to the other people or aspects within the visuals

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presented. In doing so, Ardern was less able to utilise the visual cues traditionally associated with leadership strength to the same effect as Collins. In essence, Ardern’s communication in this area suggested a careful balance of communicating strength and competence without compromising Ardern’s established image of a caring and compassionate governing leader. Even when Ardern was pictured with more serious facial expressions, these tended to imply empathy or concern rather than explicit strength. This was further emphasised by Labour’s red and (particularly) white colour scheme that themed much of the controlled imagery of Ardern, which was in contrast to the darker filtering often present in National and Collins’ controlled imagery.

Credibility Discourse Highlighting Honesty Ardern and Collins communicated credibility in notably different ways that again were influenced by their differing positions as governing and opposition leaders. For Ardern, being the Prime Minister allowed her the space to effectively communicate challenges to delivery. Notably, Ardern used COVID-19 as somewhat of a scapegoat for her government’s failure to deliver on promises laid out in the previous election campaign as well as the reason for economic challenges. This was not only retrospective, however. Ardern also communicated the ongoing implications COVID19 would have on government delivery moving forward by stating, for example: … there is no doubt that a continuing global pandemic will be an overlay to everything we do now. But it won’t change what we were elected to do in 2017. COVID didn’t end child poverty. COVID didn’t end the housing crisis. COVID didn’t make climate change disappear. In fact, it has the potential to make each so much worse. But thankfully, before the pandemic arrived on our shores, we sowed the seeds of change. Because change was so desperately needed. (Ardern, 2020a)

Not only did Ardern directly note that the pandemic would affect delivery moving forward, but she also uses the situation to shift the self-imposed retrospective markers of delivery success from actual delivery itself during Labour’s first term back in government to setting up delivery for their

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government moving forward; seemingly ignoring the “Year of Delivery” theme they had gone into 2019 with. As a result, such communication could be decoded as a sign of Ardern lacking honesty, if not for the fact that this related to non-COVID-19-related delivery during an election where COVID-19 dominated. Conversely, Leader of the Opposition Collins was strongly placed to communicate the drawbacks of the Government’s COVID-19-related decisions. In particular, Collins communicated the drawbacks of decisions as they related to the implications of the “hard and early” lockdowns and the drawbacks of border control decisions, especially during the second COVID-19 lockdown in Auckland, which she blamed on the Government. For example, in her 2020 Campaign Launch, Collins outlined the drawbacks of the Government’s COVID-19 lockdown response, stating: Ladies and gentlemen, let me be straight with you—because you know I’m not one to sugar-coat things. We are facing an economic crisis the likes of which we have never seen before. Government lockdowns have crippled business cash flow and confidence up and down the country. Job losses are increasing at the fastest rate in a generation and many thousands more are still to come. The first full week of Auckland’s second lockdown saw 400 New Zealanders lose their jobs every single day. In just a fortnight, 5000 Kiwis found themselves joining the now 220,000 people on unemployment benefits. (Collins, 2020e)

Of course, it was much easier for Collins to highlight the drawbacks of the Government’s decisions than Ardern, given opposition leaders are incentivised to do so. Yet it is interesting that Collins still made it clear she was going to “be straight with” the public about the state of the economy and the job market, as though it was an uncomfortable truth for her personally. But discourse so critical of the Government’s COVID-19 strategy was at odds with public opinion at the time. So, while certain verbal cues may have implied Collins’ honesty, the overall narrative Collins presented fought against public sentiment quite drastically, rather than being market-oriented in the way she allowed public opinion to shape the arguments she made. Visual Signs of Authenticity and Relatability Overall, Ardern used subtle yet persistent visual cues that reinforced the image of credibility more frequently than Collins in COVID-19-related

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communication. Ardern had already established herself as a naturally personable and relatable politician, as seen by the fact that she was often publicly referred to as simply “Jacinda”. Ardern reinforced these already established qualities, for example, in three similarly formatted TV campaign adverts (see for example Ardern, 2020g). In these adverts, Ardern sat at a desk in a space resembling her Beehive office, which included a New Zealand flag and a picture of former Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage in the background. Ardern addressed the camera at eye level as she leaned forward and smiled—thus simulating eye contact with the viewer to portray honesty while positioned in a non-defensive way and appearing more welcoming of the viewer. The balance between the cues suggesting Ardern’s role as the incumbent Prime Minister and those reinforcing Ardern’s friendly personable image are reinforced by other subtle cues in these adverts, such as the melodic background music and the cup and saucer placed next to Ardern’s arm which, along with Ardern’s body language, simulate Ardern having an informal friendly chat with the audience over a cup of tea. In contrast, as mentioned regarding leadership, Collins’ tendency to wear darker formal clothing, use more closed off or dominant body language as well as more stern facial expressions and hand gestures could be decoded by the audience as intimidating and unrelatable in its formality and seriousness. This may have been intended in order to project leadership strength and determination. However, they also limited Collins’ ability to portray her authenticity and relatability. By not balancing these qualities more, especially during a time of crisis, Collins was less able to get the public on board with what she was arguing for. Thus, in essence, without building the trust through the promotion of these quality, Collins was less able to fully utilise the leadership skills she was presenting. As mentioned previously, leadership does not mean much if you do not have the trust built up so that people will follow you.

Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique context through which the Contemporary Governing Leaders’ Communication Model can be assessed. Overall, Ardern and Collins’ COVID-19-related communication highlighted how each leader displayed notably different strategies that emphasised different aspects of their governing leadership qualities, personalities and their differing leadership positions.

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Ardern’s ability to weave campaign-oriented government communication with her campaign communication calling for, and highlighting success around, a united nationwide effort against COVID-19 provided her with the opportunity to maintain an emotional bond with the public in a way Collins was not able to. Collins use of first-person singular pronouns in talking about, for example, “[her] government” did not help Collins create such a bond, and thus appeared less responsive to the public. Collins’ use of visual evidence that isolated her from the public further exacerbated this, which was striking compared to Ardern emphasising her interactions with the public as both a sign of responsiveness and evidence of delivery success. The overall theme of Ardern’s communication was around delivering in this area, thus highlighting her leadership competence. Sticking with her established public image, Ardern focussed less on presenting visual cues traditionally associated with leadership strength, instead substituting them with verbal ones. As the Leader of the Opposition, Collins was better positioned to show leadership competence through communication of what she believed were the drawbacks of decisions and present other potential options, especially around the economic ramifications of, and border security issues around, COVID-19. However, she was doing so within the context of the incumbent government’s very popular COVID-19 elimination strategy. Collins also focussed more heavily on presenting visual cues associated with leadership strength, thus playing into her “Crusher Collins” image as a tough politician who will get things done. However, leadership credibility had not been established to provide a foundation for the public to be willing to follow, strong leader or not. Despite using the pandemic in an attempt to alter expectations around delivery more broadly, as well as the challenges to delivery moving forward, Ardern was able to rely on her natural personality to present visual cues that reinforced the image of authenticity and relatability in a way Collins was unable to. This helped Ardern promote credibility in a way that provided the foundation for the public to follow, strong leader or not. Having struggled to demonstrate leadership competence during most of her first term as Prime Minister, Ardern benefitted from the fact that COVID-19 dominated the narrative of the election. Ardern’s position as a key public figure in the Government’s fight against COVID-19 and her natural personal qualities meant she was better placed than Collins to successfully offer the leadership product the New Zealand public

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were looking for, likely contributing to Labour’s landslide victory. By presenting herself as the antithesis of Ardern, Collins relied heavily on her natural personal qualities and, thus, emphasised leadership strength. Taking the time to figure out how a leader’s own personality can be utilised to highlight all three broader qualities is part of the process. However, Collins was not afforded the time to do that. As the pandemic itself recedes into the background and focus turns to its ongoing economic repercussions, it is yet to be seen if Ardern will meet the shifting public expectations of governing leadership. Given a change in context, as well as with time to better lay the foundations for a wellrounded leadership image, Collins may be better placed to provide the public with a viable alternative in the years leading into the next election. Lessons for Practitioners For practitioners, these case studies provide a unique opportunity to see how governing leaders can capitalise on a crisis for electoral purposes. In particular, having the governing leader as a key figure in the visual response to a crisis happening contemporaneously with an election campaign provides them with the opportunity to build a stronger emotional bond with the public in a way not possible while in opposition. However, this also requires a leader with the ability to utilise and emphasise qualities such as responsiveness through empathy and understanding, along with credibility through inclusion and openness. Most importantly, it requires effective crisis management to provide the opportunity to promote competence through delivery. Without that prerequisite fulfilled, everything else is unlikely to matter. With that prerequisite fulfilled, governing leaders can get the public on board with the direction they want to lead the country, even without utilising the visual and verbal cues often decoded as traditional leadership strength. In particular, this workaround may be useful for women in political leadership, where society is conditioned to decode these cues suggesting traditional leadership strength when evaluating male political leaders, while these same cues can be interpreted (unjustifiably) negatively when utilised by women in politics.

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References Primary Ardern, J. (2020a). Jacinda Ardern speech to Wellington Labour Party rally, October 11. Ardern, J. (2020b). Let’s Keep Moving—Labour’s first TV ad of the 2020 Campaign. YouTube, September 10. Ardern, J. (2020c). Managing safe border entry to boost economic recovery. Press Release, September 11. Ardern, J. (2020d). Sponsored advertising. Facebook. Active from September 20 to 23. Ardern, J. (2020e). Sponsored advertising. Facebook. Active from September 27 to October 4. Ardern, J. (2020f). Sponsored advertising. Facebook. Active from October 7 to 11. Ardern, J. (2020g). We’re rolling out a plan that keeps people safe & builds the economy—Labour’s new 2020 Campaign Ad. YouTube, September 21. Collins, J. (2020a). National Party releases first TV advertisement ahead of next month’s election. 1 News, September 13. Collins, J. (2020b). National’s Economic Plan. YouTube, September 30. Collins, J. (2020c). Post. Facebook, August 17. Collins, J. (2020d). Post. Facebook, August 20. Collins, J. (2020e). Speech: Judith Collins 2020 Campaign Launch. Speech, September 20. Collins, J. (2020f). Sponsored advertising. Facebook. Active from September 15 to October 3. TVNZ. (2020). TVNZ Leaders’ Debate, September 22.

Secondary Chilton, P. A. (2004). Analysising Politicla Discourse: Theory and Practice. Routledge. Elder, E. (2018). Communicating market-oriented leadership in power and opposition. In J. Lees-Marshment (Ed.), Political marketing and management in the 2017 New Zealand Election (pp. 99–116). Palgrave. Rose, G. (2007). Visual methodologies: An introduction to the interpretation of visual materials (2nd ed.). Sage.

CHAPTER 8

Targeted Communication by Minor and Major Parties Edward Elder, Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Salma Usman Malik, and Luna Zhao

Abstract This chapter utilises two new targeting models to better understand the strategic effectiveness of two younger candidates from the Green Party and ACT New Zealand in their efforts to target younger voters as well as how effectively National and Labour targeted Chinese New Zealanders in the leadup to the 2020 New Zealand General Election. In

E. Elder (B) · J. Lees-Marshment · S. U. Malik · L. Zhao University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. Lees-Marshment e-mail: [email protected] S. U. Malik e-mail: [email protected] L. Zhao e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_8

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doing so, this chapter highlights the importance of these demographics moving forward, yet how political parties and candidates in New Zealand are still coming to terms with the need to directly target particular groups of voters in unique ways in order to be effective in winning them over. In particular, the chapter argues the need to cater communication to the audiences in question over the long-term rather than simply translate broader messages during the campaign period. Keywords Young voters · Chinese New Zealanders · Targeting · Social media

Introduction Like many other liberal democracies, New Zealand is becoming less ethnically homogenous, so parties and candidates need to target key groups, both in terms of communication and their product offering. Identifying, understanding and then communicating with different demographic groupings where they are, in ways they are accustomed to, with a message that is explicitly catered to them is more important than ever. This chapter will explore how two younger candidates from the Greens and ACT targeted younger voters as well as how National and Labour targeted Chinese New Zealanders.

