Because of this reason, the process requires a highly important and sensitive studies that provide identification of all variables, forecasting of difficulties and obstacles in advance to be faced and controlling of analyse and data in time.

Without having a particular care and sensitive consultancy service, any political campaign, which is carried out by the political staff, always has difficulty in reaching to the expected target. 

Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company has been serving with the highly qualified staff who are local and international experts and most of them are academicians and have valuable experience in politics. Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company has been supporting your poltical campaign management that is extensive and aided by technologic means either for political parties or for the candidates so that they can achieve their poltical expectations.

The Political Campaign Management Scheme which had been developed and implemented by Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company is shown below.7

Our Method

·         Design of campaign

·         İmlementation of design

that has two moduls and each modul has close collaboration eachother.

Campaign Design Modul

Covers two sub moduls suc as;

·         Determination and Analysis

·         Political Product Design

Campaign Execution Modul

Has six sub moduls and these moduls are;

·         Geographic Information System aided Campaign Management,

·         Preparation of Campaign Calender,

·         Establishment of Election Offices,

·         Media Agenda Management,

·         Preparation of Campaign Material,

·         Measurement of Campaign Performance.

The most extensive data base which can be found out in Turkey and supported by geographic information system consisting of country, provinces, sub provinces and suberb base that aids these two moduls forms the base of management of political campaign of Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company.  

DESIGN OF CAMPAIGN

Design of the campaign aims to provide a political product; and design of this political product is more difficult process than design of other products and services. The reason of this difficulty is that the voters have different perceptions, manner and beheviour in time and place.

Some polticians believe that there is a standard product for the voters, and they also believe that a honets candidate can be selected with rationalistic projects. Unfortunately, these kinf of aproaches mostly result with disappointments. Because, the political product that will be designed is correct definition of the social demands which are existing in the community but covered among the voters.

In this respect, politics is the process of definition that should occure. The political product that is designd by the politician without havig close attention to this point will be unsucsessful but if the design of the political product that takes special attention to the demands of voters will be sucsessful.

Because of this reason, a good political product design should tie up analysis and determinations. These analysis and determinations is the first sub module of Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company.   

Based on the realised analysis within the farmework of first modul, we prepare the political product design that is second sub modul. 

The analysis to be conducted for the political campaign management covers lots of sub titles. Some of these analyses can be evaluated by blending. It is possible to line up some of these analyses for the political campaign design to be prepared by Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company.   

WHAT IS ANALYSIS AND DETERMINATION?

Political System and Legal Regulation Analyse and Determination: It is always an advantage that to be familiar with existing regulations either for the institution or for the candidate. It is assumed that any campaign manager who knows the legal regulations always has an advantege against his/her rivals in the competition and starts the competition in front of his/her rivals. Politcal organisations are defined at diffirent level starting from the constitution. Being familiar with the legal regulations and election laws is highly important for the composition of design of campaign. It is important in this campaign that each individual, who take part in the campaign at different level even the person who are in charge at the election chest, should be provided with the legal regulations. It is also important to take special attention that any candidate, who forgets to organise the person who will be in cahrge at the election chest, can loose the election in the chest and these are not the cases that never seen before.

Analysis of Poltical Staff: Organisation of volunteers is too important for the campaign. There is no such campaign that was won with the professionals only. More or less each political movement has its own staff. Assesment of this potential very well has a crucial importance for the management of the campaign. It should be known very well that what this human resourses can do or can not do and the advantages and disadvanteges should be analysed in detail.

Base Analyse

Except for their own staff, each political movement has poltical supporters. In the developmental process of each political movement, these supporters have increased for some poltical movements but on the contrary, supporters of some political movements have melted. These supporters are interface between the poltical parties and voters and have a valuable importance in the ideological theme elections while having less importance in the pragmatic-candidate focused elections. In this case, poltical supporters should be analysed very well.

Analaysis of the Voters

The voters are the target group of a campaign. The main purpose of the analysis of the voters is to reveal the existing perception form, poltical behaviour, and voting potentials of the voters.

Voters are not a homogeneous group in this study, these group shoul be classified in its own character. If we compare any product with a political product, it is not possible to market a product to everyone and each product has different client. This rule is also valid for political product. Two kind of analysis of classified voters are anymore compulsory for the election campaigns.

