Christopher Pich

Political branding: sense of identity or identity crisis? An investigation of the transfer potential of the brand identity prism to the UK Conservative Party

Abstract Brands are strategic assets and key to achieving a competitive advantage. Brands can be seen as a heuristic device, encapsulating a series of values that enable the consumer to make quick and efficient choices. More recently, the notion of a political brand and the rhetoric of branding have been widely adopted by many political parties as they seek to differentiate themselves, and this has led to an emerging interest in the idea of the political brand. Therefore, this paper examines the UK Conservative Party brand under David Cameron’s leadership and examines the applicability of Kapferer’s brand identity prism to political branding. This paper extends and operationalises the brand identity prism into a ‘political brand identity network’ which identifies the inter-relatedness of the components of the corporate political brand and the candidate political brand. Crucial for practitioners, this model can demonstrate how the brand is presented and communicated to the electorate and serves as a useful mechanism to identify consistency within the corporate and candidate political brands.

Political brand image: an investigation into the operationalisation of the external orientation of David Cameron’s Conservative brand

Abstract This paper seeks to address the limited understanding of how to operationalise the external brand image of a political brand. More specifically, this research critically assesses the transfer potential of the six variables of brand image by Bosch, Venter, Han and Boshoff to deconstruct the UK Conservative Party brand from the perspective of young people aged 18–24 years during the 2010 UK General Election campaign. This research demonstrates the applicability of the six variables otherwise known as the ‘brand image framework’ to the political environment. However, the application of the brand image framework in its original conceptualisation proved problematic. Many of the brand image variables were clarified, rearticulated and simplified to address the political context. This refined conceptualisation provided an in-depth understanding of how to investigate the political brand image of David Cameron’s Conservative Party. This study addresses the paucity of research that operationalises external brand image and provides practitioners and academics within and beyond the context of political branding a mechanism to understand the external orientation of brands. This research may also be used by political and non-political brands as a basis to explore external brand image and compare its consistency with internal brand identity.

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 partys 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.

An exploration of Icelandic marketing women entrepreneurs

The phenomenon of women’s entrepreneurship has gained significant momentum across the globe. Increasingly businesses started and managed by women are contributing to job creation, innovation and wellbeing (Kelley et al. 2015). Despite the contributions women entrepreneurs have made to overall economic wellbeing, the vast majority of prior research about women entrepreneurs has taken an individualcentric approach (Pathak et al., 2013; Jennings and Brush, 2013). However, recently we are observing a shift in the focus of women’s entrepreneurship research from microlevel and individual factors to a greater focus on how mesoand macrocontextual levels impact individuals’ decisions – that is, from “gender as a variable” to research based more on feminist perspectives and the formal and informal institutional factors that influence entrepreneurial creation by women (Brush et al., 2006). Even with the shift in research interest on the influence of contextual variables on women entrepreneurs, the impact of macronational social values and cultural traditions (AlDajani and Marlow, 2010; Roomi, 2013; Zahra and Wright, 2011) and gendered social forces (Brush et al., 2009; DíazGarcía and Welter, 2013; Loscocco and Bird, 2012) remains underresearched. Because entrepreneurship is a social embedded process, connecting entrepreneurial behaviours of individuals to their context can offer a more insightful explanation of the entrepreneurial phenomenon (Davidsson 2004; Sarasvathy 2004; Zahra 2007; Welter 2011; Zahra et al., 2014). Berg (1997: 262) argues that “the material and sociocultural contexts in which entrepreneurship take place are gendered”. Therefore, women entrepreneurship research would benefit greatly from taking into consideration how macronational factors, such as cultural norms and societal expectations, and the mesoorganizational structures and institutions are

Qualitative projective techniques in political brand image research from the perspective of young adults

Purpose – This paper aimed to focus on political marketing and utilised a number of projective techniques to explore the UK Conservative Party’s “brand image” amongst young adults aged 18-24 years. There is little guidance in the extant literature regarding projective technique analysis. Furthermore, there are explicit calls for insight and more understanding into the analytical process. Responding to this identified gap in the literature, this paper provides an illustrative guide that can be used to analyse and interpret findings generated from qualitative projective techniques. Design/methodology/approach – This paper opted for an exploratory study using focus group discussions, combined with qualitative projective techniques. Eight two-hour focus group discussions were conducted with 46 young citizens aged 18-24 years from three locations in England. Focus groups were conducted prior to the 2010 UK General Election. The data from the projective techniques were thematically analysed by the researcher. F...

