Toward a Conceptual Framework of Emotional Relationship Marketing: An Examination of Two UK Political Parties

The purpose of this paper is to review the notion of branding and evaluate its applicability to political parties. As ideological politics is in decline, branding may provide a consistent narrative where voters feel a sense of warmth and belonging. The paper aims to build an understanding of the complexity of building a political brand where a combination of image, logo, leadership, and values can all contribute to a compelling brand narrative. It investigates how competing positive and negative messages attempt to build and distort the brand identity. A critical review of branding, relationship marketing, and political science literature articulates the conceptual development of branding and its applicability to political parties. The success or failure of negative campaigning is due to the authenticity of a political party's brand values—creating a coherent brand story—if there is no distance between the brand values articulated by the political party and the values their community perceives then this creates an “authentic” brand. However, if there is a gap this paper illustrates how negative campaigning can be used to build a “doppelgänger brand,” which undermines the credibility of the authentic political brand. The paper argues that political parties need to understand how brand stories are developed but also how they can be used to protect against negative advertising. This has implications for political marketing strategists and political parties. This paper draws together branding theory and relationship marketing and incorporates them into a framework that makes a contribution to the political marketing literature.     

How to Manage a Party Brand: Empirical Perspectives on Electoral Probability and Internal Conflict

What happens when political party branding is modeled according to the preferences of either voters or party members? Employing the concept of brand identity and the analytical GAP model, this empirical study details the consequences of brand management decisions by political parties using the example of the two biggest parties in Germany. Strategic branding decisions have an impact not only on voting probabilities but also on their internal conflict potential, such as when a branding decision conflicts with the internal image a party maintains among its members. It thus can be highly beneficial for a political party to encourage its members to communicate their image of the party to other voters.     

Information,issues, and supporters: The application of online persuasion in the 2015 General Election

This paper explores how political parties use their websites to persuade visitors during the 2015 UK General Election campaign. The home pages of 41 party websites were assessed. The findings suggest that parties view visitors as rationally assessing material, not emotionally; thus, the content provides information and seeks to mobilise support and generate resources. However, application of Nielsen's F-pattern finds that these are precisely the areas within a website most likely to be placed beyond where visitors will look. Simple changes in design structure, the use of emotional messages, and shortcuts should make party websites more persuasive.     

Branding in Politics—Manifestations,Relevance and Identity-Oriented Management

ABSTRACT

In contrast to classical marketing, previous research on political marketing has barely considered the branding aspect. This is all the more surprising, given that on the one hand, political parties and their key representatives presumably fulfil the main criteria of an impact-oriented brand as a firmly anchored, consistent perceptual image in the minds of voters. On the other hand, there are many indicators that political brands are of considerable significance for voting decisions. In essence, the importance of brands for voting decisions on the part of the consumers derives from their branding functions, such as orientation aid in the form of an “information chunk” or risk-reduction function in the sense of a confidence surrogate. Based on the hypothesis that brand management thus constitutes a central challenge for the marketing of political parties, it is appropriate to investigate what approach seems best suited to managing political brands and how these should be formulated.     

New Labour

Abstract

This paper examines the use made by political parties of branding, as a means of establishing party values and winning political support. It looks in particular at the way in which political parties use communication to create, build and maintain political brands.

The paper involves an examination of the recent history of the British Labour Party. After a long period in the political wilderness, the party re-branded itself as “New Labour” in the mid-1990s, and-as New Labour-swept to power in a landslide election victory in 1997, under their new leader, Tony Blair.

Using media coverage and material written by some of the architects of New Labour, the paper will describe the creation of the “New Labour” brand, and look at how it was developed and used to generate political support. The paper will also consider the evolution and development of the brand, as the substance underlying the stated brand values has come to be questioned, not least by so-called “Old Labour” supporters of the party.

The paper will draw conclusions regarding the successful management of a political brand, pointing in particular at the need to ensure that the performance of a party espousing a particular brand supports and reinforces communicated brand values and the brand itself.     