Online Appeals to Youth Voters by Minor Party Candidates Evidence shows a rapid increase in the use of online media by young people (aged 18–24), with Facebook and Instagram as two of the most popular social networking websites (Statista, n.d.). However, younger people still remain more disconnected from politics than other age groups, with less understanding of the tangible impact it has. So, it is important to understand if and how political actors are using online media to connect with them so they may understand the value of making an informed decision. Political marketing communication needs to follow 6 criteria to effectively target young people (Malik, n.d.)—see Table 8.1. This analysis explores how two younger candidates—Chlöe Swarbrick of the Greens and Brooke van Velden of ACT—targeted younger voters,

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Table 8.1 Model for targeting young people 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Develop content that is simple, short, visual and explicitly tailored to young people Use a relatable candidate, i.e. young or youth adjacent from the party for developing a relationship with the young Use humour to humanise the candidate/politician Use interactive and two-way communication Use message repetition to help amplify the message Use party members as “individual knowledge disseminators” who can use their own social media account for targeted communication with young people

Source Adapted from Malik (n.d.)

both generally and in relation to referendums held on cannabis legalisation and euthanasia. Swarbrick campaigned to legalise cannabis, while van Velden campaigned for the euthanasia bill. Chlöe Swarbrick—Green Party of Aotearoa Chlöe Swarbrick posted regularly on both Facebook and Instagram during the campaign period; effectively using the platforms to target young people by using communication to be seen as “relatable” to them. One of the ways Swarbrick did this was through the language she used, which was in line with the language you would expect from younger people on social media. For example, when promoting a social/political event for discussing the Cannabis referendum, she would use phrases like “Lets hang out today!” (Swarbrick, 2020b), or while being in Otago using statements like “Dunners goes hard” (Swarbrick, 2020f) and using catchy artwork for sharing information about Auckland Central’s three-way race (Swarbrick, 2020a). Furthermore, the content Swarbrick posted was often short, snappy, comprehendible and most importantly tailored to the target audience. The messages were looped and repetitive so that the audience consuming them were less likely to forget the issues Swarbrick was highlighting. While Swarbrick focussed on the issues that were considered important to young people (University of Auckland, 2020)—such as the economy, the environment, COVID-19 and cannabis—she also tailored her messages by explaining how these issues were relevant to young people. This again included her choice of words, such as how she considers nature to be “cool”. But it also included positioning herself as a member of the

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community she was targeting, by sharing personal details, such as how, “I do not own a car and house” (Swarbrick, 2020e), which gave her credibility when talking about, in this instance, the economic struggles younger voters often face. Swarbrick also used interactive and two-way communication effectively over a longer period of time, not just during the campaign. This included using Instagram’s interface for conducting Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions. She posted AMA 2020 as stories on Instagram, as well as allowing her AMA sessions from 2018 until 2020 to be viewed through her Instagram account. Swarbrick also held daily Facebook live sessions, including interacting with live viewers, during the national lockdown (Swarbrick, 2020c) and subsequent Auckland lockdown (Chlöe Swarbrick, 2020d) in the leadup to the election campaign. These efforts highlight Swarbrick interacting with young New Zealanders and striving to build an audience before the election campaigns started. Brooke van Velden—ACT Deputy Leader Brooke van Velden’s use of social media during the 2020 campaign appeared cautiously calculated, with more focus placed on traditional broad-based communication that emphasised professionalism and the party message than targeted and relational communication that was designed to appeal to younger potential voters. This could be seen, for example, in the way van Velden conducted herself on these platforms. Her choice of attire and her overall demeanour suggested her effort to project herself as a professional and seasoned politician. This is also evident from her Instagram timeline where there is a clear shift in the nature and tone of posts, from being more natural in her post comments, physical and facial expressions to a more managed style once running as a candidate. During the campaign, van Velden was mostly seen wearing black and earthy tones, as seen when visiting the Swazi Factory, participating in the Wellington Chamber of Commerce’s election panel debate and campaigning in Lyttelton (van Velden, 2020e, 2020f, 2020g), with few instances where she is wearing the bright pink coat which is reflective of the ACT Party’s political colour. While addressing issues of freedom of speech, the economy or the COVID-19 crisis, van Velden would repeatedly conclude by adding that a party vote for ACT is a viable solution (van Velden, 2020h). While this might be understandable, given van Velden’s

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inexperience may be seen as a potential weakness, such communication is less likely to be effective in appealing to younger people explicitly. Furthermore, while a majority of van Velden’s posts were short, snappy and comprehendible, they were rarely explicitly tailored to a younger audience. For example, van Velden did use repetition in her online communication to reinforce the message she was trying to communicate around the euthanasia bill. However, these posts focussed almost exclusively on stories that make the issue relevant to older people as well as terminally ill people, not younger people. The shared stories of 60-yearold Stu Armstrong and 58-year-old Richard Gregory (van Velden, 2020a, 2020b) are reflective of terminally ill people. However, while it is wise to share stories about how these issues affect peoples’ lives and significant statistics, it would have been wiser to frame these in relation to how they affect younger people, or at least from a younger person’s perspective. While van Velden occasionally communicated in a way that could be described as light-hearted or humorous, such communication was often so subtle that the humour was not as obvious, as it could have been in order to truly adhere to the criteria outlined. Writing in posts content like “I must have touched a nerve” (van Velden, 2020c) relating to an article from Newshub on the Business NZ video conference on COVID19 recovery came across as snarky, and stating “I may have left with a new jacket” (van Velden, 2020d) while visiting Swazi factory reflected a very subtle tone of humour. Comparing the Case Studies Swarbrick and van Velden made significant efforts to utilise the digital platforms effectively. However, Swarbrick utilised the platforms more effectively to appeal to a younger audience, meeting all but one of the criteria (humour) effectively. In contrast, van Velden almost exclusively communicated the party message and relied on more traditional one-way communication. While Swarbrick had the advantage of already being an MP, the fact that she had a much larger social media following than van Velden (77,000 follows on Facebook and 89,000 on Instagram, compared to 1432 and 1057, respectively, for van Velden as of midDecember 2020) reinforces the need for politicians to follow the criteria if they want to attract support from young voters.

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Targeting Chinese Voters by Major Parties New Zealand political parties have a strong rationale to target Chinese voters. They are the third-largest ethnic group in New Zealand, diverse in terms of party preferences and they live in areas of high concentration with distinctive surnames. The Chinese community—accounting for 5.3 per cent of the New Zealand population, and growing (Stats NZ, 2020), have become an important demographic in New Zealand electoral politics. Additionally, because Chinese voters often have distinctive surnames and live in highly concentrated areas, they can be identified quickly and contacted easily; thereby making party efforts worthwhile. When targeting Chinese voters, political parties should follow certain principles (Zhao, n.d.)—see Table 8.2. Through targeted communication, National in particular has met some or all of these principles in recent history (Zhao, 2020). The most effective targeted communication included using party leaders and Chinese ethnic MPs as messengers, employed Chinese-language media and social media as communication channels and made the messages focus on Chinese New Zealanders’ interests. In line with its effective targeted communication, more than half of Chinese voters supported National during the period of 2008–2017 (New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey, 2009–2017). However, in the 2020 election, Chinese voters seemed to have been forgotten by the major parities’ campaign communication. This included only a limited use of ethic-centric media to communicate with Chinese voters, a lack of Chinese ethnic messengers, as well as a lack of response to Chinese voters’ concerns. Table 8.2 Principles for targeting Chinese New Zealanders

• Understanding the Chinese community through formal or informal market intelligence • Designing and altering the political product in response to the needs of the Chinese community • Building an emotional bond with the Chinese voters, demonstrating a concern for the community • Developing a long-term relationship with the Chinese community through targeted communication Source Adapted from Zhao (n.d.)

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National National’s Chinese-targeted communication appeared directionless during the 2020 campaign. Unlike in previous years, the party failed to frame their messaging in a way that highlighted its product offering and understanding of Chinese voters. Certain attempts were made. But, in part due to the lack of cohesion in the National Party product itself, such offerings had limited appeal. For example, at a press conference held with the Chinese-language media on 13 July, National’s finance spokesperson Paul Goldsmith suggested that then-party leader Todd Muller would listen to the demands of the Chinese community and build a connection with Chinese voters (Goldsmith, 2020). One day after the press conference, Muller resigned as the party leader and was replaced soon after by Judith Collins. Neither Muller nor Collins communicated directly with their Chinese supporters, despite their three predecessors using WeChat—China’s most popular chat and social media app—to engage with Chinese voters. The changes in leadership during 2020 also meant there was no time or space for either leader to build a relationship with the Chinese community. This was compounded by the loss of Jian Yang, a three-term Chinese ethnic MP who was not running for office again in 2020. National no longer had a Chinese MP to put upfront as its messenger to the community, and due to the controversial circumstances under which Yang retired (Cheng, 2020), having him play an ambassadorial role was probably unrealistic. Nancy Lu, a board member for the Chinese New Settlers Services Trust, was nominated as number 26 on the National Party list in August. However, she was not standing for an electorate and was time poor for listening to what Chinese voters wanted or building a relationship with the community in her new role. As a result, her messages could not resonate well with the Chinese community. National’s communication during the period of 2011–2017 conveyed an impression of a party that was trustworthy and more likely to have the Chinese community’s best interests at heart. But it failed to continue doing this before and during the 2020 campaign and lost ground in the Chinese community because of it. In 2017, polling found that over 70 per cent of Chinese voters supported National (Tan, 2017), while polling from September 2020 found that only 53 per cent still supported the party (Radio New Zealand, 2020).

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Labour In recent history, Labour have been less successful than National at targeting Chinese voters, in part because of common Chinese New Zealanders’ thinking around issues such as individual responsibility, economic competence, toughness on law and order and close relations with China being more in line with right-wing parties’ ideology. Thus, the relationship between Labour and the Chinese New Zealand community is somewhat complex. Unlike the general population, Chinese voters did not gravitate towards supporting Labour during and after New Zealand relatively successfully dealt with COVID-19. Polling showed that only 21 per cent of Chinese voters supported Labour, even though 74.7 per cent of Chinese voters were satisfied with the Labour-led Government’s response to COVID-19 (Chen, 2020). This is somewhat understandable, given Jacinda Ardern did not reach out to the Chinese voters for most of the 2017–2020 period, potentially creating the perception that Labour did not prioritise their support. Labour did use WeChat, posting 288 times on the platform within 167 days from the beginning of 2020 until the election (Labour Party, 2020). However, most of these posts were simply a Chinese translation of generic Government communication, making the account feel like an English learning platform instead of a channel to communicate the party’s achievements and policies with their Chinese followers. Additionally, it communicated policies in a very product-oriented way: Labour simply listed its policies on WeChat without trying to sell them through an explanation of how Chinese voters would benefit from them. The policies were not tailored to suit the target audience; and did not respond to the Chinese community’s concerns. Labour’s overall focus on “stability” in the final weeks of the campaign would have appealed to the Chinese community, as it captured the community’s sentiment. However, the party did not communicate this explicitly with Chinese voters. This included during the major parties’ Chinese candidate debate on 14 October (Skykiwi Chinese candidates’ debate, 2020), where Labour candidate Naisi Chen failed to follow the same stability message.

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Comparing the Case Studies Neither major party in New Zealand targeted Chinese voters effectively in the 2020 campaign. National did not effectively communicate with Chinese voters, as they had done in previous elections. This was in part due to the retirement of a key Chinese member of their caucus as well as the changes in leadership hindering the creation of a longer term relationship with Chinese voters. This also gave Chinese voters the impression of an ununified party. Labour, on the other hand, lacked a clear message that was directly targeted towards Chinese voters. Instead, the party focussed on converting broader Government messages to the community—leaving Chinese voters unsure what the party was going to do for them. Chinese New Zealand voters are an often untapped but growing segment of New Zealand society. But they need to be targeted more effectively in order to appeal to them going forward.

Conclusion What these two areas of targeted communication and four case studies suggest is that political parties and candidates in New Zealand are still coming to terms with the need to directly target particular groups of voters in unique ways in order to be effective in winning them over. There are always going to be variables that hinder political parties’ and candidates’ abilities to communicate with audiences as effectively as they would like, as there are through traditional communication channels to the voting public at-large. However, both demographics highlighted in this chapter are of strategic importance moving forward. For one, while younger voters may not make up a large section of the voting population now, they are the future’s dominant voting bloc. Chinese voters will also grow in importance in New Zealand election as their percentage of the New Zealand population continues to grow. In essence, an investment in targeting these voters and building a relationship with them now is an investment in a party’s or candidate’s future. The case studies above also offer a few suggestions that political practitioners can use for targeting young voters as well as Chinese voters. For targeting young voters, political parties and candidates should:

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• Understand that immense potential resides within individual youthrelatable candidates. These candidates can be powerful hubs in targeting and disseminating information to the young cohort. Political parties must acknowledge their potential and use them intelligently to win support from the young vote. • Communicate in a language young people would understand by creating tailored content and use online platforms that are popular with younger people. • Utilise the potential of online media by indulging in two-way and interactive communication. • Use humour creatively. Research suggests that young people would listen and understand if you soften the news and add a bit of humour to the serious political content. For targeting Chinese voters, due to the differing contexts under which each major party came into their relationship with this demographic heading into the 2020 election and the way in which they operated, the suggestions are more explicit: • National need to reconnect and reposition. They need a Chinese messenger who can act as the bridge between the party and Chinese voters. The party’s leadership, the brand of economic competence, toughness on law and order and close relations with China were key ingredients in their successful appeal previously. However, the Key, English and even Bridges eras are over. So, the party needs to communicate their new leaders, candidates, updated values and policy positions to the target Chinese audiences going forward. • Labour, on the other hand, need to do a better job creating targeted communication that is designed explicitly and solely for the Chinese community, rather than simply repackaging generic communication with subtitles or voice-overs. Clear messages such as “we listen to you and will address your concerns” should be sent. Furthermore, they need to learn where to pitch their products to maximise political support among the Chinese community.