Structured Abstract: Comprehending Political Branding and Brand Image of the BJP in India

The communication between a political party and a voter these days is expected to be interactive (Cogburn et al. 2011) and focused on the everyday story of the voter (Weiser 1991). Unlike previous messaging, where political party maintained a royal distance as a demonstration of power, the modern approach connects the political party directly with the voter. Such new marketing approaches strengthen the connection between the candidate and the voter (Cogburn and Espinoza-Vasquez 2011). However, there is limited insight about how political brands are interpreted and understood. This is supported by explicit calls for further research in this area beyond a Western context, especially in nontraditional settings (Kumar 2009; Needham and Smith 2015). This is particularly the case with an emerging country such as India, which has more than a billion citizens, the second largest population in the world (Castells 2011). They have two categories of parties, national (6) and state level (30) (Election Commission of India), and the brand image of these parties becomes important for the voters. Most importantly, among the various parties, the leading and the currently ruling party, the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), have widely used political branding approaches and developed their brand image among the young voters of India. Thus, this chapter explores the political brand image of the BJP from the perspective of young voters in India.

Investigating political brand reputation with qualitative projective techniques from the perspective of young adults

Capturing and understanding the images and reputations external stakeholders assign to brands can be confusing and challenging. This is reinforced by explicit calls for more pragmatic tools and methods to comprehend the external orientation of brands. We respond by investigating the applicability of qualitative projective techniques in exploration of the external current image and long-term reputation of the UK Conservative Party corporate brand from the perspective of young voters aged 18–24 years. This is achieved by comparing and contrasting the external brand images prior the 2015 UK General Election with the findings collected before the 2010 UK General Election. We demonstrate that qualitative projective techniques are useful applications to capture, deconstruct, and understand current image and long-term reputation of political brands. Organizations including those beyond the political context will be able to use this article as a guide to generate a deeper understanding of their brands image and consistency of their reputation.

Marketing Brexit: Young Voter Opinion, Engagement and Future Intention in the Context of the EU Referendum: An Abstract

This study addresses explicit calls for comparative research of young voter behaviour in political marketing (Needham and Smith 2015; Neilsen 2015). Existing studies on the behaviour of young voters [18–24 years] reveal a paradox. Young voters are often less engaged in the political process, highly disillusioned and distrusting of the political establishment compared with other age groups (Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2010; Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2004; Phelps 2005). However, despite this mistrust and disengagement, research suggests that young voters are interested in political issues and topics (Bakker 2011; Yeung 2016). Existing research suggests there is a danger that political disengagement of young voters can become ‘habitual’ and subsequently have a negative impact on participation and voter intention in future elections (Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd 2010). Previous studies in this area have tended to focus on periodic elections (general presidential elections) rather than nontraditional intermittent campaigns such as referenda. Responding to this gap in the body of knowledge, this study investigates whether intermittent campaigns (such as the UK EU Referendum) have an impact on young voter engagement, participation and future voting intentions compared with periodic elections.

Creating and developing local political brand identity: a constituency focus

Research into individual-sub-political brands has received little attention compared with corporate political brands. Further, there are explicit calls for more research dedicated to individual-sub-political brands and how political brands are positioned particularly from an internal perspective. Focusing on political brand identity which is seen as the internal view or reality of the organisation, this paper seeks to explore how individual-sub (local)-political brand identity is created and developed from an internal orientation following the 2015 UK General Election. In-depth interviews were conducted with internal stakeholders of an individual-sub-political brand of the UK Conservative Party. Findings were thematically analysed. This case study reveals how an individual-sub-political brand identity was created and developed over several years before polling. This study also strengthens the proposition that corporate political brands are a coalition of unique emotive individual-sub-political brands, which have to strategically manage the duality of consistency yet independence between the corporate and individual level. The findings have implications for entities beyond the political landscape. Organisations will be able to use this paper as a guide to deconstruct individual-sub-political brands and explore their coherency with the corporate political brand.

Investigating Political Brand Image and Reputation with Qualitative Projective Techniques

Existing research within political branding has tended to focus on internal identity and external image. Further, there are limited studies with calls for future research devoted to the exploration of external reputation and how the concept relates to external image. This paper investigates the interrelatedness of corporate reputation and image within the context of political branding and addresses the question of how to investigate external brand reputation. More specifically, this study seeks to generate insight into the UK Conservative Party’s brand reputation prior the 2015 UK General Election. Focus group discussions combined with qualitative projective techniques were adopted. The findings were thematically analysed. The findings demonstrate that projective techniques can be used to understand not only the brand image but also the brand reputation of the UK Conservative Party. Further, this study highlights how its external image has developed since the 2010 UK General Election. This study reaffirms the idea that both image and reputation are related yet distinct concepts and in order to uncover a brand’s reputation, a brand’s image must be understood before deducing the long-term view. Organisations beyond the political context will be able to use this paper as a guide to generate a deeper understanding of their brands from an external orientation overtime.