These are; variation of voter’s tendency in time; and distribution of voter’s tendency according to geographic settlement. Assesment of these two kind of data is provided with databases which are related to digita numerical maps. These analyses provide us the distribution of voter’s idendity and variation of distribution of voters in time.

Analysis of Socio-Ekonomic Structure

Political demands are not the theoretical products; and they do not form without having a physical base. Although some demands can have economic origin, some demands can depend upon social structures. Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company has been using one of the most developed databases which are related to numerical maps. 

Analysis of Political Agenda

The voters have been receiving the information from mass media that have an increasing ratio day by day. The agenda can not determine how the voters think or the direction of the voter’s opinion on a subject. In spite of this reality, the agenda has an impact on the voters what they think. Each change on the agenda does not mean what about the voters should think. Opinion of the voters determine that political parties/candidates and political identity that state the convenient opinion to the voters opinion will take an advantage against the rivals. Some agenda have provided important aid into the successes of some political movements. Because of this reason, it is necessary to study of the political agenda and changes in the agenda very well.  

Analysis of Political Demand

“Political demand” has a key role in the elections for each political movement that has carriers and expresses itself. From the point of political marketing, in realty the purchased product is “expression of political demand”. Althoug, the politician who declares the rights at right times can not always win, but this is the stop to be passed absolutely going to the sucsess. Only expression of political demand is not sufficient.

To provide the reliability of poltical demand, to transfer the reliability to the social structure and to convince this political structure that the poltical structure is the owner of the demand is necessary separately. Harold Lasswell who is scientist in communication, reduces the analysis of the communication process to a single question.

“Who, what, to who, from which chanel, how efficiently does transmit”? When we adapt this question to the campaign communication the question that we face is “which poltical identity, what political demand, to which voters group, how efficiently transmits. Because of this reason political demand analysis is an important analysis that should absoluately be conducted.

What is poltical product design?

Product design that is one of the most important means of political marketing is the second sub-modul of Political Campaign Design developed by Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company.  Product concept can be propulsive for most people who deal with politics. But the way of the sucsess depends upon a political product that is assessed and designed with a professional logic. That means that a methodology assessed with calssical marketing techniques and communication and poitical science converted to a product related to demands of voters and political expectations of the voters. The mode developed by Optimar Consultancy Marketing and Publicity Research and Organisation Company has three important stages. 

Expression of Political Demand (Compositon of Expression)

Poltical campaigns are the processes in which political parties and candidates declare their messages to the voters. In this processes the following issues are dominant, expressions stated by the political parties or candidates as written, audio and visual basis during which the prefences of the voters form.

The most important component which forms the expression is statement of demand. In order to form the expression that carries a political demand, determination of voters’ tendency research is crucial.     
As the result of these researches, the potential tendencies of the voters are converted into political expression by expressing of potential tendencies of the voters. In addition to the researches that are determine the tendencies of the voters these expressions are enforced with the database. The expression prepared with particular care make the voters say that these are the expressions stating their own feelings. In this case, it is possible to provide an identity between the carrier group and poltical movement that expresses this demand in its expression. Changes in the economic conditions and change in the socio culturel structures in time result with the variation of political demands. In spite of this, since the knowledge of physical reality mostly filtres the reality to the voters like media even passes through the mass media distorting the reality, do not reflect most efficiently. Cahnged truth also change voters’ priorities.

Some agendas provide advantage for some demands and identities as conjonktural. Even these political identities do not approache to the problem that are on the agenda with realistic projects they take advantage against their rivals. Mostly either to develop projecs for responding of the demands or to produce sloganised expressions can not be sufficient. Poltical demands not only move but also provide warranty that the owner of the real demand is the carrier of this demand. Someone who designs the political process should pay attention into these issues.