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References Chen, L. (2020). Poll shows large majority of Chinese New Zealanders still favour National over Labour. Radio New Zealand, August 27. Cheng, D. (2020). National MP Jian Yang to retire from politics following election. New Zealand Herald, 10 July. Goldsmith, P. (2020). Comments quoted in “国家党独家透露 不排除再推出一 位华人候选人”, July 13. Labour Party. (2020). 新西兰工党 NZ Labour Party. WeChat. Malik, S. U. (n.d.). Online media and political knowledge of the young New Zealanders: Assessing elite communication performance in the digital era. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. University of Auckland, New Zealand. New Zealand Attitudes and Values Survey. (2009–2017). Unpublished raw data. The University of Auckland. Radio New Zealand. (2020). Voters in Chinese community switching from National to ACT, poll suggests, October 2. Statista. (n.d.). Breakdown of Facebook users in New Zealand as of January 2018, by age group. Stats NZ. (2020). Chinese ethnic group. 新西兰天维网 SKYKIWI. (2020). 天维大咖秀第 40 期丨大选直播间: 红蓝对线! 两大政党华人候选人面对面. YouTube, October 14. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020a). Auckland Central is a three way race. Facebook, September 20. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020b). Let’s hang out today! Facebook, October 3. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020c). Albert Level 4 Daily Updates. Facebook. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020d). Alert Level 3 Lockdown K¯ orero. Facebook. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020e). Auckland Central is why I’m in politics. Instagram, September 22. Swarbrick, Chlöe. (2020f). Dunners goes hard, a photo series by @aimanamerul. Instagram, September 27. Tan, L. (2017, September 11). Poll: National will be back in Government if Chinese voters had their way. New Zealand Herald. University of Auckland. (2020, September 30). Youth Voters Debate powered with passion and pizza. van Velden, Brooke. (2020a). I urge you to read this honest and blunt story of an end of life without choice and the difference Assisted Dying could have made. Facebook, September 1. van Velden, Brooke. (2020b). This is a really powerful story. Facebook, September 6. van Velden, Brooke. (2020c). I must have touched a nerve. Facebook, September 15. van Velden, Brooke. (2020d). Great to visit the Swazi Factory this morning and meet the team. Facebook, September 16

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van Velden, Brooke. (2020e). [Image]. Facebook, September 16. van Velden, Brooke. (2020f). Great to be part of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce’s Election Panel Debate tonight. Facebook, September 23. van Velden, Brooke. (2020g). Beautiful day to be campaigning in Lyttelton. Facebook, September 26. van Velden, Brooke. (2020h). I voted. Facebook, October 5. Zhao, L. (2020). Targeted communication: The case of targeting Chinese New Zealanders. Conference Paper presented at the NZPSA 2020 Political Communication Network, Tauranga, New Zealand. November 28. Zhao, L. (n.d.). Targeting Chinese Voters: How do New Zealand major parties use political marketing to target Chinese New Zealanders. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation. The University of Auckland, New Zealand.

CHAPTER 9

Practitioner Perspectives on Political Marketing and Management Jennifer Lees-Marshment, Edward Elder, Robin Campbell, David Farrar, Neale Jones, Tom James, Mike Munro, Shai Navot, David Seymour, and David Talbot

Abstract This chapter presents multiple perspectives of practitioners involved from government and opposition, major and minor parties and outside Parliament on the 2020 New Zealand General Election and the

J. Lees-Marshment (B) · E. Elder University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] E. Elder e-mail: [email protected] R. Campbell Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] D. Farrar Curia Market Research, Wellington, New Zealand © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_9

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years leading up to it. In doing so, they discuss political market research during a pandemic, the successful rebranding and positioning of a minor party, the challenges of marketing a small minor party as well as the political management of policy through government and delivery marketing, the overarching themes of which are discussed at the end of the chapter. Keywords Political practitioners · Rebranding · Policy management · Market research

Introduction This chapter presents multiple perspectives of practitioners involved from government and opposition, major and minor parties and outside Parliament on the 2020 New Zealand General Election and the years leading up to it. They include those who are, or have been, in the position of being Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, a party leader, a deputy party leader,

N. Jones Capital Government Relations, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] T. James Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] M. Munro Munro Church Communications, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] S. Navot The Opportunities Party, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] D. Seymour ACT New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] D. Talbot UMR Research, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected]

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two ministerial advisors as well as practitioners who conducted market research for the two major parties, Labour and National. They discuss political market research during a pandemic, the successful rebranding and positioning of a minor party, the challenges of marketing a small minor party as well as the political management of policy through government and delivery marketing. The overall themes are discussed at the end of the chapter.

Political Marketing Research and a Re-election Campaign in a Global Pandemic By David Talbot, Chief Executive of UMR Research and Labour Pollster Introduction Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? The Cheshire Cat: That depends a good deal on where you want to get to. Alice: I don’t much care where. The Cheshire Cat: Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go. Alice: ...So long as I get somewhere. The Cheshire Cat: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.

–Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Success in politics typically demands that politicians display a far stronger sense of direction than Alice. Responding to a global pandemic effectively, perhaps more so again. 2020 was a year in which political research was instrumental in providing a constantly evolving sense of the shifting sentiment of the electorate—both politically and in relation to COVID19. The map it provided helped to shape political activity over the course of the term, as well as to explain the historic election outcome.

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Understanding the Current Landscape Prior to the emergence of the pandemic as a defining election issue, the left was ahead, though facing a number of political challenges. Research was instrumental in understanding the background issues and tracking progress on them. Key among these was a growing sense of a perceived lack of progress on headline policy. While governing arrangements were to blame in some areas, the failure to meet expectations around KiwiBuild in particular did clearly raise the issue of “delivery”. Despite these challenges, the historically important right-track/wrongtrack metric remained in strongly favourable territory from Labour’s perspective. The opposition—while their party vote remained strong (often in the 40s)—was clearly hampered by a deeply unpopular leader (Simon Bridges), who was entirely failing to connect with voters. By the time of his departure, UMR polling had him lower than any opposition leader ever tracked. It seems inconceivable that eventually this wouldn’t have seriously affected National’s party vote. There were early signs of this in the focus groups. Internal polling typically gave a healthy, though not unassailable, lead to the left through much of the initial part of the term. Given the likely struggles of the opposition leader for traction in the campaign it seems reasonable to assume that Labour was, even at that point, on track to win government. Identifying Emerging Issues COVID-19, however, represented a tectonic shift in the political landscape. This was almost immediately evident in UMR’s right-track/wrongtrack figures, which jumped to historic positive highs—far above anything attained under Clark or Key. While on the face of it, it might seem odd for this indicator to improve in the midst of a pandemic, voters were evidently signalling an overall confidence in government management. Combined with a corresponding sharp rise in the PM’s popularity as a result of her COVID-19 leadership, the opposition clearly had a hard road ahead. Research at this point was used not just to measure the relative fortunes of the parties, but also to provide a detailed insight into the public understanding of the virus, response and likely behaviours. The Republican campaign consultant Frank Luntz coined the phrase “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear” as a way of illustrating the importance of effective

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political messaging, and to highlight the risk of “talking past” the electorate. In managing a pandemic there’s perhaps no more important time to ensure these two factors map exactly. It was often fascinating to observe the disconnect between political commentary and public sentiment on issues like borders, testing and alert level moves. Orientating the Campaign Well-known Tory pollster Lord Ashcroft has written: “If an election is an exam, voters will set the question; parties that choose to answer a different question will be marked accordingly”. History suggests that’s often easier said than done. The research in 2020 was clear that the question the public was asking was “Who do I trust to deliver the best COVID response?” A qualitative unpacking showed there were both health and economic elements to this, though when forced to a binary choice, health was typically dominant. A chaotic opposition campaign almost entirely failed to answer both parts. It toyed with COVID-19 conspiracy theories, ran a smear campaign on a non-existent wealth tax and spent the final days of the campaign discussing who’s to blame for obesity. Voters were unimpressed. September research had the public choosing Labour over National on running the best COVID-19 response 61–16 per cent. Research perhaps can’t stop politicians going off-script but it can quantify the political damage. In this case it was significant. Polling suggested that (at least early on) there were opportunities for the opposition around historic perceptions of economic competence, though they appeared not to have the discipline to take advantage of them. The subsequent emergence of a number of mistakes in their costings—the “four-billion-dollar fiscal hole”—was the final straw for many of their supporters: “It’s all they’re meant to be good at” said one respondent in a group. An unashamedly direct video pitch from the Minister of Finance rolled out in the final stretch of the campaign was used to reach out to such voters. Labour identified safety, competence, strength and stability as early themes and built their campaign around these. While COVID-19 constrained some of the creative approaches to the advertising, they delivered a direct “no-frills” message that was known from research to resonate. The advantage of simplified production logistics also meant that messages could be frequently updated.

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Learning on the Way As well as helping to define the campaign question, research is frequently used to check whether a party is getting credit for its answer (and what to change if it’s not). As the Aussies like to say: “You can’t fatten a pig on market day”. While polling once voters have made up their minds is potentially of some historic explanatory value, the biggest political gains are usually to be made early, before public sentiment has solidified. By and large the research showed that the macro factors driving vote were fairly strongly embedded from before the campaign proper. Tracking showed no drop to National’s vote following the Denise Lee email leak, and no evidence of a significant late move of National’s support to Labour for the purposes of minimising the influence of the Greens. The dominant factors driving the vote were perceptions of strong leadership and a successful COVID-19 response on Labour’s side, and a reluctance to vote for a party in apparent disarray on National’s.

Market Research and the National Party in Opposition David Farrar—Owner and Director of Curia Market Research and National Pollster Normally when a party has a bad election result, they still do well with their base because of the usual left–right issue divide. However, because the 2020 election was a referendum on two things, a popular Prime Minister and a seemingly successful COVID-19 response, National performed worse in some safe seats compared to 2002—when they got only 21 per cent of the party vote. While most parties that lose the reins of government “take the phone off the hook” so they can do policy work and stakeholder engagement, National were still willing to listen to researchers after the 2017 election. I believe this was because National got the highest party vote share that year, and saw the change in government more as a result of Winston Peters’ decision to form a coalition with Labour than a public rebuke of National. As a result, National consistently polled in the mid-40s and the public were still engaged with what they had to say over the next two and a half years. However, COVID-19 changed that. The public no longer wanted to hear from National, they only wanted to hear from the Government and, in particular, Jacinda Ardern. The public definitely did

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not want to hear criticism of the Government, even when the criticism was valid. This created a dilemma for National. The polling said that 75–80 per cent of the public backed the Government’s strategy and what they were trying to achieve. If National came out saying the Government was doing everything wrong, they would have been competing for 20 per cent of the vote. That is a good strategy for a minor party, as ACT successfully implemented. But had to say, “We support the Government’s strategy, but we think we could do it better”. That was a hard message to communicate, especially in an election that was not really about policy, as such communication requires more nuance. Parties normally need to have two or three things people identify with them leading into a campaign. National had gone into the 2020 campaign with Strong Team, More Jobs and Better Economy. However, the data shown was that two of National’s three big platforms had been neutralised. The Strong Team message was neutralised through internal issues, such as having two leadership changes in the space of two months and emails from MPs criticising the leader being made public. Leaking to the media had been an issue throughout the last term. Such ill-discipline does serious brand damage. While polling remained high for the first two and a half years of the previous term, the leaking and disunity weakened the dam. So, when the big wave known as COVID-19 came, the dam crumbled. COVID-19 also meant that National were unable to gain traction around the theme of government incompetence; highlighting Labour’s lack of delivery in areas such as KiwiBuild and child poverty. As long as the Government kept COVID-19 out and were keeping people alive, it did not matter to the public. This is not to say that the economy was unimportant in 2020. The data showed it was still the most important issue for many voters. But it was also strongly linked to the recovery, rather than the economy in isolation. Here, National’s traditional lead with the public on the perception of economic management had somewhat diminished. National still had the edge in this area than Labour, but the margin narrowed. By adopting a number of policies in the wake of COVID-19 that National had utilised previously, such as the wage subsidy scheme implemented after the Christchurch earthquakes, Labour were able to present themselves as good economic managers in a way they had not been able to previously. This neutralised National’s Better Economy message.

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The research did highlight how bad things were for National. But it also told us that National’s expectations needed to adapt. This included helping National move their thinking away from which electorate seats they could pick up to which seats they could defend. Furthermore, it became clear days after early voting began that the advanced vote was much better for Labour than National. The results from advanced voting and election-day voting were within 1 per cent of each other in 2014 and 2017. In 2020, the centre-left beat the centre-right by 26 per cent among advanced voters and 12 per cent among election-day voters. I believe centre-left voters liked what the Government was doing, so were certain in their voting choice early. The ever-growing pool of early voters among our respondents during the last two weeks of the campaign showed National voters, on the other hand, were uncertain and waiting to see what to do, or whether to vote at all. Based on this, we were telling National, “You need to stop trying to persuade people to vote for you and you just need to get your supporters to vote”, although not phrased quite that strongly. Based on the re-polling we did with respondents who we had initially talked to us in the two weeks prior to Election Day about their voting intention, a few per cent of National voters did not vote in the end. So, I believe this is going to be a big challenge for National in 2023—working on how to get the vote out early. More broadly, I think the statutory bodies, the parties and the media need to rethink election campaigns in the advanced voting area. We normally have a five-to-six-week campaign that is focussed on persuasion. I think you need to start the campaign two weeks earlier, with your normal five-to-six weeks of debates, polling and campaign events to start and then, once advanced voting begins, the campaign becomes a two-week get-out-the-vote drive. Jacinda Ardern and Grant Robertson consistently said “National is no longer the party of John Key and Bill English”, which was brutally effective because it played into the notion that the public did not know what National’s brand was anymore. National had a hard time successfully promoting their three key offerings. It might not have worked even if the party had been more unified in presentation and message, as the election was very much focussed on COVID-19 and the Prime Minister. But, at a minimum, the public need to know what a party stands for. That was not the case for National in 2020.

