Political Branding in Turbulent times

Over the past twenty years, branding theory has gained currency in helping shape and manage the political products offered by politicians, political parties, movements and governments. This introduction chapter briefly highlights the relevance of branding concepts and frameworks in political markets. A reading list is provided for those who seek to familiarise themselves with core branding concepts and frameworks. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to introducing the other chapters of the book.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, we put forward key branding concepts and frameworks within political marketing, to explore political brand identity and political brand image in relation to different typologies of political brands in international contexts. Further, we argue that political brands represent a complex ecosystem of inter-related yet often distinct sub-brands. Nevertheless, all political brands should strive to be positioned and perceived as authentic, united, engaging, trustworthy and understandable by multiple stakeholders, which in turn can lead to success at the ballot box. Secondly, we apply theory to practice and provide two specific short case studies grounded on empirical qualitative research. We conclude by presenting implications to theory and practice and an agenda for future research.

The 2020 American election shows how branding and other political marketing techniques shape American political behaviours at all levels. Particular attention is given to the case of the Trump and Biden campaigns, but attention is also paid to strategy employed at other levels in the same cycle. The 2020 election shows that, having individual politicians’ brand themselves instead of running a coordinated campaign on a single party brand can produce mixed results. This cycle shows that political brands are tightly targeted to segmented audiences thus gauging the size and distribution of the targeted audience matters a great deal. The emotive, personal, branding employed by Trump and Biden attracted some voters while repelling others and making those repelled susceptible to pitches by the opposition candidate and party.

Political parties and leaders are gradually moving towards branding primarily on social media using social media influencers. Taking the case of Narendra Modi and BJP’s success in India, the chapter aims to understand social media’s role in political brand building. The chapter focuses on different social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, where Modi and BJP’s team have a phenomenal social media reach. The chapter also follows a dyad approach and looks at two political branding aspects: political leader’s perspective and, second, voters and influencers. Finally, the chapter presents both the positive and negative effects of social media on political branding.

This chapter explores the impact of the Brexit campaign on British political brands. It reflects upon the use of the branding theory as an effective way of conceptualising political organisations and the importance of the positioning concept as a way of establishing distinctiveness between one political offering and another. It considers the relative brand positions occupied by the major UK political brands and the factors that impacted upon their relative success in the referendum campaign and beyond. Finally, it identifies a number of lessons that can be learned by political ‘brands’ for campaigns in the years ahead.

This chapter contributes to the current debate on ideology, social movements and political activities in a branded society. Adopting a sociological perspective on brands as platforms, the chapter shows how brands support grass-roots social movements to structure their political actions. Through the analysis of the Five Star Movement (M5S), a digital political party, the chapter illustrates how brand-coordinated activism expands the range of democracy by helping consumers-citizens to achieve political goals. All in all, our study unveils how political brand platforms work as changemakers as they organise and channel political views and activities allowing consumer-citizens to gain political voice and achieve political change.

Political parties are in the business of selling hope to voters. In the post-truth era “selling” this hope seems to be easier for populists and right-oriented parties. While progressives appear to be struggling to communicate with voters in times of political instability, the political party Polish Law and Justice is winning election after election and has managed to build stable relations with their voters. We argue that an integral component of building such stable relationships is the concept of brand promise: giving, fulfilling and enabling promises. Through an experimental study, we examine voters’ responses to the Polish ruling party and we present thus a psychological perspective on branding. We also explain why the opposition’s critiques of the government might have a boomerang effect and harm the opposition themselves, rather than the government. The chapter ends with a set of implications and recommendations for practitioners.

This chapter ties the contribution of the chapters of the book and sets an agenda for future research. Key lessons for practitioners, from each chapter, are collated and discussed in this chapter. The chapter also asks a number of questions about the ethics of both political branding and related political marketing communications. At the heart of the conceptualisation of parties and candidates as brands is the logic and relevance of marketing ideology and technology in the political realm. Advocates of the introduction of marketing principles and techniques to the realm of politics have suggested that as the citizen is treated more as a consumer, and so placed at the heart of the decision-making processes, a stronger relationship will develop between citizens and political institutions. The citizen-consumer, it is argued, becomes empowered through being at the heart of political brand management and product development and so more trusting of institutions through their engagement. While it is clear that marketisation has impacted on politics, marketing plays a more significantly role in branding strategies, shaping platforms to align with public attitudes, market testing messages and the integrated marketing communication techniques apparent in campaigning innovation. This final chapter raises the question of whether political marketing communication, as practised, lacks an ethical anchor and thus has the propensity to undermine the democratic processes which give it a purpose.