What draws voters to brandidates and why? – Political orientation, personal satisfaction, and societal values on presidential candidates’ brand personality

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of voters’ personal and societal values on presidential candidate brand personality preference. In addition, the research examines which brand personalities are deemed most and least important. This research meets the growing demand to further understand how voters develop preferences for brandidates.

Design/methodology/approach

Voters ranked which presidential brand personalities they deemed most important in a candidate as well as which of the two major candidates they most associated with that trait. Data were collected weeks in advance of the 2020 presidential election from a national online panel representing a balanced mix of voters by party affiliation.

Findings

The results indicate that life satisfaction, political orientation and postmaterialism are significant and provide adequate explanatory power in understanding which brand personality traits are associated with a presidential candidate. Also, using an importance-performance matrix, the authors find which candidate is most identified with various brand personality traits and how important those traits are to voters.

Research limitations/implications

Using the importance-performance matrix for assessing brand/candidate personality preference by consumers/voters provides researchers with a multidimensional method for analyzing how various dimensions influence selection preference. The explanatory power of the independent variables, i.e. political orientation, comparative life satisfaction and societal values, is very low when regressed against personality attributes in general (not assigned to a candidate); however, they provide meaningful results when regressed against personality attributes when assigned to candidates. Understanding the importance of general brand personality attributes is not as important as understanding their importance when associated with a specific brand.

Practical implications

The importance-performance matrix for brand/candidate personality presented in this research clearly indicated and predicted voter preference for the 2020 Presidential election; thus, this tool can be effectively used by political marketers in future elections. Political orientation so strongly influences voter perception of specific candidate brand personality dimensions that they view their preferred candidate to be universally superior to other candidates. Political marketers can appeal to voters based on their political orientation to strengthen the relationship between candidates and voters.

Originality/value

This research investigates how personal and societal values impact voters’ preference for brand personality traits in a presidential candidate. Voter preference for presidential brand personality traits is assessed generically, i.e. not associated with a particular candidate, as well as when they are linked to a specific candidate, i.e. Biden and Trump.

Citation

Harrison, K.M., Yoo, B., Thelen, S. and Ford, J. (2023), "What draws voters to brandidates and why? – Political orientation, personal satisfaction, and societal values on presidential candidates’ brand personality", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 32 No. 1, pp. 59-78. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPBM-08-2021-3606