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Labour’s Challenges and Successes in the 2020 Campaign Neale Jones—Former Chief of Staff to Labour Leaders Jacinda Ardern and Andrew Little It has been said there are really only two election slogans, “Time for a Change” and “Don’t Put It All at Risk”. The 2020 election was the story of Labour arguing New Zealanders should not put the country’s COVID-19 success at risk, and National trying, and failing, to make a case for change. Labour strategists had realised from the start of the COVID-19 crisis that with lives and economic and well-being at stake, voters were not in the mood for risky change. People wanted competence, stability and leadership they could trust. This was reflected in the often derided but strategically sound slogan, “Let’s Keep Moving”. Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern was widely seen to have performed well through the crisis, particularly during the March lockdown when she held daily televised press conferences with the popular Director-General of Health, Ashley Bloomfield. Presented as the head of the “team of five million”, Ardern tapped into the collective sense of pride and gratitude New Zealanders felt for having eliminated COVID-19 and restored relative normality. Voters only had to look at their TV screens to see what could have happened if things had been handled differently. Even with the second outbreak in August, which led to Auckland being locked down again and the election delayed, the public’s trust was unbroken and Labour’s polling undented. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Labour ran a presidential-style campaign focussed on Ardern’s leadership and protecting the gains that had been made. There were some areas, however, where Labour recognised its campaign could go off the rails. The last three elections had seen the party repeat the same catalogue of errors: complex tax policies that scared middle class swing voters; a 500-page manifesto that few voters would ever read or understand, but which left the party open to attack; confused message and policy; and an at times ill-disciplined caucus. National, with a seemingly unassailable brand for stability, discipline and economic competence, had in those elections managed to frame Labour as divided, shambolic and unable to be trusted with the economy. National’s election ads in 2014 and 2017 famously represented this with a rowing race and a running race, respectively, with National presented as

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sleek and professional while Labour and its prospective coalition partners were shown as unfit, divided and chaotic. Labour was reduced to a joke, a punchline. In each of these elections, as well as in 2011, National had made hay out of criticising Labour’s tax policies and its ability to fund its policy platform—sometimes dishonestly, but each time to devastating effect with voters. The “fiscal hole” claim and the “tax scare” had become staples of National’s campaign and even managed to derail Ardern’s ultimately successful campaign in 2017. Labour identified these vulnerabilities early and worked to address them. The tax policy was announced early—it was simple and clear, involving a small increase for people earning over $180,000 per year, and was accompanied by a ruling out of any other tax policies. A fiscal plan was put together and released before the short campaign, and new policy was kept to a bare minimum. There was a short manifesto recapping already announced policies, but nothing that could distract from the core message or alienate middle-of-the-road former National voters. There is a fair question as to whether Labour cut off its future policy options at a time when bold thinking is needed, but as an election strategy it worked brilliantly. The party HQ also kept a firm grip on candidates to avoid media distractions, with one low-ranked list candidate even being sacked on the spot after an article emerged about an embarrassing tweet seven years earlier. Of course, this is easier when a party is succeeding, giving Labour more options to keep its candidates in line than National had. The second part of Labour’s strategy was to paint National as a risk, reversing the pattern of the last three elections. National obliged by running perhaps the most chaotic election campaign in living memory, playing out exactly the role Labour had scripted for it. Over the course of 2020, National saw three leadership changes, a string of high-profile and at times embarrassing resignations, policy confusion—including multiple contradictory positions on COVID-19, a series of damaging leaks and a fiscal plan that did not add up. The strategic disarray was evident in the National Party’s decision to deploy an election slogan under Todd Muller—“Strong Team, More Jobs, Better Economy”—which was then widely ridiculed as its MPs proceeded to leak, resign in disgrace and fumble on economic policy. It was eventually dumped by Muller’s successor, Judith Collins, just weeks before

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polling day and after she had briefly repurposed the same slogan for herself. Dumping the slogan was perhaps necessary at the time the decision was made. Research by Labour’s polling firm UMR showed that on each of the three claims, a firm majority of voters trusted Labour over National. But the episode demonstrated a party lacking a clear and credible proposition for voters. It was as if National was still fighting the last three elections and had not realised John Key and Bill English had departed the building. The brand of stability and economic competence was not theirs by right—it had to be earned, and could easily be squandered. The final confirmation that the two parties’ brands had been reversed came in an election advertisement released by Grant Robertson four days from polling day, which called on National voters who had previously backed Key and English to give their vote to Labour in 2020. “There’s too much at stake right now to vote for National”, he said. “Whatever they might have been in the past, they’re just not in a fit state to be the government right now”. Faced with a clear choice been sticking with the trusted leadership of Ardern and a plan that was working, or a risky change to a disorganised and chaotic National Party, voters backed Labour by a record margin of 50.6 per cent—the party’s best result since 1938.

Rebranding the Act Party By David Seymour, Leader of ACT New Zealand ACT achieved its worst ever result in 2017, then its best ever result only three years later. How? What follows is a brief discussion of the branding, policy, people and campaign tactics ACT employed in the three years leading up to 17 October 2020. Our brand was tired and needed a visual refresh. We borrowed cheekily from the Free Democrats in Germany, who I visited in early 2018. They had spent more than our entire budget on advertising and their visual appearance was years ahead of ours. Uncannily, they not only shared our philosophy, but their colours were yellow and blue, like ours. They had added magenta, noting that blue, yellow and magenta were equally distributed around the colour wheel. They told me that introducing “the magenta” had generated a lot of interest and reframed how people saw the party.

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I was sceptical but, being unable to afford their level of design and not being in direct competition with them, we simply copied their colour scheme. We found over time that the change really did reframe our party. As a case in point, one of our new MPs came from the fashion industry. She wears our colours in a way that wouldn’t have worked when we were predominantly canary yellow with a blue trim. We also borrowed from the FDP a new (to us) conception of a party conference. Instead of having a traditional party convention over several days, we put on a two-hour show in an auditorium. We did it first at a tech start-up incubation space in Parnell that was hugely successful. Then we did it at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, selling 570 tickets. I did not do Dancing with the Stars for political reasons, but personal ones. We each have limited time on earth and I thought I would be mad to turn down such an opportunity. The show nevertheless had a huge impact on my public recognition, to the point people have speculated the 2020 election suffered from vote rigging, in DWTS! A paint job, better events and more recognition do not a political renaissance make, though. Perhaps in a nod to Crosby-Textor’s mantra, when in doubt, stand for something, we re-positioned the party as ACT for Freedom. That worked well with our advocating for free speech and to some extent with our firearms policy, as well as other policies such as flat tax, student education accounts and regulatory reform. Championing the End of Life Choice Act showed a number of things, such as our ability to work across the political divide for a very human cause but also a very freedom-oriented cause. End of Life Choice displayed our basic value system—people own their own property and the most important property is your own body—and then use it for something that was compassionate—the alleviation of some of the most gruesome excruciating suffering that humans face. It also showed ACT could achieve difficult things. We changed up the party’s constitution at our AGM to say that we are concerned with better public policy. One of the things that comes through in our brand is that we really do believe politicians—by choosing better policies—can make people’s lives better. We do not just talk about good intentions, but figure out how to deliver them. I think over time that has conveyed a sincerity about genuinely accepting that things are difficult and wanting to make things better. This was illustrated further when COVID-19 hit New Zealand and we took the decision as an opposition party to offer constructive criticism where necessary, and helpful

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suggestions when possible. It was hugely helpful to our brand that we tried to ensure that New Zealand got the best possible deal in uncertain times by being positive and constructive. Our brand was “we think the world’s got some pretty serious challenges and New Zealand is not immune to those, and we’re going to need some really good critical thinking and have honest conversations to navigate it”. We also sought to build a good team. In June 2019 we started a school of practical politics, the name being taken from the Manning Centre in Canada. We used a book, Winning Power by Tom Flanagan, a guru behind Stephen Harper’s rise. We took candidates and used this to teach lessons about the objectives of politics, how to do a media interview and how to write a campaign plan. The 10 MPs elected are an exciting team. We have an excellent demographic balance, and seven out of 10 have run a small business. In the campaign we undertook a bus tour around the country. It showed that we were prepared to listen. Hearing from people up and down the country every day also kept us grounded. It meant that when we got media coverage, we were saying things that we had heard from real people many times. In terms of targeting, people who believed in free speech were drawn to ACT. The firearm community were joined by the rural sector, SMEs, or people who felt alienated by the way the Government operated. The Government may have been popular, but it often crushes people’s initiatives and enterprises with a populist approach to regulation. By the time we did post-election voter research, our coalition had grown significantly. The research showed that we had 5 per cent in practically every demographic—gender, ethnic, income, rural, urban occupation. It does not look like a niche small right-wing party, but the foundation of a very big tent. As for the future, the conventional wisdom is that we are at the top of the cycle from which we will naturally decline. But history is not destiny. Sometimes there are step changes. In New Zealand, these appear to occur about every fifty years. There was the Treaty, Seddon’s Liberals and Kate Sheppard, the First Labour Government and the Fourth Labour Government. In each cycle, we pass through good times, dissension, then reform. I believe New Zealand is about ready for reform. We are in the dissension phase and some of the problems we face include poor productivity growth, a welfare state that has not worked for a distinct group of

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people, uneven property ownership and social difficulties around freedom of expression. My goal is that ACT, as a party of thoughtful reformers who really do care about public policy, could play an important role in a new reform cycle of digesting big problems.

Marketing a Minor Party: The Case of Top (The Opportunities Party) in 2020 By Shai Navot—Leader and former Deputy Leader of The Opportunities Party We always knew getting over the 5 per cent threshold would be an enormous mountain to climb. It is no coincidence that no new political party has entered Parliament since MMP began that did not first have its origins in a pre-existing parliamentary party. Many of the political rules, particularly around electoral funding and representation on the public stage, are skewed in favour of incumbent power. As a small party, with a very small amount of money, we knew we had to do things differently. For context, while the 2020 election was The Opportunities Party’s second election, it was other than in a name, an entirely new political party to the one in 2017. At the beginning of the campaign we were still trying to build awareness of not just our brand, but of our very existence as distinct from the 2017 version. We no longer had a well-known public face of the party, and between elections we had changed our logo and all visual branding. Instead of relying on personality we set out to shift public attention to focus on policy solutions as our product instead. Hindsight is clear that this was an overly optimistic course to take for those of us who consider politics should be about policy, and political discourse should be about substantive plans to address the large societal, environmental and economic issues our country faces. But it meant being the evidence-based party was reinforced as a cornerstone of our brand (I will come back to the power of personality later). The Opportunities Party promoted policies far more heavily in paid advertising than competitors, particularly Labour and National, who focussed purely on brand messaging and personality. On the one hand, our policy advertising generated greater social media engagement and we had the most successful campaign on YouTube with our “Policy in a Minute” videos (PIMs). The success of the PIMs reinforces the importance of politicians simplifying their message succinctly so they are easily

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and widely understood. The PIMs were also a distinctive product, as no other party were marketing their policies in that way. On the other hand however, it also meant that we focussed heavily on connecting with people’s reason, educating on policy—the “what”—and not enough time articulating our vision or our “why”, or connecting with people’s hearts and emotions. Embedding the “why” into a political brand is important to help people quickly decide whether or not they will align with you. Clear positioning and a clear strategy about who the audience is are critical for any political party, particularly for a new and small challenger. The first question many voters wanted to know was whether our party was left or right. People feel compelled to put you in a particular box in order to find a shortcut to understand who you are and what you stand for. Now The Opportunities Party is neither, and in trying to move away from partisan politics positioning becomes more challenging. Our positioning then leaned on the policy outcomes we were trying to achieve, rather than on ideology or political persuasions. To that end, we identified early four key policy areas that we centred our campaign on: affordable housing and rents, a universal basic income, smart small business and a climate friendly recovery. It also meant we had a very broad audience of people drawn to solutions (not dog whistling), including both millennials and those over 65 concerned about the future for their children and grandchildren. A greater budget would have also allowed more targeted messages to different segments, because the more specific you can be with your message the more you will resonate with specific voters. That was unfortunately not a luxury we had. Reaching your audience is an obvious requirement, but unfortunately how much money you have determines the means with which you can achieve that. The limited funding we had available compared to other political parties meant we had to run an almost exclusively online advertising campaign during the election period, and overall our campaign relied on social media, and predominantly on Facebook. While we ran a very successful social media campaign, broader political recognition is essential, and in New Zealand mainstream media exposure is critical to that end. In this way, the media effectively plays a significant role in picking and choosing the winners of an election before citizens have even cast a single vote, because if they do not talk about you people do not know who you are. Media coverage is therefore oxygen for any political campaign, and it was a constant battle to get the media to talk about us. This is where personality or celebrity has a special power, because they

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often provide the basis for the media to tell a story around. This may help explain why Newshub Nation provided more airtime to a leader who was a conspiracy theorist than to our leader who was an economist. Capturing the media’s interest and retaining it is therefore an essential step to legitimise and raise the voice of any small party, and should be central to any communications strategy. Overall, The Opportunities Party used limited resources effectively, and by the end of the campaign our brand was associated with our flagship policies, and generally associated as the “party for housing” or the “party for a universal basic income”. While we received just 1.5 per cent of the vote, in a year of a global pandemic, and battling against the Jacindamania red wave, we successfully raised awareness of our brand—and created a basis on which we can grow and develop that brand over the next three years.