Books Received and Short Notices

This paper looks at how HSBC banking group represent themselves in their externally oriented discourse as a brand combining the global and the local. Drawing on a variety of samples such as history brochures, advertisements and websites, the study combines quantitative and qualitative methods in its analysis of how visual and linguistic elements function to construct the HSBC brand. It is argued that branding in this case relies on a stereotyped version of the local that is used to endow the brand with a “human touch” and create brand affinity with a globalised audience. In cognitive terms, the company is seen to blend the two schemas of the global and the local and to metaphorically emulate perceived consumer identities to the same end.     

Political Brands: Can Parties Be Distinguished by Their Online Brand Personality?

This paper investigates whether five English political parties are differentiating themselves based on the brand personality they are communicating through their websites. The relative brand positions of five English political parties are analyzed using Aaker's brand personality scale. The text from each party website is analyzed using content analysis and a dictionary-based tool. The results are plotted in relation to one another on a correspondence analysis map. We find that the two main dimensions on which parties’ brand personalities differ relate to the trade-offs between communicating competence and communicating sincerity and between communicating sophistication and communicating ruggedness. We find that parties’ brand personalities are distinctive, with the exception of the Green Party, and that the position of one party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, is particularly distinctive. Our research uses Aaker's existing framework for thinking about brand personalities, rather than creating a new framework for politics. By using an existing framework, we are able to use tools developed in other disciplines and show their usefulness for the study of political marketing.     

Representing the national economic agenda in Latin America: Variation by fat and lean times and party brands

Representation is greater when legislators and voters agree on the national agenda. Under what conditions are higher degrees of “issue priority representation” more likely? Our answer focuses on economic conditions and party branding dynamics, and the case of Latin America. With mass and elite survey data we show that economic hard times and left-leaning preferences increase the prioritization of economic issues. We likewise document fairly high levels of economic issue priority representation in most of Latin America. From the perspective of democratic quality, evidence of representation in this domain is good news; yet, variation does exist. Consistent with our argument that party branding dynamics matter, we find that leftist and centrist parties tend to over-prioritize economic issues relative to their supporters, and the reverse for rightist parties. Further, we find a significant interaction between economic conditions and the ideological brand of parties: in economic downturns the left and the center are more likely to express a strong commitment to economic performance, whereas the right is less responsive to lean times.     

Online and Undecided: Voters and the Internet in the Contemporary Norwegian Election Campaign

This article addresses the Internet as a campaign communication channel, and the approach is to explore voters' use of the Internet for electoral information in the contemporary Norwegian campaign. Theoretically it is argued for a distinction between party-controlled and uncontrolled online communication channels, and this distinction proves important as patterns of use differ between these two types of the new media. Based on digital inequalities and assertions of web campaigning being 'preaching to the converted', the article explores the factors that contribute to the use of the Internet for electoral information, and to what extent online voters are available on the electoral market. The article finds that the Internet was an important information source for a relatively small, but nonetheless substantial, part of the electorate. However, most other channels of communication were considered more important. Digital inequalities related to socioeconomic status and gender are mostly about following the campaign on online newspapers (uncontrolled), not acquiring information from party websites (controlled). Moreover, while the youngest, most inexperienced voters visited party websites to a greater extent than their older cohorts, they did not follow the campaign on online newspapers to a greater extent. Furthermore, online voters are not 'converted' to a party, but are available on the electoral market.     

Exploring Personal Political Brands of Iceland’s Parliamentarians

This paper focuses on an under-researched and under-developed typology of political branding and conceptualizes politicians as personal political brands. Further, this study answers explicit calls for more research devoted to exploring the development of intended brand identity particularly from a brand creator perspective. Members of Parliament from the Republic of Iceland contextualizes this study. This qualitative case-study approach reveals how personal political brands create, construct and communicate their identity. Personal political brand identities were established and managed via a clear brand mantra and offline-online communication tools, which in turn revealed a degree of alignment with their party-political brand. However, this paper also demonstrates the challenges of managing the identities of personal political brands in terms of authenticity and integration particularly with coalition partners. Our paper builds on the six-staged analytical process of personal branding and proposes the Personal Political Brand Identity Appraisal Framework as an operational tool to introspectively evaluate personal political brand identity. This framework can be used by political actors across different settings and contexts to assess personal political brands from multiple perspectives.     

