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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Although the concept of political party brand personality has received substantial recognition in the political marketing literature, however, no study as yet has contributed in identifying a causal relationship between the party brand personality and voter behaviour. Therefore, this paper aims to address this gap in the academic literature by determining the relationship between the multifaceted advertising-brand personality-satisfaction-loyalty constructs in political context.

The sample for the study consisting of 930 responses was drawn from the major cities of Punjab state in India through multistage stratified random sampling. AMOS-based structural equation modelling was used to test the proposed model.

Results revealed that voters’ attitude towards political advertisements had a significant effect on their satisfaction and loyalty when brand personality had a mediating role in this effect. Additionally, the influence of party brand personality on satisfaction and loyalty of voters was different for the selected four political parties.

The study carries strong implications for the political parties and the political marketers to develop pertinent marketing and communication strategies that are consistent with their personality traits, with an endeavour to enhance the satisfaction and loyalty of voters.

The most imperative discovery of this study is to determine the mediating role of party brand personality on relationship between political advertisements, voter satisfaction and party loyalty. Such a study of an emerging economy contributes significantly to the marketing theory and practice owing to the diversity and fragmentation across India with respect to religion, caste, creed and race of voters.

This study aims to examine brand personality and its application to political branding. This study focuses on the brand personality of a political leader from the BJP Party brand (Bharatiya Janta Party). The development of a strong political brand personality is crucial for success at the polls. Little research has been dedicated to this phenomenon particularly beyond Western political and post-election contexts.

The scope and development of the study required a qualitative approach. The theoretical frameworks of the study acted as the deductive base of the study. The insights of the respondents were the inductive base of the study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with external stakeholders [voters]. In addition, semi-structured interviews were also adopted to capture the branding activities used by internal stakeholders [BJP].

The brand personality dimensions such as sincerity; agreeableness, competence, energy, openness, conscientiousness and emotional stability were clearly associated with a political leader. Negative qualities such as dictatorial attitudes and arrogance affected the political leader’s brand personality. Religious partisanship was another strong negative trait affecting the brand personality of the political leader.

The study has an actionable framework for political brand personality in the post-election context. It offers negative qualities to be avoided in the development of the political brand personality of the leader. It offers insights about the political brand personality of the leader in terms of young digitally savvy voters.

Este trabajo examina la aplicación de la personalidad de marca al ámbito del marketing político y de la marca personal política. Concretamente se centra en la personalidad de marca de un líder político del partido Bharantiya Janta Party (BJP). El desarrollo de una fuerte marca personal política es crucial para el éxito en las elecciones. Pocos trabajos se han centrado hasta el momento en este fenómeno más allá del contexto político occidental.

El alcance y desarrollo del estudio requirió la adopción de un enfoque cualitativo. El marco teórico sirvió de base deductiva al tiempo que las entrevistas realizadas sirvieron de base inductiva. Estas entrevistas fueron semi-estructuradas y dirigidas a grupos de interés externos del BJP (los votantes). Además, se realizaron entrevistas también semi-estructuradas para capturar las actividades de marca desarrolladas por los grupos de interés internos (candidatos, políticos, trabajadores y gerentes del partido).

Las dimensiones de personalidad de marca sinceridad, competencia, energía, estabilidad emocional, franqueza y escrupulosidad están claramente asociadas con un líder político. Por el contrario, rasgos negativos como las actitudes arrogantes y dictatoriales dañan la personalidad de marca de dicho líder, pero sobretodo el partidismo religioso.

El trabajo proporciona un marco de acción para la marca personal política en un contexto post-electoral. Proporciona indicaciones de los rasgos y cualidades negativas que deben de evitarse en el desarrollo de una marca personal para un líder político. Ofrece también evidencias sobre la personalidad de marca que tiene que desarrollar un líder de cara a los votantes más dinámicos y digitales.

Political parties are continuously interested to gain knowledge about the factors that influence the voter to select political candidate of his/her choice. The purpose of this paper is to examine cumulative impact of sources of associations on voters’ preference of the political party and to investigate the type of causal relationship that exists among those sources.

The authors have proposed five key sources of associations of the overall political party, namely, campaign effectiveness, image of its leaders, intensity of anti-incumbency effect, meaning and trust attached with the party. Here the authors have considered four important political parties relevant to the voters of West Bengal. Those are Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and All India Trinamool Congress. The authors have used SEM method for estimating the model as the same is widely used for estimating a system of equations with latent variables.

Out of the eight path coefficients six are found to be statistically significant. Political campaign impacts brand trust positively and brand trust in turn impacts party preference positively. Again political campaign’s direct impact on political party preference is found to be positive. However, the impact of political campaign on party preference also runs through brand meaning. Both the path coefficients are significantly negative showing that more the voters develop understanding about political parties through different independent sources lesser are the impact of political campaigns as they highlight positive aspects of the party and the candidate only, ignoring facts. Interestingly leadership is impacting party preference negatively. Thus individual leadership traits have negatively impacted party preference in the sample.

In the paper, the authors have identified factors impacting political brand choice in an emerging country like India. This research explores the factors that need to be considered by the political parties to influence preference of voters for political brand. As far as the authors’ knowledge goes no such studies have been carried out in the Indian context and certainly not in the context of a regime change after three decades. Additionally, the theoretical model proposed is firmly grounded in theory and its estimation is based on well-developed scales. The approach is thus unique in this area of enquiry. Finally, application of SEM in political branding context is a significant contribution of this work.