Political Marketing of Policy in a Coalition Government By Mike Munro, Chief of Staff to Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, January 2018– June 2019 From the time of its formation in October 2017, the Labour–NZF–Green government was acutely aware of the political management challenge ahead of it. While we adopted a positive line of spin at the time, labelling ourselves “the most MMP of governments”, the reality was that the government’s precarious architecture—46 Labour seats, nine New Zealand First and eight Green, totalling just two more seats than the 61 needed to govern—suggested that testing times lay in wait. To provide policy direction, there were a pair of guiding documents. Labour and New Zealand First were bound by a Coalition Agreement. The document was not overly complex—six and a half pages in total, and containing about 60 bullet-pointed “coalition priorities”, some of them prescriptive, others woolly generalities. The Greens backed Labour on confidence and supply, with the two parties’ agreement, similar in length to the coalition deal, covering off a 20-item policy programme. But it was clear that style would matter as much as substance. We recognised the imperative of demonstrating cohesion and stability as we delivered on the policy agreements, and dealt with the other day-today business and vagaries of government. The Prime Minister’s letter of

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expectations to ministers urged the parties to work together “in good faith and with no surprises, reflecting appropriate notice and consultation in important matters”. So, from the outset, a paramount need to avoid the scourge of disunity, that nemesis of governments, was well understood by all. Projecting to the public an image of a joined-up government with a shared vision and shared priorities would require ruthlessly professional management. We also recognised that we would have to combat the naysayers, namely the National Party opposition and a handful of the more jaundiced commentators, who believed our weak mandate would eventually undo us. Their view was that the governing arrangements were so rickety that they would unravel within the 2017–2020 parliamentary term, a forlorn hope as it turned out. Consultation, communication and negotiation were key. Protocols were put in place for consultation to be constant and meaningful, and ministerial offices were left in no doubt about the expectations upon them. It was important, for the sake of harmony, that we built trust between the governing parties. There could be no surprises. Draft cabinet papers, for instance, had to be shared sufficiently well in advance of the lodgement date, so that feedback could be provided. Significant announcements and speeches were circulated to the partner parties before being finalised. Whenever Labour, NZ First and Green ministers had a shared portfolio interest in a particular policy, they would meet to discuss how to progress it. The chiefs of staff from the three parties had regular one-on-one catch-ups to iron out any niggles and keep each other appraised of emerging business. These relationships formed much of the glue for the Coalition-plus-Greens project. Things did not always go as planned. There were lapses, especially in the early months that created intra-government tensions. On numerous occasions cabinet papers were delayed after parties complained about the lack of time they had to read them, let alone suggest amendments. At such times the relevant paper had to be given more time for feedback, and then lodged at a later date. On other occasions ministers from across the three parties simply couldn’t agree, or Labour ministers weren’t prepared to moderate and triangulate policies to the extent that NZ First wanted. Some policies, notably the proposed capital gains tax, Auckland light rail, the proposed installation of cameras on fishing boats and a proposal barring the development of new mines on conservation land, never got past the consultation stage. They were simply parked after NZ First

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contrariness frustrated their progress. Andrew Little, as Justice Minister, had to abandon his planned repeal of the Three Strikes legislation (under which a person convicted of a third serious offence then receives the maximum sentence, without parole) after he riled NZ First by announcing the measure in apparent disregard of NZ First’s opposition to it. (Little was adamant that NZ First had earlier indicated its support for his cabinet paper.) But for the most part the collaborative arrangements worked well. Where they could, ministers shared platforms, holding joint press conferences and issuing joint media releases. Labour, NZ First and Green ministers customarily had each others’ backs in the House. Consultation processes, while lumpy at first, improved over time. Given the enormous volume of business that is transacted within government, the differences—always seized on and highlighted by media—were relatively few. The Coalition Government worked hard to present as a successful and unified administration, and its record suggests that this was the image that was typically projected to the public. Given this, my advice for incoming political advisors in a party entering a coalition government would be: 1. Keep focussed on priorities—keep your minister focussed on the government’s agreed priorities. There are myriad distractions in politics, and ministers are prone to going on flights of fancy or pursuing pet projects. An adept political advisor will keep bringing his/her minister back to government priorities, and not allow the minister to be captured by officials or vested interests. 2. Follow the no-surprises protocol—it is there to protect your minister, and your government. As an advisor you are the minister’s eyes and ears, charged with keeping them clear of danger. Don’t allow them to be ambushed. And where there are coalition/support arrangements in place, make sure there is rigorous consultation, so partners are not surprised. This can lead to destabilising tensions. 3. Keep in lockstep with the press secretary/media handlers— from a political management standpoint, it is critical that a political advisor keeps abreast of media issues relevant to the minister’s portfolios, but also to be aware of what is happening across the wider government.

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Building on Housing Delivery Challenges Tom James, Press Secretary for Hon Michael Wood and former Press Secretary for Hon Phil Twyford Labour was successful at the 2017 election partly due to it recognising New Zealand’s housing crisis and proposing policy to tackle it. This was in stark contrast to the National Government which could not even bring itself to call it a crisis, despite selling off thousands of state houses, homeownership being at a 60-year low and house prices increasing by 65 per cent in Auckland. Labour proposed a range of measures to tackle the crisis, including well-established KiwiBuild policy of 100,000 new affordable homes for first home buyers over ten years. Despite questions being raised about how achievable this target was, the party stuck with it and after the 2017 election, got to work on delivering the programme. It did not go as well as we hoped. By the end of 2020, KiwiBuild had become in the words of one journalist, “a potent symbol of the Government’s failure to deliver on its promises”, with less than a thousand homes built. For a time, it was a distraction from the progress the Government was making on housing. This meant that while the public and journalists could easily tell you that KiwiBuild had not met expectations, they could not tell you about many of the gains the Government had made in housing, including stopping the sale of existing homes to foreign speculators and National’s state house sell-off, implementing the Residential Tenancies Act reforms and the Healthy Homes Guarantee to make life better for renters, as well as building more than 4000 state homes for those in need. There were a range of factors that got us to this point. Expectations The 100,000 homes target was bold, but it also meant expectations were high. People rightly calculated that on average 10,000 houses would need to be built every year over the ten-year programme. It would be impossible to meet those expectations in the first few years. In August 2018, when I became a press secretary for the Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phil Twyford, work had already been done to help manage expectations in the short term with interim targets. The Government expected that it would build 1000 KiwiBuild homes by July 2019,

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a further 5000 by July 2020 and then ramp up construction every year to meet the 100,000 target. While this helped to dampen down expectations for the first year, unfortunately at the beginning of 2019 only 33 homes were completed. The programme had also lost its lead official at the end of 2018 after an employment dispute, and following that it became clear the programme would not meet the mid-2019 target. That is when the interim targets were scrapped and a policy reset foreshadowed to help address the programme’s issues. While this was portrayed as a failure at the time, it did help prevent getting the same run up of stories every year questioning if the mid-year targets would be reached. Form The KiwiBuild Unit was originally set up within the policy-focussed Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment at the end of 2017 (and then later put into the newly created Ministry of Housing and Urban Development) with the view to putting it quickly into a yet to be created urban development authority. This proved a problem for several reasons. One was that every initial development decision had to be signed off by the Minister instead of a board, which meant there was not an extra layer of expertise and scrutiny on those early decisions. It also meant there was not the experience of dealing with the sector like what the Government’s state house builder Housing New Zealand had, which could have been useful when securing those early agreements and getting builds going quickly. It would take much longer than expected to create the urban development authority with Kainga Ora finally formed in October 2019, but it would bring together Housing New Zealand and KiwiBuild into one place. This would make sure there was a good base of experience with the residential building sector to help the programme going forward. Communications Our office did try and follow principles of delivery marketing and communicate progress through highlighting milestones, for example, when the first KiwiBuild houses were completed and when regional housing developments got underway. We also were very upfront with progress and the lack thereof, including providing regular updates and fronting as soon as it became clear we would not make the first year target. In addition,

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we tried to highlight the wider success of the housing programme, with initiatives like regionalised announcements of the successful state housing build programme. However, stories tended to be framed with how other projects were successful despite KiwiBuild or wondering if new initiatives could be done given how slow KiwiBuild was off the mark. It would take a new minister and a major shakeup of the policy to get a clean break. New Housing Minister’s Strategy After a ministerial reshuffle mid-2019, new Housing Minister Megan Woods and her team set out to make changes. Minister Woods’ reset in September 2019 made some helpful tweaks, including dumping the 100,000 target, which meant there was no longer a giant number officially hanging over the policy. Minister Woods also had the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development start releasing a monthly housing dashboard, which put the Government’s entire build programme in context. It includes data such as the number of first home buyers, total consents, as well as the number of state, community and KiwiBuild houses built. The reset also helped blunt the criticism that KiwiBuild was still too expensive for many by rolling out the long-promised progressive home ownership scheme to get more families into affordable home ownership. Now KiwiBuild is no longer the daily political issue it once was for the Government. Lessons for Practitioners There are some useful takeaways for practitioners from this saga. Managing expectations pre-election is crucial. If the policy had been adjusted before getting into government or straight after, I am sure the fact that there are as of writing around 700 families able to move into new, affordable homes would be seen as a decent start—especially in light of the fact first home buyers are making up a larger proportion of the market partly thanks to the other steps the Government has taken. It is also important to make sure the agency you have implementing the policy is well set up to do so. Giving a policy-focussed ministry the task of entering the residential construction industry was not ideal. I also believe fronting with the public, being honest that it was not meeting expectations and then fixing it helped. Despite the issues, 60 per cent of Kiwis still backed the programme on the last public poll, and the feedback we got from

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talking to the public was at least Labour was trying rather than ignoring the problem, like the previous government did. While not a posterchild of successful policy delivery, the programme will continue building up New Zealand’s stock of new affordable houses and apartments, and help many Kiwi families get into their first home.

Communicating Political Partnership and Progressive Policy: The Green Party’s 2020 Experience Robin Campbell—Green Party’s Research & Policy Director in 2020 These are Robin Campbell’s personal views and do not represent the views of the Green Party. The usual experience in Aotearoa New Zealand under the Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system is that small parties lose voter support when they support larger parties to form a government. Also, voters often move between parties of the left and centre-left like the Green and Labour parties, without increasing the parties’ combined support. In 2020, the Green Party broke both these conventions, after a term as a support partner with ministers in the Labour-led coalition Government. Green support rose 26 per cent, from 6.27 per cent of the nationwide party vote at the 2017 election to 7.9 per cent in 2020, giving the party two more Members of Parliament (MPs). Labour’s support also rose. The Green Party achieved this by campaigning as a productive and progressive partner to the Labour Party. Understanding Voters Although the Green Party’s polling was steady at around 6 per cent throughout the 2017–2020 parliamentary term, political history and the popularity of Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggested it would be a challenge to maintain this on Election Day. The Greens undertook many rounds of quantitative and qualitative research to better understand people who were considering voting Green. This helped the party reach the right people with messages that would resonate with them.

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Communicating Influence From 2017 to 2020, the Greens achieved significant legislative and regulatory changes, as well as funding for priority policies. These included the Zero Carbon Act, negotiating the end of new offshore oil and gas exploration, protections for endangered M¯aui and Hector dolphins, a progressive home ownership programme, the Jobs for Nature employment programme, as well as significant increases in funding for conservation, cycling infrastructure and the prevention of family violence and sexual violence. Communicating these achievements showed the positive effect the Greens could have in partnership with Labour. Major speeches by Green MPs outlined these achievements. Social media content showcased “Green Wins” and the party’s website was updated to highlight them. New policy announcements referred to work already begun in government. Post-election research conducted by the Greens suggests this was effective, with approximately two-thirds of surveyed Green voters naming the party’s ability to be a productive partner to Labour as a key reason for their vote choice. Political Positioning The popularity of Ardern was a major factor in 2020, for all political parties. The Green Party’s research showed that most people who were considering voting Green wanted Ardern to remain Prime Minister. This created a challenge: The Greens had to promote the unique value the party could add to a future Ardern-led government, without directly criticising Ardern, because direct criticism could disaffect potential Green supporters. In response to this challenge, the Greens developed a “further and faster” partnership message. This communicated that the Greens wanted to continue working with Ardern’s Labour Party to take the country in broadly the same direction, and the Greens would push for more transformational outcomes. Policy as a Differentiator Policy can help show people if a politician or party shares their values and wants to solve the problems they face, and announcing a policy attracts

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media attention. For the Greens in 2020, announcing policies was a way of demonstrating the “further and faster” narrative. Some Labour and Green policies were similar, but Green policies were bolder and more detailed. They showed how the Greens would seek to build on, accelerate, or embolden Labour’s agenda. The Greens focussed six major policy announcements in three areas: climate change, protecting nature and reducing economic inequality. This enabled a concentrated communications approach, increasing the likelihood that people would hear about priority policies. The Green Party’s provocative wealth tax policy attracted attention. The main opposition party, National, campaigned heavily against the proposed tax on the assets of the wealthiest 6 per cent of New Zealanders, giving the policy and the Greens more exposure. According to the party’s post-election research, this policy had a net positive rating among people considering voting Green, meaning it is likely to have attracted more votes than it deterred. The COVID-19 Election COVID-19 was the defining issue of 2020. Most New Zealanders approved of the incumbent Government’s response. For example, an April 2020 Colmar Brunton poll found that 88 per cent of New Zealanders “trust the Government to make the right decisions on Covid-19”. Rather than put forward an alternative approach to managing the pandemic, as some other political parties did, the Green Party openly supported the Prime Minister’s general approach. The party essentially allied itself with the rest of the “team of five million”—a phrase used in official Government communication to encourage New Zealanders to follow public health rules—which tapped into the public’s collective action mind-set. However, COVID-19 did create opportunities to differentiate from Labour in specific targeted ways, while still supporting the overall approach. These included calling for greater support for low-paid essential workers, negotiating exemptions to managed isolation and quarantine facility fees for New Zealanders returning from overseas and supporting M¯aori calls for control of M¯aori community responses to the pandemic.

