Lorann Downer

It’s the Equity Stupid! Protecting the Value of the Partisan Brand

Abstract A new brand-oriented party model is employed to consider the importance of partisan brand equity, or voter-perceived value. The model conceptualizes, identifies, and evaluates political branding from a practitioner’s perspective. Working with the model and primary vote data to measure equity, I draw on the recent fortunes of the Australian Labor Party to illustrate the danger of disregarding partisan brand equity. I argue that partisan brand equity was built and then eroded by key actions of the party and its leaders over 7 years. These successes and failures offer two lessons for Labor. First, parties that intend to undertake branding should fully embrace the concept of consumer-based brand equity. Second, they should ensure that the leader’s brand equity is put into the service of the party brand. The model and the suggestions for Australian Labor may be valuable for other parties seeking to understand and manage brand equity.

Political branding strategies: campaigning and governing in Australian politics

Political Branding Strategies tells the story of branding by the Australian Labor Party across seven years and three brands – Kevin07, The Real Julia and that of the party. Employing a new framework to understand and evaluate branding, the book offers lessons for practitioners, researchers and citizens in democracies everywhere.

The Lessons of Branded Politics

The story of Australian Labor’s political branding strategies, while campaigning and governing has insights for practitioners, researchers and citizens in every democracy. This chapter offers some specific conclusions from the case studies of the Kevin07 and The Real Julia campaigns. It also offers several broader lessons for other similar political systems. Overall, it urges practitioners, researchers and citizens alike to engage with political branding.

Crafting and Crashing Kevin07

Australian Labor and Kevin Rudd ran a sophisticated and disciplined co-branding campaign, featuring the charismatic Kevin07, which carried them into office in November 2007. Drawing on campaigner insights, a new evaluation framework and selected communications, this chapter considers the brand strategy and some of the key tactics used by Labor. It finds that both the leader and party brands were carefully evolved and presented throughout the year, but that brand discipline dissolved during Rudd’s first term in office. The deal-breaker was when Rudd effectively walked away from action on the brand-defining issue of climate change, leaving voters with a serious case of post-purchase dissonance. Labor’s brand also suffered because it was closely linked to Rudd’s. Labor failed to maintain a branding campaign throughout the electoral cycle and failed to retain voter support; Rudd paid the price with his leadership.

Desperately Seeking The Real Julia

Australian Labor and Julia Gillard sought a branding approach for the 2010 election campaign, but struggled with fall-out from the removal of Rudd, the rush to the polls, a hostile environment and some own goals. Drawing on campaigner insights, a new evaluation framework and selected communications, this chapter considers the brand approach and some of the key tactics used by Labor. The campaign had strategic intent but was unevenly executed, most notably when Gillard declared she was unleashing ‘the real Julia’. In Gillard’s second term, brand discipline quickly declined. The leader and party brands suffered severe damage and, facing dire polls, Labor restored Rudd to the leadership in mid-2013. Rudd Redux had some of the echoes but little of the discipline of the Kevin07 campaign. At the 2013 election, Labor was dumped from office.