Political İdentity and Image

Political demands can not be carried just with expressions; poltical identities are also carriers of political demands. Each poltical identity reminds a certain politcal manner. Because of this reason, mostly the political identities even can not be shaped in the memory of the voters, they can be related to certain political demends. Who stated the political expresion is important in terms of poltical identity and consistency of political demand. If the political identity that expresses the poltical statement is consistent its reliability increase in front of the voters. Poltical identity forms a location for each subject in the memorial map of the voters. For example, to make a preference between state control economy and privatisation results with a classification among the voters according to the element that form poltical identity and makes the voters classify the political identities in their memories. Foreign affairs, economy, agriculture, membership to European Uninon are the classification categories in the memories of the voters and includes multi layers calssification. Changes on the agenda also change the priorities in these layers. For example, if the subject is European Union, the voters assess the political movements according to the European Union criteria. Priorities of voters political demands also change with the agendan and it earns priority according to what they think. There is political identity that possesses the political demand created by each agenda priority. If the subject is privatisation, the political identities which support the privatisation and against the privatisation take place on the top fo agenda. When the subject is European Union, the political parties that support the membership of European Union without any condition and the others that support the membership of European Union without giving any concession take premium. Each election period is determined by some demands and by the agenda that carries the political demands according to political identities. It is compulsory to conduct studies during the prosess design supported by analyses that are convenieint for political adentities and images.  

Theme of Campaign
It is necessary to establish each political campaign on the a main theme. To focus on a theme for a political party or candidate gives a message that the political party or the candidate possesses this subject. The issue which composes of theme of the campaign shoul fit with the identity and image of political movement or andidate. The analayses that had been conducted before the election shoul be assessed in identification of the theme of election campaign.  These analyses can compose of demands of  base voters or of potential demands which deducted from economic or socio-cultural data and assessments although they were not expressed by this group. It is essential to pay attention to the selected subject or problem as the theme of campaign whether or not it is on the top of the agenda. While the analyses of the agenda provide the determination of the subjects that can take part on the top of the agenda during the election period, it also provide the assessment of the relationship with identification of the identities that are part of the subject and with the political movements whose campaign is being carried out. Alternative campaign themes do not have any chance in the elections that are conducted with unexpected agenda. It is too difficult to realise a campaign on a subject which is not on the agenda of mess media nowadays. Selection of theme of campaign means determination of target group of selection campaign. Each problematic area and political demand have a voter group who are related to these problematic area and political demand. There would be other political parties and candidates that slected the same target group as their target group. At this point, to define the composition of campaign theme and to create an image which responds the poltical demands as clear as possible means that the political party or the candidate is the main owner of the subject rather than their rivals. It is necessary to be carefull in forming of the propaganda material of the campaign theme from reliable sources and informations.

There are three types of propagandas. These are; the one that called as white propaganda which is conducted in sound with right sources and right information, is the most correct way in order to protect from the polemics and slanders. Black proganda composed of wrong information and data is a trump given to the rivals during the campaign. The gray propaganda composed of right sources and wrong information and data can always takes the political party or the candidate into the political polemics.

Although slection of the theme subject from personal issues is not convenient, using of negative personal identity categories can be useful. The claim that focuses on personal issues can be exhausting for the owner of the claim. Giving an example; while fighting fraud can be a right theme, targeting of the head of another party can be a wrong campaign theme. Theme of a campaign shoul be general and abstract. The advantage of this is that provides a different perception in the perception format of different voters. When the campaign has a main theme only, it is not necessary to make a preparation for other subjects. It is compulsory to list of the subjects taking place on the agenda and of the social demands and to study on these subjects. Although it is necessary to be ready at technical level, political expressions on these subjects should be formulated as understandable and easy. Negativeness and the expected situatin and the project should be defined as clear as and as short as possible.

The subject shoul be used to make the voters focuse on the subjects rather than not to disseminate the care of voters. The expression shoul be supported with verbal and audio-visual elements. The verbal and audio-visual messages of other partieis and candidates will bombard the voters with the informations and data during the election period. Voters take as many information as they do not receive in normal periods. Most of them do not stay in the memory of the voters. Selection of the campaign message by the voters among other messages depends upon the theme of the campaign, potential political demands of the voters and content of the agenda. For this reason, it is necessary to transmit the right messages to the target group from the right channels. In order to provide a change in the tendency and manner of the voters is not possible by transmitting the message to the target group. Frequency of these messages and expression by the independent sources whose reliability is important for the voters is also necessary. Frequancy by the independent sources either provides permanent stay in the memory of the voters or increase the influence of the messages. It is also necessary to review of the opinion of rivals campaign theme to be ready for the panel discussions. A good campaign preparation requires preparation of discussion and polemic documents on certain issues. How to respond the crtics and the effect of the respond to the crtics on the target group should be foreseen in advance. Any campaign in which you can determine the variables always carries a losing potential. 