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Reflections for Small Parties Under MMP Other factors also contributed to the Green Party’s success in 2020. The field campaign was more sophisticated than in previous years, the campaign in the M¯aori seats was better resourced and the victory in the Auckland Central electorate deserves a full analysis of its own. The Green Party in 2020 broke the convention that small parties lose votes when they support a popular larger party in Government. The party did this by allying itself to the popular Labour Prime Minister’s approach to COVID-19, demonstrating a track record of productive partnership and focussing on six “further and faster” policies that aligned with longstanding party principles and appealed to target audiences.

Summary of Practitioner Perspectives Jennifer Lees-Marshment and Edward Elder What emerges from these insightful and rich set of perspectives are the potential for political fortunes to be changed due to circumstance, but also political marketing effectiveness. For example, the main opposition party, National, faced big challenges when campaigning because of their three key areas of focus during election year—their unified team, jobs and economy—one (team) became a weakness due to disunity, the another (economy) lost its importance in the face of a global pandemic. On the other hand, as ACT Party Leader David Seymour makes clear, the minor party saw a major upswing in fortunes after making a conscious effort to rebrand, both in terms of presentation with a new logo as well as leadership communication and policies around a new position: ACT for Freedom. Practitioner accounts also convey the challenges faced to effectively engaging in political marketing and management. The Opportunities Party Deputy Leader Shai Navot outlines a range of obstacles that lesser known minor parties face when trying to use political marketing if their leader has not had the opportunity to raise their profile through television shows, as ACT Party Leader David Seymour did on Dancing with the Stars. TOP had to spend much more on paid advertising than other parties because they had not yet developed an established brand to rely on to gain earned media, highlighting how financial resources can impact the effectiveness of political marketing. As Robin Campbell, the Green

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Party’s research and policy director makes clear, the Greens had a challenge to position themselves as distinctive to Ardern’s Labour, especially given she was so popular with Green supporters. The perspectives also discuss being in government. Ardern’s first Chief of Staff Mike Munro provides an important insight into the complexities of managing policy from the Prime Minister’s Office in a coalition government. Delivering the promised product requires effective management of divergent interests of coalition partners, especially in terms of communicating information to the right people, engaging in effective negotiation and remaining focussed on priorities. Once elected, political management is as important to success as political marketing. As ministerial advisor Tom James’s account of managing delivery in the housing area makes clear, if parties do not manage expectations going into an election it makes fulfilling promises in government very challenging. But effective political management also involves finding a way to work with government departments and agencies on the implementation of key priorities—a very different task to running a campaign. The practitioners also convey the value of political marketing, noting that market research helps to create a map, to understand challenges underneath the headline polls. It also helps to identify key messages which each party should focus on. It showed strengths that Labour could emphasise, such as competence and stability, as well as weaknesses National needed to be concerned about, such as getting their supporters out to vote and changing to a defensive strategy. Market research data was also useful for the Greens to identify messages that would resonate with prospective voters, such as conveying the influence of “Green Wins” the party had in government. Strategically, parties continue to need to offer a positive and popular core product that connects with voter’s current demands—both their needs and wants. As former Labour Party Chief of Staff Neale Jones notes, Labour adopted the “don’t put it all at risk” strategy and National “time for a change”. But if a party argues for change, they have to communicate what that change will look like. As National’s pollster David Farrar conceded “the public need to know what a party stands for. That was not the case for National in 2020”. Whereas the Greens used their policies, such as the wealth tax, to differentiate themselves from Labour and positioned themselves are pushing “further and faster” in a way that suited their specific target markets.

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Moreover, brands are subject to flux, given circumstances and party behaviours. As Jones suggests, the two major parties almost swapped brands between 2017 and 2020. Labour held the “stability” brand and National were seen as “the party of disunity”. Surprisingly, targeting is not a strong theme among these practitioners, with both ACT and TOP attracting support across demographics, echoing the findings in Chapter 8. Like many chapters in this book, the impact of COVID-19 runs through a number of the practitioner’s accounts. As Labour pollster David Talbot notes, COVID-19 was a “tectonic shift” in the political landscape. This made market research even more valuable, as it is essential in a changing landscape. It gave real insights into the public sentiment on the Government’s handling of the pandemic, so they could avoid relying on political commentary. It also helped to convey the broader nature of public views on COVID-19, which included both health and economic aspects. However, it also made it harder for National (the major opposition party) to be heard, with the public not wanting to hear their criticisms of the Government. Their traditional strength, the economy, became less relevant in the face of a health crisis. The issue’s framing changed to the post-COVID-19 economic recovery, which National did not have an established reputation to rely on, given it was global health crisis. They had to adapt their strategy to defending existing electorates rather than gaining new seats. Labour, on the other hand, avoided risk by limiting new policy announcements as much as possible. This left room for the Greens to find potential for new issues, such as championing increased support for essential workers. Lessons from Practitioner Perspectives The lessons from these practitioners’ perspectives reinforce traditional theories of political marketing, such as the importance of market research, having a positive and well-defined brand as well as offering a product that responds to voter’s core concerns. Moreover, there are some new lessons to be taken from these, including how parties should not assume a brand strength will be theirs forever. Just because a party is seen as strongest on the economy or the natural party of government does not mean they will be seen that way forever, especially if they exhibit behaviour that undermines those brand attributes. Brands have to be maintained.

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But there are other lessons for conducting political marketing during a global crisis that parties in other countries can learn from: 1. Market research is even more important in a pandemic, as everything is subject to rapid change and old assumptions can be proved incorrect on topics such as what issues voters consider most important, what aspect of them is of most concern and what the public is really thinking. Media/political commentators and politicians’ own gut feel cannot be relied on. Everything is up for change, including a party’s typical brand strengths and weaknesses. 2. Parties need to adapt strategically to the changing environment during and after a crisis. They need to be open to surprising data from market research, and change their strategy accordingly. This is not easy of course, but it is essential. New opportunities may emerge if a party is open to it.

CHAPTER 10

Political Marketing and Management During a Crisis-Dominated Election: Lessons for Practice and International Research Edward Elder and Jennifer Lees-Marshment

Abstract This chapter draws together the lessons from the research of this book for New Zealand as well as global political marketing study and practice. It summarises and synthesises the findings, explores political market research and what voters wanted, strategy, targeting, party and leadership branding, delivery, leadership campaign communication as well as election branding. It also provides research-led advice for New Zealand political parties and practitioners, as well as lessons for international research on political marketing and management during a crisis-dominated election as well as make suggestions for future research.

E. Elder (B) · J. Lees-Marshment University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] J. Lees-Marshment e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5_10

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Keywords Market research · Strategy · Branding · Communication · Delivery

Introduction This book on political marketing and management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election has both confirmed the importance of established political marketing and management concepts and highlighted the impact a global health crisis can have on these. This chapter will firstly summarise and synthesise the findings, exploring political market research and what voters wanted, strategy, targeting, party and leadership branding, delivery, leadership campaign communication as well as election branding. It will then put forward research-led advice for New Zealand political parties and practitioners created from that research. Lastly, it will suggest lessons for international research generated from this book on political marketing and management during a crisis-dominated election as well as make suggestions for future research.

Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election Political Market Research and What Voters Wanted As with any election, voter demands are complex and varied. 2020 was no exception. Analysis of data from 182,399 unique Vote Compass respondents in Chapter 2 showed how the economy was considered the most important issue by a plurality of voters, with COVID-19, healthcare, the environment, labour and housing following. The findings also highlighted the public’s desire for a more interventionist government, providing lower income adults with free dental care, free school lunches, doing more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increasing the minimum wage—potentially financed in part through increased taxes on the wealthy and corporations. It also suggested that voters wanted more protectionist action, with strong support for taxing companies that export New Zealand water, deporting foreigners convicted of criminal offences, preventing foreign ownership of residential properties and reducing reliance on other countries for goods and

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services. There is also room for leadership to move public opinion on issues such as oil and gas exploration, M¯aori rights, social welfare, property development and cannabis—where opinion was more divided or neutral. As the practitioner perspectives in Chapter 9 made clear, political market research was used extensively from 2017 to 2020. Labour’s pollster David Talbot discussed how, despite Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s popularity, Labour continued to track the public’s perception of themselves as well as how voters’ demands changed once COVID-19 hit. This identified how the public were focussed on who they trusted would lead the COVID-19 response most effectively, with qualitative research making it clear this was especially important as it pertained to healthcare and the economy. Similarly, National’s pollster David Farrar reported that National utilised market research and engaged with the public during the first two years of the term. However, the landscape changed once the pandemic hit and research showed the problems the party faced as a result, highlighting their need to adapt. The Greens’ 2020 Research & Policy Director Robin Campbell also explained how the party utilised both quantitative and qualitative research to better understand prospective voters and used the insights to help reach the right people with messages that would resonate. Strategy Despite the challenges created by COVID-19 and associated changes in market demand, some parties adapted more effectively to this new environment than others. Ardern’s strategically effective leadership brand became stronger during the crisis and, according to the Vote Compass data, led to Ardern being considered the most likeable leader during the campaign. ACT succeeded in finding a new small but diverse market and united them around a brand based on the idea of freedom. The party’s reflectiveness, responsiveness and strategic repositioning stands out as a model example of how minor parties can use political marketing effectively, with ACT leader David Seymour also promoting a more positively viewed leadership brand. The Greens survived the constraints of government that often wreak havoc on minor parties’ public standing and even slightly grew their market share, thanks in part to their understanding of their niche market. As a party campaigning without a sitting MP, the M¯aori Party got a smaller share of the party vote than in 2017. But they

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showed they better understood their supporters, both in the product they offered and their focus on appeals for M¯aori electorates votes, than they did three years earlier. Despite the Vote Compass data showing that New Zealand First’s policy positioning aligned well with public opinion more broadly, the party failed to satisfy their own ideologically fragmented supporter base and were thrown out of Parliament accordingly. National failed to recognise the need to respond more effectively to voters’ needs in election year, while their policies were poorly aligned with the broader public’s views and leader Judith Collins did not have the time to establish a well-rounded and appealing leadership image. Labour defended their position as the market leader, seeking to address weaknesses raised in past elections with a fiscal plan as well as simpler and a more limited set of new policies, thus reducing the potential for attack. They also positioned National as the challenger, a position Collins’ communication reinforced, and branded National as a risk. The Greens cemented their niche position and, as Robin Campbell made clear, supported Labour with a “further and faster” partnership message that argued the Greens would push for more transformational outcomes. They sought to differentiate themselves from Labour by offering bolder policies that would build on, but embolden, Labour’s agenda. Targeting Therefore, overall targeting effectiveness was mixed. Analysis of the Vote Compass data revealed that New Zealand First, the Greens and the M¯aori Party were the most aligned with good portions of undecided voters. Labour performed moderately well, while National and ACT’s positioning were out of line with the views of a large majority of undecided voters. The parties attracted diverse target demographics. The platforms of Labour, the Greens and the M¯aori Party were most in line with the views of people on the M¯aori electoral roll, gender diverse people as well as students and people with graduate degrees, whereas National and ACT were least in line with these groups. National and ACT’s positions were most in line with higher earners, older respondents and male voters—the same demographics the left-wing parties’ positions were weakest among. In some ways this shows effective positioning, as parties were attracting distinctive groups of voters instead of chasing after the same centre.

