The Political Marketing Podcast

Getting a voter's attention is harder than ever. Traditional ads are easy to ignore, and the media is split into thousands of pieces. In this episode of the Political Marketing Podcast, Benedict Pringle sits down with digital strategists Ryan Davis and Nicole Dunger to explore how influencer marketing is changing the political landscape. They discuss how Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign shifted the ma...

What does political polling for a campaign really look like behind closed doors? On this episode of The Political Marketing Podcast, we're joined by Peter McLeod, founder of Hold Sway, a research, insight and strategy agency, and a veteran of Labour's 2015 and 2024 general election campaigns. As a former VP at the iconic Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR), Peter brings over 20...

How do you modernise a movement that can feel rooted in another era? In this episode, Benedict Pringle speaks to Declan Seachoy, Head of Social Media and Audience Growth at the TUC, about how the trade union movement is reinventing itself for the digital age. Declan shares how the TUC reaches younger workers who don’t always know what a union is, what it takes to make collective action feel releva...

I speak with one of the world's leading academics on political advertising, Professor Travis Ridout of Washington State University. We get to the bottom of a question I'm often asked: "Why are political ads so negative?" Professor Ridout breaks down the three types of political ads—positive, negative, and contrast—and we explore why negative advertising is so effective. We discuss whether negative...

In this episode Luke Tryl, UK Director of More in Common, speaks with Benedict about their landmark Shattered Britain report. They explore the four drivers of national malaise, the seven public segments that define today’s politics, and how these insights explain Labour’s 2024 landslide, the Conservative collapse, and Reform’s rise - as well as what it all means for the next election. Hosted on Ac...

In this episode of the Political Marketing podcast, host Benedict Pringle speaks with Sam Jeffers, founder of Who Targets Me, about the evolving landscape of political advertising, particularly in the context of digital platforms and recent EU regulations. They discuss the implications of Meta and Google's withdrawal from political advertising in the EU, the importance of transparency in political...

In this episode of The Political Marketing Podcast, I’m joined by Tom Edmonds, one of the key strategists behind the Conservative Party’s successful 2015 general election campaign. As Director of Digital and Creative, Tom worked alongside Craig Elder and under the overall leadership of Lynton Crosby to deliver a tightly disciplined and highly targeted campaign that delivered a surprise majority. W...

In this episode, Benedict is joined by Damian Lyons-Lowe, founder and CEO of Survation , one of the UK's most influential market research firms. This conversation dives deep into what political parties truly know about voters and how that understanding shapes their strategy, both overtly and subtly. Damian cuts through the common narratives about polling in politics, revealing that both extremes—t...

In this episode of the Political Marketing podcast, host Benedict Pringle interviews Sir Chris Powell, a prominent figure in British advertising and political marketing. They discuss the historical context and impact of Labour’s ‘Shadow Communications Agency’ in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as the challenges posed by populism in contemporary politics. Sir Chris shares insights from his experience...

In this first episode of The Political Marketing Podcast, Benedict Pringle speaks to Professor Jennifer Lees-Marshment, one of the founding figures in the field of political marketing. They explore what political marketing really is, how it developed as a discipline, and how it played out in the 2024 UK general election. The conversation covers Labour’s broad but shallow appeal, the Conservative c...