Political Brand Equity Model: The Integration of Political Brands in Voter Choice

The voters’ choices about political parties have many similarities with how they make their choices about commercial brands. Therefore, political parties are now constantly applying the concept and strategies of brand management to make the political product attractive, appealable, trustable, differentiable, a source of long-term relationships, and a decision-making driver. Furthermore, the political parties have to play an active role in the community's political socialization processes, which rely heavily on branding strategies. Because, the party equity is largely based on the community's social gregariousness that has profound effect on the electorates' propensity to participate in the politics. This study has deeply explored and broadened the concept of party equity analogous to commercial brand equity typology by developing a politics-specific brand equity model. This model demonstrates the integration of political brands in voter choice. Empirically, this model has been validated by collecting 550 valid responses from the constituency of District Gujrat, Pakistan. A careful analysis of these responses through structural equation modeling methodology has revealed that political parties vary according to the outcomes of their role in the political socialization process of the communities, loyalty, and voters’ attitude. Parties that have favorable role in the socialization process have strong party knowledge and thus have high party equity as compared to competing political parties, which have a weak position of party knowledge. Similarly, this study provides the roadmap and guidelines for the political parties to manage their party equity. Similarly, the model would be able to facilitate political parties in comparing different constituencies on the basis of their diversified social dynamics and political knowledge and in the development of a constituency-based manifesto, also termed “localized manifesto,” to further enhance their vote bank.     

Symbolic Political Communication,and Trust: A Young Voters’ Perspective of the Indonesian Presidential Election

Communication in political marketing plays an important role in political mobilization, building trust both in political actors and the government. Politicians construct their messages through careful branding as the power of the cultural symbols and signs conveyed through the brand are potent heuristic devices. This is particularly important in emerging democracies, where there is limited political knowledge and understanding. Therefore, this research explores how young voters understand the symbolic communication fashioned by political actors in Indonesia and how it relates to their brand. Indonesia is an interesting area for study; it is both secular and the world’s largest Muslim democracy. Using a phenomenological approach, a total of 19 in-depth interviews with young voters were conducted to gain rich insight into perceptions of the complexity of political symbolism, and trust among young voters. This study conceptualized political communication as a dual approach. The political brand promise is intrinsically linked to cultural references and conveyed through symbolic communication combined with a distinctive brand message. This builds trust, which then affects political participation. This conceptual framework provides insights into the importance of culture in branding which has implications for policy makers and actors in emerging and established democracies.     

It's the Inside that Counts? An Explorative Analysis of Finnish Parties’ Opinions Concerning the Importance and Use of Their Websites,and Website Contents,in Relation to Party Characteristics

According to one theoretical point of view, the character of a political party, especially its general goals, would be reflected in the contents of its website. In this article, the plausibility of this view, which is called an 'actor-constructivist' view in the article, is explored by means of a twofold analysis. The Finnish parties' opinions concerning the importance and use of their websites, and the contents of their websites, are both analysed for potential linkages to four party traits: party goals, party organisation, party size and type of voters. The data consists of a questionnaire sent to the Finnish parties' leading information officials. Additionally, a quantitative content analysis of the party websites found in January 2006 was conducted. Two separate automatic cluster algorithms were run in order to identify groups of parties based on the questionnaire and the content analysis. These groups were then explored for potential connections to the party traits. The main findings of the study are that the Finnish parties' internal 'view' of their websites does not appear traceable to any of the party traits; the view varies from party to party and can hardly be used for generalisations concerning parties in general. However, the contents of the party websites appeared related to party size inasmuch as the websites of all parliamentary parties were significantly richer on information and more sophisticated in presentation than those of the parties outside parliament. The article also serves to demonstrate the difficulty of applying the 'actor-contructivist' view in empirical research.     