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However, for the two major parties who have more ambitious electoral goals, attention needs to be paid to the demographic groupings they aligned relatively less well with, given the current size of or likely future growth among these demographics. The outlier was New Zealand First, whose policy positions on average correlated the most with undecided voters, but failed to turn policy support into actual votes on Election Day. In terms of ethnic marketing, as discussed by Zhao in Chapter 8, neither major party targeted Chinese voters effectively in 2020, despite National’s previous effectiveness in this area. Additionally, as Malik explained in the same chapter, the Greens’ youth-aligned candidate, Chlöe Swarbrick, targeted young people effectively through youthoriented language cues and interactive communication over a prolonged period of time. ACT’s youth-aligned candidate, Brooke van Velden, relied more on traditional one-way communication. The Greens and the M¯aori Party were most closely aligned with the views of their own supporters, while National and ACT’s positions were least in line with theirs. As a result, Labour engaged in overt targeting of former John Key-era National voters in the last week of the campaign through a video by Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Ardern’s closing statement at the final TVNZ Leaders’ Debate. Party and Leadership Branding Party and leadership branding were significant in 2020. Over the threeyear term, Ardern’s relatable and empathetic leadership brand was cemented with added competence through her management of repeated crises. As Jalil noted in Chapter 3, the focus on the Government and the “Team of Five Million” during COVID-19 reinforced and built on that brand. ACT turned their worse election result ever in 2017 into their best in 2020 by using comprehensive rebranding, including a new logo and positioning their policies under the theme of freedom, most notably with their championing of euthanasia legalisation and their leadership of the referendum campaign. In complete contrast, National started the term with a strong brand, but as Du Plessis-Allen made clear in Chapter 4, their behaviour in a range of areas eroded it. National’s disunity, negativity and changes in leadership during 2020 saw the public’s perception of their governing competence destroyed. New Zealand First’s brand was ill suited to being in government, and Winston Peters’ last minute effort

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to distance himself from the Government while Deputy Prime Minister appeared inauthentic. This, combined with the declining public perception of Peters, eroded the potential value of the populist policy platform they offered. Delivery Delivery was a key challenge for the Labour-led Government during their first two years. Labour was hindered by their failure to ensure their 2017 campaign pledges were achievable and did not reset or adjust them effectively once in office. Although Labour achieved quick wins through their 100-day delivery plan, as Mike Munro has noted in Chapter 9, their ability to deliver was constrained by the competing views of their coalition partners. As Tom James argued, KiwiBuild became a symbol of failed delivery when pitted against the excessive expectations raised in 2017. Labour’s coalition partner New Zealand First’s achievements often focussed on stopping Labour’s proposals, such as the implementation of a capital gains tax, while the Greens were more closely associated with achievements such as the Zero Carbon Act. Labour’s attempts to communicate the progress they had made often focussed on listing achievements without conveying the benefits they brought to people’s lives. However, as Chapter 6 made clear, effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic and Ardern’s polite populist strategy masked delivery failure in other areas. It also positioned the election as being about which leader could deliver in a crisis, reflecting Labour’s market research into voters’ core concerns. The Greens also proved effective at communicating achievements. As Campbell explained, they used “Green Wins” to highlight progress to their niche market. New Zealand First, on the other hand, failed to convey progress to satisfy their supporters.

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Leadership Campaign Communication As Elder and Büdler noted in Chapter 7, Ardern and Collins displayed notably different communication strategies that emphasised different aspects of their governing leadership qualities, personalities and their differing leadership positions. Like Jalil, Elder and Büdler noted that being Prime Minister during the pandemic gave Ardern an advantage, as she was able to showcase her government’s successful response to COVID-19, thus promote competence, by weaving campaign communication with campaign-oriented government communication and social marketing. Ardern was also able to rely on her natural and established personal qualities to use subtle but consistent verbal and visual cues to promote responsiveness and credibility. Collins’ use of first-person singular pronouns made her appear more distant and less responsive to the public. Attempts to convey leadership strength through visual cues played into her established image as “Crusher Collins”, a tough politician who would get things done. However, her criticisms of the Government’s COVID-19 management and focus on the economic losses from lockdowns backfired given the level of buy-in the New Zealand public had in the Government’s strategy. Branding the Whole Election As always, behind every effective strategy and brand is political market research. The 2020 New Zealand General Election was not just affected by COVID-19, but explicitly branded as the COVID election by Labour. This reflected the party’s responsiveness to the market research noted by Talbot that showed the question the public was asking at this election was, “Who do I trust to deliver the best COVID response?” The core benefit of political marketing is that politicians make informed decisions in response to where the public sit and what they think. Despite failures in delivery marketing, Labour were able to take advantage of the public’s redirected focus towards the crisis and position themselves as the safest pair of hands to manage it. However, the public’s focus will not remain on COVID-19 forever. Thus, Labour, along with all parties, need to reflect and consider important lessons from the research in this book.

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Advice for New Zealand Political Parties and Practitioners Labour: Beware the Shifting Sands of Support 1. Understand the large market share won in 2020 partly reflects poor political marketing by the Opposition. 2. Defend the market share by delivering key initiatives for the different segments, especially 2020’s undecided voters and more populous demographic groupings, to convert them into a long-term support base. 3. Reframe delivery within the post-COVID environment where needed. 4. Convey a clear vision for a more prosperous and inclusive New Zealand that will appeal to the broad coalition and create priorities from the 2020 5-point plan that align with that vision. 5. Form an operationally focussed unit to drive delivery. 6. Communicate delivery of priorities and progress over time towards broader transformation. 7. Ensure Ardern shows empathy for the economic fallout of COVID19. 8. Develop Team Labour to ensure the party becomes more than a party of Ardern, shows more ministers delivering and maintains unity within the large caucus. 9. Practice more genuine targeting through the creation of direct appeals that are designed explicitly for the unique demographic in question, rather than simply translating established messages. National: Be Reflective, Respectful and Entrepreneurial 1. This time, accept the election loss. 2. Listen to voters across the spectrum rather than just vocal party loyalists. 3. Decontaminate the existing brand; disconnect it from overt negativity, abstract economic indicators, a harsh leadership style and image of internal disunity. 4. Conduct new qualitative market research to understand the new political market who can help co-create or suggest distinctive, centre-right forms of government intervention.

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5. Spend the time in opposition building a new product with policies that are more responsive to key target markets, as well as help New Zealand adapt, innovate and thrive post-pandemic, to increase market share. 6. Avoid focussing on attacking the Government’s handling of the pandemic. Instead, emphasise what National would offer in government to convey the party as a competent government in waiting. 7. Design a fresh and palatable brand that encapsulates the new product while ensuring all behaviour aligns with it. 8. Improve the leaders’ reputation, conveying a broader more likeable character and developing a popular and unique brand position. 9. Build and rebuild the party’s relationship with important voting blocs of the future, such as younger New Zealanders more broadly and Chinese New Zealanders specifically, in order to convert them into long-term supporters. The Greens: Navigate a Distinctive Path 1. Continue to navigate a path that partners with, but is distinctive from, Labour by pushing for faster and more robust government action in key areas. 2. Continue to listen to and serve the party’s own environmentally focussed supporters as well as key demographics such as students, younger New Zealanders more broadly and people with advanced degrees. 3. Capitalise on Labour’s more cautious governing philosophy by appealing to the more left-leaning block of Labour’s current large electoral coalition through policies and messages that emphasises an environmentally sustainable and compassionate post-COVID-19 economic vision. 4. Utilise ministerial positions to deliver on issues important to core supporters and utilise existing and upcoming social media platforms to communicate delivery. 5. Maintain and emphasise youth-relatable MP Chlöe Swarbrick’s effective relationship marketing with younger New Zealanders. 6. Begin to emphasise how the Greens would be a viable and effective full coalition partner to a Labour-led government if Labour appear unlikely to regain their single-party majority status.

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ACT: Understand and Unite a Volatile Coalition Around the Freedom Brand 1. Understand that the party’s increase in support is volatile and is not built on one demographic with a consistent set of views on every issue. 2. Conduct new market research to understand the expectations of these different groups of new supporters to understand what unites them, what is important to them and where their views differ. 3. Ensure any changes to the product over time fit into, and maintain the public perception of, the party’s freedom-focussed brand. 4. Maintain the unique and popular positioning of the leader. 5. Communicate a sense of the new ACT team, connecting their unique characteristics to distinctive issues and different demographics—e.g. develop youth-relatable Deputy Party Leader Brooke van Velden’s communication to suit younger potential voters. 6. Avoid falling into the trap of being a strictly oppositional party. Emphasise what ACT would do as part of a government as well as how the party would work with National as a potential coalition partner. The M¯ aori Party: Build and Grow the Party’s Niche 1. Draw on parliamentary resources to represent the party’s niche market and communicate action in the areas these voters care about. 2. Make an overt effort to hold hui and conduct market research to maintain an understanding of what party’s supporters want, considering this may have changed, or may change, given the pandemic. 3. Review positions on conscience issues to see if the party’s supporters are more socially liberal than where the party stood in 2020 and adjust accordingly. 4. Utilise the visibility of having two MPs to put the issues supporters care about on the public agenda. 5. Broaden the party’s appeal among their niche market by promoting the product more widely while catering to a younger cohort with more socially liberal views within it. 6. Create a campaign strategy that looks to both increase the party’s number of M¯aori electorate seats while placing more attention on increasing the party’s percentage of the party vote.

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New Zealand First: Respond to a New Audience with Protectionist-Oriented Views 1. Conduct market research to better understand voters’ economic concerns, uncertainty about the future and increasingly protectionist views. 2. Conduct qualitative market research, especially co-creation research, to identify potential solutions to these concerns. 3. Develop suggested solutions into unique policy positions. 4. Adopt differentiated positioning on issues such as the environment and housing to target a newer generation of more socially conservative, economically nationalistic and potentially less well-educated working-class voters that no party currently in Parliament is catering to. 5. Revise the 2020 position on taxing wealthier people and corporations to something more in line with the party’s established populist brand. 6. Adapt the party’s overall image from one focussed on stopping “the establishment” to one focussed on getting stuff done for their new “forgotten” support base.

Lessons for International Research: Political Marketing and Management During a Crisis-Dominated Election The research in this book has generated lessons for international research that both reaffirm conventional political marketing and management principles and suggests new tactics that are important in a crisis-dominated election. These will be useful when studying and practising political marketing and management in other countries around the world. General Lessons for Political Marketing and Management Research into the 2020 New Zealand General Election showed that political market research remains useful—even when an incumbent politician and party is very popular—to track trends as well as keep an eye out for changes and new opportunities. Such research can also inform major parties when they are in trouble and need to adapt accordingly. Also, as the Greens showed, it is valuable for minor parties seeking to identify the

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most strategically effective messages for their niche markets, even when hampered by the compromises made as part of a government. The research also emphasised how the political product parties offer encompasses more than just the policies they propose. Policy alone does not determine electoral success. As shown in Table 10.1, the analysis of Vote Compass data suggested that if election results were based purely on policy positions, New Zealand First and the Greens would be the two leading political parties in New Zealand, followed by the M¯aori Party. Nevertheless, National’s lack of market-orientation and lower alignment with public views was a substantial strategic error, while Labour’s continual responsiveness to voter sentiment and satisfaction on COVID19 in particular was encapsulated in the slogans “Don’t Put It All at Risk” and “Let’s Keep Moving”. The disparate electoral success of Labour and National highlighted the importance of having a strategy that reflects market conditions while adopting and communicating unique positions within it to avoid competing for the same voters. What Table 10.1 specifically and the research in this book more broadly emphasised is the importance of the overall product, including the likeability of the party leader and the party brand. Indeed, developing a brand that is aspirational, has symbolic value, is reassuring, simple and different from their competitors remains important. However, the 2020 election Table 10.1 The election and Vote Compass results on policy and leader likeability

Election results Party vote Swing Seats Seat change Vote Compass Overall Supporters Undecided Leader likeability

Labour

National

Greens

ACT

M¯ aori

NZ First

50.01% +13.11% 65 +19

25.58% −18.87% 33 −23

7.86% +1.59% 10 +2

7.58% +7.08% 10 +9

1.17% −0.01% 2 +2

2.60% −4.61% 0 −9

42.21% 47.98% 41.59% 6.73

32.60% 38.73% 30.99% 3.79

47.08% 65.97% 45.67% 3.67*

27.64% 36.08% 25.74% 4.44

44.94% 60.15% 43.70% 2.45*

47.81% 45.70% 47.57% 3.07

Source Vote Compass New Zealand 2020 n = 182,399 * Average of co-leaders’ likeability

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also showed that the value of political brands can be changed drastically, both negatively and positively, in just three years. The brand of stability and economic competence normally associated with National was associated with Labour instead, reflecting changes in actual behaviour, whereas ACT’s rebranding helped them go from their worst to their best electoral result in the space of three years. This shows that successful brand attributes need to be maintained, even if they are well established. A party’s long-held positive brand reputation for governing competence, a long-time pillar of the public’s evaluation of incumbent and potential governing parties, can be destroyed within three years if they are plagued by internal disunity. Parties can also reverse a negative brand image as long as their rebranding involves actual product changes, including increasing the leader’s perceived likeability and adopting popular yet distinctive policies, rather than surface-level changes to the party’s presentation, such as their logo. The research also reinforced the importance of delivery to electoral success. But it also reinforced the many variables governments face in trying to deliver, thus highlighting the importance of effective political management. Pre-election expectation management is crucial, with overambitious policies needing to be adjusted before, or at least soon after, getting elected. Once in power, governments need to keep focussed on their priorities in order to succeed, while minor party partners need to communicate their successes, the progress they have made and influence they have. Lessons from the COVID-19 Crisis: Continued but Adaptive Political Marketing As one of the first, if not the first, book into conducting political marketing during a global crisis, this has generated lessons that parties in other countries can learn from. There is no doubt that during a global pandemic, political marketing is more challenging. Market research conducted to determine what the public wanted prior to a crisis becomes defunct, making it harder to have a feel for, or measure, public views. Any policies that a party previously designed have to be altered or abandoned in light of the crisis, while the longer term economic implications and key sectors need to be taken into consideration. Lessons specific to each area of political marketing are outlined in Table 10.2. The overall lesson is that political marketing continues to be just as, if not more, important in a global crisis. But it also has to be used adaptively.

