Today in the UK millions of people will be visiting polling stations across the country exercising their democratic right to vote for their chosen political party. Each party has their own manifesto, idea on how to run the country, and criticisms of the other parties. One thing they do have in common however is that they all have campaign merchandise! Here at BTC Group we’re always interested in the use of promotional merchandise for all kinds of reasons, with political use being one of them.
Earlier last year we came across an interesting article showing the differences of use of merchandise between the political parties in USA, with Donald Trump spending over 1 million dollars on his campaign merchandise with 268,000 dollars spent on caps alone! As if this wasn’t enough Trump last month announced he was launching a Swag Subscription Box, entitled the “big league box” containing a ‘handpicked bundle of trump merchandise’ for the price of 69 dollars a month. Now we don’t expect the UK campaigners’ promotional products to be as extravagant, but it is very interesting to see how each party uses merchandise, and where they place their emphasis on product choice. In order to do this I will be checking out each constituency’s merchandise shop.
Starting with the Labour webshop, the first thing you notice when you visit their products page is information, information, information. Almost all of the products on the first page of their shop are leaflets and posters containing information on their manifesto, education reforms and some leaflets containing information on why not to vote for the other parties. The promo product that did make it to page one are balloons, which is not surprising as promotional balloons provide an inexpensive way to visibly have your brand seen. In the world of politics even without seeing the printed logo, just the colour of the balloon can identify which party is being promoted. The labour party shop has 4 more pages with merchandise e.g. pens, stickers, mugs, t-shirts etc. totalling a healthy selection of over 80 products to choose from.
At first glance of the Conservative webshop it appears to be a bright, attractive page to buy merchandise from. When you delve deeper into the Conservative webshop you realise is it is actually a print on demand offering, which unless you were in the promotional product industry wouldn’t be easily identifiable. Print on demand websites definitely have their benefits as you can have a product with hundreds of different designs and choose the design you want. For the constituency it means minimal risk as they do not have to stock printed product and therefore do not need storage, or have to pay an initial outlay for the products. The challenges that a print on demand website has is there is a lack in diversity of product, under no fault other than the technology doesn’t exists just yet to personalise the 150,000+ products that are on the promotional market on demand. The other challenge is when you are buying products to stock you are getting a consolidated reduced price, therefore can sell products at a cheaper rate, with printed products on demand, you are not benefitting from economies of scale therefore the price of products is proportionately higher, unless there is a minimum order quantity to achieve a price point.
When you find yourself on the Liberal Democrat’s webshop you will notice their product offering is considerably less than the other parties, with 23 products in total. Giving a smaller range generally isn’t a bad thing. A Study by TED speaker Sheena Lyengar in 1995 shows that shoppers are more likely to purchase jam from a small selection of flavours rather than a large selection. We know that all studies are situational and may not work in every instance, but it might work here for the Liberal Democrat merchandise. The second thing I notice is their product range is very similar to the product ranges we put together for charities, containing products like badges, fundraising boxes, keyrings, pens, clipboards, balloons, flags and bags, all products we have actually stocked for a charity client of ours. These products are considered the essentials for campaigning; the one thing that I see lacking from these essentials is t-shirts. Campaigning t-shirts are at the forefront of the other stores but for one reason or another is not included in the Liberal Democrat offering.
It is very interesting to see how different each parties’ choices are when it comes to their campaigning merchandise, and how each party has placed emphasis on different products and how to sell them. No matter whom you’re voting for today, we implore you to exercise your democratic right, visit your local polling station and place your vote!