THE DATA BESES, HAVING BEEN RELATED TO THE MAPS: During the preparation of the campaign, the databases/information related to the all of economic, social and voters, having been used in the analyses should be review in terms of geographic position and physical places. As the result of this study, tendencies of the voters between social and economic relationship will be perceived and presented as visual basis.


COMPOSITION OF POSTER, BILBOARD AND VISUAL DOCUMENTS: As a political propaganda means, one of the most dominant transmission means of coded messages and campaign messages, are the visual materials like poster. Visual design should be attractive, should include a symbolic expression that has relationship with the theme, and shoul be recalled easily. The visual materials like poster and bilboard either should address the conscience or sub-conscience; the cultural symbols of the comunity should be burried into the composition. Usage of these kind of materials ether provides the stability of the images of the party or the candidate or gives to the party or the candidate strong images that they have good chance to win the election.   

ELECTION BROCHURES: These brocheres can be produced in different contents and for different purposes during the election period providing that one of them shoul be election manifest. The election manifest should cover the theme of the campaign and stresss as clear as possible the identity and image of the candidate. These documents can be used out of mentined subjects. Some brocheres should also be prepared for the groups having special problems and needs and these brocheres should stress their problems and solutions of these problems. These brocheres are useful and provides a good image for the candidate or for the party and as a result the candidate or the party takes advantage against their rivals in the eyes of the handicapped voters.

ELECTION BUS: The main function of the election bus is to provide a sound system in the meetings and to increase mobility for the political party, candidate and campaign. As well as a sound system, a standard election bus has graphic design that covers outside of the bus. Athough travelling of the buses in the provinces and sub provinces and playing of the music arranged for the campaign for propaganda purpose are traditional; they can take reactions from the public as they create sound and environment pollutions. It is necessary to know the reaction of the target voters goup for this kind of implementations.

PREPARATION FOR THE DISCUSSION ON TV: TV discussions are the activities for which the political parties and candidates should be prepared with the professional staff and these discussions can determaine the fate of the elections. TV discussions show whether or not the images of the party or the candidate are ready for the post. In addition to that, TV discussions are a psychological prosess in which the voters feel that the political parties or candidates are closo to them or not, they have identity with them or not they are part of the discussion or not. Because of these reason, the candidate shoul prepare very well for the discussion from the relationship with other candidates to the style of the discussion during which he or she raises the issues. First of all it is necessary to make a preparation for a visual TV discussion. The candidate shoul prepare himself/herself from his/her hair style and beard shaving to his/her clothing and pose.

Manner of the candidate is also another factor in the TV discussion. While to display a calm image of the candidate, getting on well with other candidates not to degrade them, and not to individulaise the subjects are the general trues; predaciousness, a sharp expression, not to come to an agreement or using of a soft expression depend upon the target group of the party and candidate or the period. First of all, preparation for TV discussions requires an eloquence ability in order to bring the discussion to the theme of the campaign. In order to keep the discussions on the theme of the campaign, sometimes passing the word to other candidates, sometimes using of aggressive and provocative expressions can be necessary. If the candidate keeps the issue on his/her campaign theme means that he/she plays the game in his/her home and his/her rivals should play the game out of their home. The candidate shoul prepare himself/herself in other subjects. What these subjects can be should be reviwed by an advisory team. The way of this is to review the agenda and document of other parties. The technical document on probably discussion subject should be prepared with solutions proposals and proposed solutions should be designed as convenient with discussion expression.

WEB PAGE: Web page is the easiest mean for the voters to reach to the information on candidate or party. The web page designed for a campaign should reflect the theme of the campaign covering visual design. On the other hand, sub pages of the web page should cover details such as projects, opinion on the subjects that are out of campaign and poltical projects.  The activities and the calendar of the campaign should be followed easily in the web page prepared for the campaign. Interactive forms and questionnaires that are organised in the web page can be assessed a kind of feedback. It is useful to receive the information of the visitors of the web page such as addresses, e-mail, phone numbers and social and occupational data and membership system of the web page. It is necessary to develop methodologies in order to increase number of visitors of the web page. These can be small competitions or questions that provide small presents to the participants or the person who knows the responses of the questions. In this way, the visitors of the web page are encoureged to fill in the forms and enter his/her individual data to the database of the campaign. The present can be small gifts such as pictures and music files that can be received from Internet or T-shirts that has the picture of the candidate, lighters, scarfs and propaganda cassettes and CDs. Delivery of these presents at the election offices provides face to face connection with the voters who has visited the web page. In order to deliver the present, giving an appointment to the winners at the election office also provides a positive impact on the voters. This provides a possibility in the potential behaviour change of voters.