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Table 10.2 The impact of a crisis on political marketing Market research 1. A crisis changes the political market, its demands and views, while making it more volatile 2. Parties need to continually refresh their market research to understand voters’ evolving priorities 3. Market research is also valuable to understand the public’s perception of the crisis and the government’s management and communication around it 4. While the crisis can create new challenges, market research can help identify new opportunities for success, as long as the party is willing to adapt quickly 5. Media reports are less aligned with public opinion or are based on human interest and anecdotal evidence in a crisis, so rely more on professional market research 6. Political leaders need to use market research to help generate and communicate a new sense of direction and adaptability given the drastically changing circumstances Strategy 1. Parties and politicians need to adapt strategically to the changing environment and corresponding market research data during and after a crisis 2. A crisis places even greater focus on the government than the opposition, which both groups need to consider in strategy development 3. How well the government is perceived to be handling the crisis also needs to be taken into consideration in strategy development 4. The traditional defensive strategies of incumbent governments that focus on promoting risk aversion can be reinforced through communication about the government’s crisis management 5. Minor parties need to adapt in a way that reflects the change in circumstances while still oriented towards and focussed on their own niche markets Branding 1. A crisis means parties’ typical brand strengths and weaknesses are suddenly open to change 2. Effective crisis management helps to improve a party and leader brand, helping add or reinforce a brand image of governing competence 3. Attacks on an incumbent who is perceived as handling a crisis well can undermine and damage an opposition’s brand image of responsiveness and governing competence 4. Adaptive election branding by an incumbent governing party that places emphasis on the crisis can prime the public to place greater emphasis on the crisis in their voting considerations—strategically wise as long as said governing party’s management of the crisis is viewed favourably 5. International political brand equity is important in a global crisis, as voters compare their government’s handling of the crisis against those in other countries

(continued)

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Table 10.2 (continued) Communication 1. A crisis makes it harder to convey delivery or lack of delivery, and harder to put non-crisis issues or new products on the agenda 2. Effective relational communication is more important for political leaders during a crisis in order to emphasise empathy and understanding around the effects of the crisis on voters 3. Using communication strategies that are beneficial for a governing leader’s own public image is also indirectly beneficial in a crisis, as it gives them more political capital to get the public on board with their crisis management strategy 4. A crisis during or close to an election campaign creates opportunities for the incumbent leader to strategically weave crisis-focussed government communication with campaign communication for electoral purposes, while making it harder for opposition leaders to get attention 5. Communication needs to be developed and delivered based on the context of public perception around how well the government has managed the crisis Delivery 1. A crisis takes attention away from failed delivery, as managing the crisis becomes the key delivery issue 2. General delivery or governing competence is important during a crisis, as leaders need to take the public with them when making decisions in government

Suggestions for Future Research The research findings from this book thus open new avenues for future research in political marketing, such as: • How can political parties—who have spent years researching, designing and implementing their product and brand—alter these at short notice in light of an event that drastically affects public sentiment in a way that is both responsive and strategically effective? • How important are the boarder policy offerings of a political party to the public perception of their product and, thus, their electoral success? Can parties show more leadership when creating policies in areas that are not considered important to the public or target voters? • How can an opposition party, and opposition leader in particular, effectively promote an alternative product and vision when the incumbent government and governing leader are taking action on salient issues that are supported by a large majority of the public?

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• Prescriptively, what should campaign-oriented government communication and social marketing look like? When is it possible to utilise such communication? How does this differ from regular government communication? • Is targeting more broadly, and targeted communication specifically, as important during a crisis that unifies and dominates public attention, especially early on? • How can women in leadership effectively communicate the qualities expected of governing leaders when the public have been conditioned to decode male-oriented cues of leadership as the norm? • How can non-breakaway minor parties outside of Parliament utilise the tools of political marketing without the budget or attention given to breakaway minor parties with sitting MPs? While this book has shed light on political marketing and management in New Zealand during a unique period in time, the issues raised are ones researchers need to consider on a global scale.

Appendix---New Zealand 2020 Vote Compass Data

Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in New Zealand exclusively by TVNZ. Unless otherwise stated, the findings are based on 182,399 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from August 30, 2020 to October 19, 2020, who provided demographic information required for sample weighting and were unique respondents. Acknowledgements are due to Cliff van der Linden and Justin Savoie from Vox Pop Labs for providing this data.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5

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Note These findings are based on 145,017 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from August 30, 2020 to October 19, 2020 who answered the open-text question: “What issue is most important to you in this election?”.

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Index

A ACT, 2, 13–16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 32–34, 60–62, 66, 67, 70, 72, 74, 76, 77, 110, 112, 127, 131–134, 145, 147, 151–153, 158, 160, 161 Advert/advertising, 4, 38, 48, 49, 51, 96, 98, 99, 101, 102, 105, 125, 131, 134, 135, 145 Ardern, Jacinda, 2, 4–8, 10, 11, 15, 28–32, 34, 36–44, 51, 53, 80, 81, 83–92, 96–107, 116, 126, 128–131, 142, 143, 151, 153–156 Authenticity, 39, 88, 96, 99, 100, 104–106

B Brand/branding, 2, 4, 9, 11, 15, 16, 22, 27, 28, 31, 33, 36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 48, 50, 51, 53, 54, 62, 63, 74, 76, 77, 118,

127–129, 131–136, 145, 147, 148, 150–153, 155–163 re-branding, 2, 13, 27, 28, 62, 72, 123, 131, 145, 153, 161 Bridges, Simon, 10, 11, 38, 40, 43, 50–52, 118, 124 C Chinese New Zealanders, 110, 114–116, 118, 157 Chinese voters, 114–118, 153 Coalition, 2, 4, 7, 8, 16, 27, 36, 44, 62, 74–77, 80, 83, 86, 126, 130, 133, 136–138, 142, 146, 154, 156–158 Collins, Judith, 7, 11, 13, 28, 30–34, 43, 49, 51–54, 96–107, 115, 130, 152, 155 Communication, 2–4, 8, 15, 37–41, 44, 48, 80–82, 84–88, 90, 92, 96–106, 110–118, 125, 127, 136, 137, 140, 142–146, 150, 152–158, 160–164

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Elder and J. Lees-Marshment (eds.), Political Marketing and Management in the 2020 New Zealand General Election, Palgrave Studies in Political Marketing and Management, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77333-5

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INDEX

Competence, 2, 6, 9, 36, 42, 87, 98, 100, 101, 103, 106, 107, 116, 118, 125, 129, 131, 146, 153, 155, 157, 161–163 COVID-19 pandemic, 2–5, 11, 14– 16, 21, 22, 25, 32, 34, 36–43, 48–54, 59, 61, 64, 71–76, 81, 87–92, 96–98, 100–107, 111–113, 116, 123–130, 132, 136, 144, 145, 147, 148, 150, 151, 153–158, 160, 161 Credibility, 2, 42, 48–50, 53–55, 82, 96, 97, 103, 104, 106, 107, 112, 155 Crisis, 3, 4, 6, 14–16, 37, 41–43, 61, 73, 87, 89–92, 96, 105, 107, 112, 129, 139, 147, 148, 150, 151, 153–155, 159, 161–164 management, 2, 4, 5, 15, 37, 42, 43, 81, 87, 88, 97, 100, 104, 106, 107, 127, 153–155, 162, 163

D Davidson, Marama, 10, 28–30, 32 Deliver/delivery, 2–5, 7, 9, 13–16, 36, 39, 41–44, 53, 80–92, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 107, 123–125, 127, 132, 136, 139, 140, 142, 146, 150, 154–157, 161, 163 Demographic, 1, 15, 20, 28–32, 34, 58, 63–69, 74–77, 84, 110, 114, 117, 118, 133, 147, 152, 153, 156–158, 165

E Empathy/empathetic, 2, 41, 103, 107, 153, 156, 163

G Green Party/Greens, The, 2, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 31–34, 40, 53, 60, 61, 63–65, 70, 72–74, 76, 83, 86, 110, 111, 126, 136–138, 142–147, 151–154, 157, 159, 160

H Honesty/honest, 4, 81, 82, 85, 96, 103–105, 133, 141

L Labour Party, The, 2–10, 15, 16, 21, 22, 25–28, 31–34, 36, 39–44, 48–51, 53, 54, 59–61, 63–65, 70, 71, 73–77, 80–87, 90–92, 97, 98, 100–103, 107, 110, 116–118, 123–131, 133, 134, 136–139, 142–147, 151–157, 160, 161 Leadership, 3, 14–16, 24, 33, 37, 38, 40, 41, 43, 49–54, 89, 92, 96, 97, 99–103, 105–107, 115, 117, 118, 124, 126, 127, 129–131, 145, 150–153, 155, 156, 163, 164 Likeability, 11, 14, 21, 27–34, 68, 151, 157, 160, 161 Listening, 3, 10, 13, 16, 40, 55, 96, 115, 118, 126, 133, 156, 157 Lockdown, 2, 4, 10, 36, 38, 39, 41, 42, 50, 88, 104, 112, 129, 155

M M¯aori Party, The, 2, 14–16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 31–34, 60, 62–65, 70, 73, 74, 76, 151–153, 158, 160 Market-orientation/market-oriented, 2, 3, 10, 13, 104, 160

INDEX

Market research, 2–4, 13, 15, 16, 123–126, 128, 131, 133, 135, 142–144, 146–148, 150, 151, 154–156, 158, 159, 161, 162 market intelligence, 92, 114 Muller, Todd, 10, 11, 43, 51–53, 115, 130 N National Party, The, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9–13, 15, 16, 21, 22, 25–28, 31–34, 36, 38, 40, 42–44, 48–55, 60, 61, 66, 67, 70, 71, 74–77, 98–101, 103, 110, 114–118, 123–131, 134, 137, 139, 144–147, 151–153, 156–158, 160, 161 New Zealand First/NZ First, 2, 4, 7–10, 15, 16, 21, 22, 26, 27, 31–34, 36, 40, 60, 63, 68, 70, 73–77, 83, 86, 87, 136–138, 152–154, 159, 160 Ngarewa-Packer, Deborah, 14, 28, 30, 32 P Peters, Winston, 8, 28, 30–32, 40, 68, 77, 87, 126, 153, 154 Policy position(s), 20–22, 25–27, 33, 58–75, 77, 118, 152, 153, 158–160 Political product, 2, 3, 6, 25, 28, 34, 66, 68, 74–77, 81, 106, 110, 114, 115, 118, 134, 146, 147, 152, 157, 158, 160, 161, 163 Polling, 48, 52, 81, 115, 116, 124–129, 131, 142, 146 poll, 36, 48, 50, 52, 141, 144 pollster, 125, 146, 147, 151 Populism, 15, 27, 33, 63, 68, 73, 75–77, 87, 89–92, 133, 154, 159

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Positioning, 4, 5, 8, 13, 15, 25, 39, 40, 43, 74–76, 98, 111, 118, 123, 132, 135, 143, 146, 151–153, 155, 157–159

R Relatability, 4, 13, 41, 88, 96, 104–106, 111, 153, 157, 158 Responsiveness, 3–6, 10, 15, 25, 38, 59–63, 70–75, 92, 96, 97, 99, 106, 107, 151, 155, 157, 160, 162, 163

S Seymour, David, 13–15, 28, 30–33, 131, 145, 151 Shaw, James, 9, 10, 28, 30, 32, 40, 86 Stability, 5, 43, 49, 77, 116, 125, 129, 131, 136, 146, 147, 161 Strategy, 4, 42–44, 75, 81, 88–92, 105, 127, 130, 135, 136, 141, 146–148, 150, 151, 154, 155, 158, 160, 163 Strength, 89, 91, 96, 99, 100, 102, 103, 105–107, 125, 155, 162 Supporter(s), 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 14–16, 20, 22, 25, 27, 28, 31, 32, 41, 51, 58–63, 74–77, 90, 115, 125, 128, 143, 146, 152–154, 157, 158 Swarbrick, Chlöe, 110–113, 153, 157

T Tamihere, John, 28, 30, 32 Targeting, 5, 8, 14, 15, 25, 27, 34, 58, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 74, 76, 110–112, 114–118, 133, 135, 145, 147, 150, 152, 153, 156, 159, 164

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segments, 7, 15, 16, 29, 58, 63, 66, 74, 135, 156 target markets, 3, 13, 63, 68, 74, 75, 77, 146, 157

U Undecided voters, 7, 15, 58, 69–75, 152, 153, 156

V van Velden, Brooke, 13, 14, 110–113, 153, 158 Y Young voters, 110, 112, 113, 117, 118, 158 young people, 5, 110, 111, 113, 118, 153, 157, 158 youth, 110, 111, 118, 153