Marketing Strategy and Plan: NZ Election Commission Research Report

This report examines the marketing strategy and plan of the New Zealand Election Commission, focusing on improving voter engagement. It analyzes qualitative research conducted by the commission to understand why certain demographics, including Maori, Pacific Islanders, and Chinese migrants, are less likely to participate in the voting process. The report identifies barriers to participation, such as perceptions of political disinterest, religious beliefs, and lack of government policies. It offers recommendations to increase voter turnout, including awareness campaigns, mandatory voter registration, and targeted outreach to specific communities. The report underscores the importance of each vote in nation-building and suggests strategies to make the electoral process more inclusive and effective, ultimately contributing to the democratic administration of New Zealand.

Running head: MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Marketing Strategy and Plan
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Executive Summary:
This report is prepared to understand the management decision problem of the New Zealand
Election Commission and their major research objectives and problems in finding out ways for
engaging more and more citizens in the voting system. New Zealand Election Commission have
found that though a majority of the citizens are enrolled with the electoral roll and are voting for
the state elections, there are still significant percentage of the community which are left out from
electoral roll and a certain percentage of the community who are enrolled in the electoral roll but
do not participate in the voting process for the state election. In this report, the qualitative
research of the election commission of New Zealand have been analyses and based on that
recommendations have been made to address the major research problem.

2MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Table of Contents
Background and problem definition................................................................................................3
Method.............................................................................................................................................4
Findings...........................................................................................................................................4
Barriers to Maori community......................................................................................................5
Issues with the female voters.......................................................................................................5
Pacific people non-voters............................................................................................................6
Barriers to Chinese migrants.......................................................................................................6
Recommendation.............................................................................................................................6
References and bibliography...........................................................................................................9

3MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Background and problem definition
New Zealand is a democratic country and the election commission of New Zealand is the
crown entity responsible for the parliamentary election of the New Zealand. Election of members
of parliament is to be processed by the election commission where, citizens of the country will
be voting for the selection. A qualitative and quantitative research of the Election Commission of
New Zealand reveled that a major part of the community is still left out from the electoral roll of
the New Zealand and a significant of registered citizens abstain from engaging into the voting
process of the parliamentary election. Therefore the management decision problems in this report
is the engagement of more audiences in the voting process and the marketing research problem is
finding the ways in improvement in the audience engagement in voting process. This report
focuses on those major research problems and the management issues of the New Zealand
Election Commission, to find ways and suggests to the election commission to engage more
audience in the voting process of the country (Crothers 2018).

4MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Method
This research is about the engagement of the community in the voting process, or the
engagement of the audiences of the country to the state election process. All the citizens of the
country having the age of more than 21 years are eligible to participate in the voting process of
parliamentary election. As this research paper focuses on the gap in audience engagement in the
voting process, information about the population of the country and the existing electoral roll has
been used for finding out the proportion of community left out from the electoral roll of the
country. The last election shows that, from the total number of registered citizens of the country
eligible for voting have not voted yet. Information from the last election result have also been
used for making a comparison and conclusion about the proportion of registered community
abstain themselves from engaging into the voting process. People who are included in the
electoral roll of the country but abstain from the voting process due to certain perceptions and
behavioral aspects, all those points have been analyzed and interpreted in this report.
Findings
The election commission of the New Zealand is responsible for registration of the voters
and to update the electoral roll. They are also responsible for conducting the state election
process and to elect the members of the parliament. As the country is a democratic country, such
members of the parliament is elected by the citizens of the country by common voting process.
Parliamentary member candidate who gets the majority vote is selected as the Member of
Parliament. Hence, the voting of citizens is very important in the constituting the state parliament
and contributing towards the administration of the state. Therefore, the election commission must
ensure that, eligible citizens are registered in the electoral roll and the electoral roll is updated
frequently. The election commission of New Zealand must also ensure that all the eligible

5MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
citizens of the country engage in the voting process and contribute to the election of members of
the parliament. From the research it can be found that a different category of the community are
facing certain barriers to get themselves registered into the electoral roll and also a major part of
the registered community is not participating in the voting process. Following points can
elaborate briefly the findings and outcomes of this research (Rahul 2019).
Barriers to Maori community
They believe that, there nothing wrong in voting or not voting, as it is a democratic right,
the state or the election commission cannot force them to vote or not to vote. They think that
politics is not suitable for them and feel it unpleasant, hence although they are registered and
enrolled in electoral roll still they abstain from voting for the state election. They also thinks that
there is no difference in voting or not to voting, there is no impact and influence of their vote in
electing the members of the parliament and to make changes in the administration process. They
consider it as a process and tradition inhabited from their parents (Tsai et al. 2019).
Issues with the female voters
A major part of the female citizens are not getting themselves registered in the electoral
roll of the New Zealand Election Commission. Also, a major part of the registered female
citizens abstains from the voting process. Females have a perception that, the politics is a matter
which needs to be managed by the male member of the family and they shows least interest and
are least bothered about the politics. They considers the registration in the electoral roll as a
national identity documents. Hence, these perception and belief kept a major part of the female
community of the country aside from the politics and voting process (Jackson & McRobie 2019).

6MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
Pacific people non-voters
Many of the people from the pacific community following the Christianity abstain
themselves from the voting process. They have some other religious perception and they do not
believe the voting process may make any improvement in the social welfare with the voting
process.
Barriers to Chinese migrants
A major part of the Chinese migrants are also out from the electoral roll due to lack of
suitable foreign policies of the government. They are cognitive enough, but still they think it is
not a task of the Chinese immigrants to take a part in the administration of the New Zealand.
This type of belief and perception kept them away from the voting process.
Recommendation
From the above discussion and analysis, it is clear that though the election commission of
New Zealand is working continuously for citizens’ registration and conducting the voting
process for election of state administrators, still there are a major gap in it which blocks the way
of achieving the objectives of a democratic country and the intended objectives of the voting
process. It can be concluded from the above analysis that two major groups are mostly missed
out from the electoral roll and voting process, which are the Maori community and the female
community of the country.

7MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
It can be understood from the research that the perception and belief of those community
is the main reason why they abstain themselves from the voting process. Hence, it can be
recommended as a next step for the election commission to take an initiative of major
campaigning making them aware of the importance of the voting process and the contribution
required for nation building. Each single vote has a contribution in the nation building process
and making the society better off by electing a good leader as a law maker in the parliament.
Another recommendation for the election commission is to conduct the registration process
frequently and through state bodies and local governmental bodies and make it mandatory for all
the eligible citizens, and it can ensure that no single eligible voter is missed out from the
electoral roll. Lastly, the awareness within the community is importance and it must be focused

8MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
on by the election commission through various campaign programme to achieve the objective of
inclusion of all the eligible community of the country in voting process.

9MARKETING STRATEGY AND PLAN
References and bibliography
Crothers, C. (2018). An introduction to election commentaries: the responsibilities of social
scientists around elections.
Exeter, D. J., Crengle, S., Cavadino, A., Greaves, L., Zhao, J., Lee, A., & Browne, M. (2018).
The geography of deprivation in New Zealand by electorate. Kōtuitui: New Zealand
Journal of Social Sciences Online, 13(2), 195-212.
Jackson, K., & McRobie, A. (2019). New Zealand Adopts Proportional Representation:
Accident? Design? Evolution?. Routledge.
Murchison, A. (2018, February). Political communication in New Zealand: A study of political
party advertising in the 2008 general election. In New Zealand Political Studies
Association Conference, University of Auckland. Available at https://nzpsa. files.
wordpress. com/2008/11/nzpsa_conference-paper_ashley-murchison-20091. pdf.
Accessed (Vol. 15).
Potts, M. (2019). Assessing Fiji's recent general election. New Zealand International
Review, 44(2), 26.
Rahul, K. (2019). Impact of New Media on Political Communication in 2014 Parliamentary
Elections.
Tsai, C. H., Tan, A. C., & Jung, K. (2019). An analysis of the 2014 New Zealand general
election: do Internet use and online party mobilisation matter?. Political Science, 71(1),
79-91.
Zealand, T. N. N. (2016). Board revises election code. Kai Tiaki Nursing New Zealand, 22(1).