E-MAIL LISTS: Internet has been used in the election campaign more and more day by day. E-mail list can be formed at different level. Hiring its own servise provider is a useful methodology for each campaign management. With this way, it is possible to establish a network connection among the different units of the campaign, and an e-mail group among volunteers, voters and different working units thanks to SMTP and POP3.

PREPARATION OF CAMPAIG MUSIC: Music of the campaign shoul be slected from the popular theme and they should be lasting in the memory. If they are anonymous it is not necessary to pay copyright and to receive permission from the ownwer of the song or music. The wording of the music shoul be arranged according to the theme of the campaign and result of the questionnaires. It is useful to use the fluent words and logical sentences instead of arrangement consisting of direct slogans. As straight meaning works in the conscience and secondary meaning works in sub-conscience the main message shoul be coded in secondary meaning not in the direct meaning. In direct meaning, the listener can resist to the message and can go to the opining of criticisim code. But soft and fluent words that creat selectorality in the perception in the straight meaning can become more effective in secondary meaning. 

VOICED TELEPHONE MESSAGES: Using of new telephone technolojies had brought diversity in the campaign managements. Transmitting of the messages recorded from own voice of the candidate to the fixed target group is also an effective propaganda way. Although it differs according to the culture, if a fixed amount of messages are transmitted to the voters, they remember the candidate and form their attitude in the favour of the candidate. On the other hand, as the messages are the own voice of the candidate, these messages make permanent effect in the memory of the voters and the attitude of the voters will be positive about the candidate.    

MEASUREMENT OF CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE: In order to measure the performance of the campaign, it is necessary to determine the milestones in the campaign calendar and objectives of the campaign. All objectives to be put into the calendar of the campaign can be related to either the studies of the campaign team and units esatablished for the campaign, or effect of the studies on the voters’ attitude. The campaign units and team are composed for a purpose according to their functions in the campaign. These units and team are established in order to reach to a special target group, to conduct the studies in a geographic region and to use a certain propaganda technic or technology. If we give an example, it is essential to put concrete targets for the campaign such as how many person is needed in order to conduct propaganda through the SMS messages, and how many people to be reached, how many messages should be sent to the target group, what should be the frequency and the stage of the and studies should be determined. At the end of the stage, how many of the numeric targets are achieved can be tested. The same criteria can be used in assessing of propaganda techniques suc as home visits, disseminated number of brochures and telephone speeches. The target of these study is to create behaviour changes in the voters in the desired direction.    

MEDIA AND AGENDA MANAGEMENT IN THE CAMPAIGN: One of the most important element that determines the sucsess of the campaign is the agenda. The theme of the campaign shoul be right proportional with the time crossection of the agenda. Since the agenda determines that what about the voters shoul consider the voters will not think of theme of the campaign even the theme of the campaign is their own problem because they consider about the agenda. The other problem on this issue is that, even the theme of the campaign is related to the agenda, voters believe that the image of the candidate or the party does not carry the problem on the agenda related to the poltical demand. For that reason, it is necessary to emphesize for the candidate or party that the party or the candidate is the part of the problem which is on the agenda. In that case the expressed opinion earn value, they do not stay neutral to the candidate or party and develop a positive or negative attitude against the candidate or party. Although a good campaign management forms the theme of the campaign and image of the candidate by estimating the changes on the agenda and political development, it can further do something on changing of the agenda, changing operation style of the agenda subject, being the part that expresses the poltical demands related to the formed subject of the agenda. The sucsess on this issue depends on using of mass media and a right planning of media, allocating a budget for marketing and publicity, preparation of media product in which the campaign messages are coded very well, organisation of lower costed activities which have news value and public relation activities. These activities require professionals either they can contact with mass media easily and or they can produce material which are in the format that the mass media can use them.  Each activity in the campaign should aim either to reach to the targeted group to be selected for the activity or to be news in the mess media.