The Political Marketing Podcast

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 years of expertise to explain how polls are used—and often misunderstood—in the high-stakes world of political communication.

We pull back the curtain on the day-to-day grind of a campaign pollster, the strategic thinking that defined the 2024 general election, and the profound shift in how voters now engage with political parties.

In this episode, we discuss:

The Campaign Playbook: What does a campaign pollster actually do? Why Labour was running focus groups almost every night of the 2024 campaign.

Polls are NOT Policy: Understanding the crucial distinction between using research to inform communications versus setting government policy.

Wide But Shallow: An insider's breakdown of why the 2024 campaign felt "cautious" and what the "wide but shallow" support critique actually means for Labour.

The Two-Point Swing: Why strategically, winning a voter from the Conservative/Reform block is "worth twice as much" to Labour as winning a progressive voter.

Voters as Shoppers: How the total breakdown of rigid Party ID is forcing all campaigns to rethink their strategy, and why you can't take any vote for granted.

The Next Big Shift: Peter's view on the future of political campaigning, from data to cultural change.

If you want to understand the strategic forces shaping our political landscape and the mechanics of how votes are truly won, this is a must-listen episode.

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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 relevant on TikTok and Instagram, and why storytelling beats slogans when it comes to recruitment.
He also reflects on lessons learned from his time at Momentum and the Labour Party’s digital team, the importance of taking the right creative risks, and how unions can speak credibly to audiences now flirting with Reform UK.
From viral campaigns about pay rises and workers’ rights to shaping the national conversation around work, this episode explores what it means to organise — and win attention — in 2025.

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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 ads are more informative than positive ones, the strategic reasons a campaign might go on the attack, and why third-party interest groups often run the most aggressive ads.
We also dive into the changing world of political advertising, from the fragmentation of media and the decline of television ads to the rise of digital campaigns. We touch on the surprising finding that younger people view political ads more favorably than older generations and why the age-old worry about voter backlash might be a little overblown.
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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 Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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 campaigns, and the potential future of digital campaigning in the UK and US. The conversation also touches on the role of AI in political campaigns and the challenges faced by traditional political parties in adapting to the digital age.

Keywords

political marketing, digital advertising, political campaigns, transparency, EU regulations, social media, political parties, democracy, AI in politics, political advertising

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