The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana, (CIMG) has launched the 23rd Annual Marketing Performance Awards, scheduled for July 21.

The theme for the event, which would honour outstanding organisations and individuals who have contributed to the marketing profession for the benefit of the Ghanaian society: "The Role of Marketing for Sustainable Multi-Party Politics."

Launching the awards, Mrs Shola Safo-Duodu, National President of CIMG, said this year’s theme was appropriate because it captured the importance of 2012 as an election year.

She said Marketing as a discipline had broadened from simply meeting consumer needs with the right products at the right place and the right time and price to include marketing of celebrities, events and nations.

She said over the years, politicians had employed marketing concepts and techniques to design and sell political products and communicate their ideologies and agendas.

Mrs Safo-Duodu said the Institute was prepared to work with political parties and individuals towards delivering a peaceful election and promoting a sustainable multi-party political environment.

She explained that the marketing profession was a key stakeholder in shaping and preserving the destiny of the country for the next generation.

“This year, our thoughts, actions, words and strategies, at both the private and public levels, must seek to protect life, property and safeguard our political achievements over the years,” she said.

She appealed to politicians to maintain the standard of marketing in their political endeavours to ensure that the unity of the country is not compromised.

Mr Samuel Amo Tobbin, Chief Executive Officer of Tobinco Pharmaceutical Group of Companies, said in a speech read on his behalf, that marketing as a profession had come a long way to stimulate good governance and sustainable politicking.

He urged Ghanaians to make sure that the path of political governance chosen and hinged on multi-party democracy was sustained.

Mr Tobbin called on politicians to support local entrepreneurs to create more employment for the youth to reduce the burden on government in providing social support.