Human Branding in Political Marketing: Applying Contemporary Branding Thought to Political Parties and Their Leaders

Political marketing advances by engaging with new and advanced concepts from both of its parent disciplines. One of the most recent fields of brand research—the study of the human brand—is taken into the political marketing arena in this essay. Human branding is an emergent topic in mainstream marketing. The value as a brand of a person who is well-known and subject to explicit marketing communications efforts is being investigated in many fields. The concept has clear prima facie value in political marketing, where the role of a political leader as part of the political marketing offer has been recognized extensively. Politics is also a unique context given the relationship between leaders and parties, each of which has some unique brand associations. The process of exploring the application of human branding in politics also provides a context in which some of the interactions among party and leader, human brand, and organizational brand can be explored and further developed. Among the conclusions are that political party leaders require brand authenticity as an advocate of the party policy platform and brand authority to command the organization and deliver on the policies being advocated. Implications for party and campaign management are outlined.     

Mapping the consumption of government communication: a qualitative study in Germany

Successful communication between citizens and government is critical for the effective implementation of governance. Although government communication is highly relevant to society, few governments fully exploit the potential benefits of the direct communication instruments at their disposal. To establish foundations for encouraging various forms of government communication, this article starts by examining its reception among German focus groups and thus offering general implications for successful, citizen‐sensitive government communication. The results suggest the need for better articulation of interests in government communication, such that they appear more egalitarian, closer to the citizen, and online—that is, successful government communication demands considerable proximity to citizens, interactive feedback channels, and systematic participation by citizens in political processes. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Party as Pariah: The Exclusion of Anti-Immigration Parties and its Effect on their Ideological Positions

During the past three decades, anti-immigration parties have emerged all over Western Europe. Some of them have been treated like any other party by their mainstream opponents and a few have even become members of governing coalitions (e.g., the Austrian FPÖ). Other such parties have been politically excluded: established parties have refrained from any cooperation with them and in some cases even refused to enter into a political debate with their politicians. This article investigates how the strategy of ostracising anti-immigration parties affects the internal dynamics within these parties. In particular, we assess whether these parties radicalise as a result of this strategy, and, conversely whether it has a moderating effect when these parties are approached more pragmatically. Our analyses, regarding ten parties at several moments in time, show that anti-immigration parties that were not ostracised became more moderate, whereas those that were treated as outcasts continued to be extremist.     

Governance in the Age of Digital Media and Branding

The politicization of government communications requires intense control. Centralization of government power accompanies advances in information and communications technology, as political elites use branding strategy in an attempt to impose discipline on their messengers and on media coverage. The strategic appeal of public sector branding is that it replaces conflicting messages with penetrating message reinforcement. Among the notable features are central control, a marketing ethos, a master brand, communications cohesiveness, and message simplicity. Together these features work to conflate the party government and the public service, which perpetuates trends of centralization. Using Canada's Conservative government (2006–2015) as a case study, public sector branding explains the hyper control over government communications and demonstrates why these developments can be expected to last, regardless of which party or leader is in control.     

Smart art: Whistler,British Columbia's brand transition to include arts and culture

The importance of city and destination branding is well studied. Cities and regions choose to pursue branding efforts for a variety of reasons. Some regions that choose to invest in branding are looking to reposition their brand to encompass arts and culture in order to stimulate economic growth. The Resort Municipality of Whistler, British Columbia, has employed this approach in an effort to grow year-round tourism and protect itself from a changing climate and business environment. Leveraging 2 of Hankinson's ( 2009 ) destination branding components, partnerships and communications, to the case study of Whistler, British Columbia, this paper explores its brand repositioning towards the arts and culture.