From a relational political brand perspective, newly elected governments are primarily concerned with maintaining the trust of the electoral coalition that brought them in office in order to secure their re-election. Hence, as Needham (2005) has suggested, governing parties tend to employ a political communication strategy aimed at promoting an effective brand consisted of six components: simplicity, uniqueness, reassurance, aspiration, values and credibility. In this context, this study examines the communication strategies of three Greek governments (PASOK, New Democracy and SYRIZA) in the period 2009–2019 that failed to be re-elected once they implemented the bail-out packages, against the six branding criteria. Following a qualitative methodological approach, this chapter analyses the key speeches of the respective prime ministers along with polling evidence and secondary data. It argues that all these three governments failed to be re-elected once they implemented the memoranda, not only because of the unpopular nature of the austerity measures but also because of their failure to fully retain their political brands in office since they hardly succeed to deliver on their promises, though it is unclear whether they employed self-consciously such a branding strategy.

This paper aims to help in the development of a better understanding of key brand-related terms and discuss the key challenges and trends in brand management.

This is an editorial based mainly on an extensive and broad literature review on brand management.

First, this work defines some key brand management terms and presents brand-related issues and concerns that remain unchanged over time. Then it discusses some of the brand management-related matters that are changing since the past few years. Challenges for the management of brands from the side of the companies that have introduced them are then presented. It finally provides a glimpse of the five papers selected for this special issue and then identifies avenues for further research.

This work and the whole special issue together help in the understanding of the dynamic nature of the management of brands over time with implications to the management and the academic engagement with brands.

Este artículo tiene como único propósito ayudar en la obtención de una mayor comprensión de conceptos claves relacionados con la marca y presentar los desafíos y tendencias claves en la gestión de ésta.

Editorial basado principalmente una extensión y amplía revisión de la literatura relacionada con la gestión de la marca.

En primer lugar, este Editorial define algunos conceptos clave de la marca y presenta una serie de cuestiones que han permanecido y permanecen invariables a lo largo del tiempo. Posteriormente, discute otra serie de aspectos y cuestiones que están cambiando en los últimos años para a continuación describir los principales desafíos actualmente existentes para la gestión de la marca desde la perspectiva de las empresas. Este Editorial finaliza con una breve presentación de los cinco artículos seleccionados para este número especial así como una descripción de futuras líneas de investigación.

Este Editorial y en su conjunto todo el número especial dedicado a la marca ayuda a una mayor comprensión de la naturaleza dinámica de la gestión de las marcas a lo largo del tiempo y de sus implicaciones académicas y empresariales.

In this study, the authors investigate Ghana's Free Senior High School policy as an all-inclusive development policy that drives voting behaviour.

Using the snowball sampling technique and a statistically representative sample size of 413 eligible voters from Ghana, the authors estimate a multinomial logistic regression with its marginal effects.

The results show that as the number of Free Senior High School beneficiaries per household increases, the more the voters in that household are likely to vote for the policy implementor. Similarly, voters who believe that the Free Senior High School policy has had an impact on students' performance are more likely to vote for the policy implementor. By implication, an all-inclusive development policy such as the Free Senior High School educational policy has the probability of influencing voting behaviour in favour of the policy implementor.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the nexus between an all-inclusive Free Senior High School educational policy and voting behaviour in Ghana.

The creation and development of candidate-politician brands, otherwise known as political co-brands, remains an under-researched area of study. This is supported by calls for more understanding on political co-brands and how they are positioned and managed by their creators. Framed by the concepts of internal brand identity and co-branding, this paper aims to investigate how political co-brand identity is constructed and managed over time, exploring alignment between the political co-brand and political corporate party brand.

An interpretivist revelatory multi-case study approach, using in-depth interviews, was conducted with three political co-brands (candidates-politicians) from the UK Conservative Party. The three cases represented constituencies across the UK from the North, Midlands and South of the country. The in-depth elite interviews were conducted July 2015 to September 2015. Methodological triangulation was also adopted to assess the coherency of emerging themes with online and offline materials and documents. A two-stage thematic analytical approach was used to interpret the findings.

This multiple case study demonstrates how successful political co-brands create and develop identities tailored to their constituency, often distinct from the corporate political brand and developed several years before electoral success at the ballot box. In addition, this study reveals that political co-brands are dichotomous in terms of strategically managing a degree of alignment with the corporate political brand yet maintaining a degree of independence.

This study builds on limited existing concepts such as co-branding and political brand identity as a means of critical application. Existing research on co-branding remains a “relatively limited” and complex area of study and generally focuses on fictitious brands. Political brand identity remains an under-researched area. This in turn supports the development and advancement of political branding as an area of study. This paper highlights the opportunities of using the strategic approach of co-branding to help conceptualise “candidates-politicians” as political brands’ which up until now, “candidate-politician brands” have been difficult to define unlike the extensive research on corporate political brands.

This study has implications for practice too. Organisations and different typologies of political brands will be able to use this political co-brand identity framework as a diagnostic mechanism to investigate their co-brands current identity, assess alignment and make strategic changes or reposition the envisaged identity if desired. Similarly, organisations can use this framework, key dimensions and factors as a blueprint to design and build new political brands at a corporate and/or local level.

This study has implications for brands beyond the world of politics. Brands can adopt the political co-brand identity framework developed in this study as a pragmatic tool to investigate internally created co-brand identity and explore alignment with the corporate party brand identity. In addition, this research adds to the limited research on non-fictitious co-brands and co-branding literature at large and addresses the calls for more research on brand identity in new settings.