Question: Is there any way a political brand can have positive brand equity
Saturday the 19th of May is Australia’s Federal Election, which means today millions of democratic participants will queue for hours to cast their compulsory ballots and collect their democracy sausages. If you are Australian, here is an interactive map of which polling stations have sausage sizzles and cake stands going. But if you’re not Australian, all you really need to know is that the democracy sausage is the most positive aspect (maybe the only positive aspect) of Australian politics right now.
This sausage of course leads me to political brand equity. And it only seems fitting and topical to talk about political brands in the context of this Federal Election.
Political Apathy
The Australian political marketing landscape has been shaped by years of leadership spills, and increasing distrust in politicians and the political system. Reigning Prime Minister ScoMo is the 6th to hold office in a decade, and given elections take place every 3 years it only takes some basic math to work out something is off. Many Australians have asked questions like; what’s the point of voting for a leader who is going to be thrown out half way through their term anyway by their own party?
On top of this Australia’s short 3 year turnaround for leadership means that politicians often have to spend more time campaigning than they do governing. And even when they are governing, most political rhetoric involves the two major parties bickering and blaming each other. When combined with perceptions of similarity between the major parties (who both err on either side of the centre on policy issues) and lack of perceived societal change, many voters have lost faith in the political system.
With the attitudes of everyday Australians becoming increasingly apathetic, political parties have to work harder to engage and win voters over. When it comes to brand equity, all political contenders are fighting against the odds, and against perception. But the real question is can political brands have positive brand equity, rather than becoming in the public eye the least worst option.
Attack Ads
The most popular type of political advertising takes the form of negative attack ads. They occur on every platform and make up the majority of political ads. This is because there is an archaic belief that –because voters are apathetic– in order to cut through and engage voters, negative ads are the best bet because people feel most strongly about negative emotions. An example attack ads is the Liberal Party’s ‘Labor will tax your to death’ angle seen in the current election.
But negative political ads aren’t as effective as parties think, as shown in research from the 2016 Federal Election by Dr Andrew Hughes, esteemed head of Marketing at the Australian National University and all-round top bloke (can I have a HD yet?). While people do have emotional reactions to negative ads, this doesn’t change their vote and mainly people remember hating the ad, rather than the message it was trying to convey. Negative ads by major political parties also have the side effect of making voters even more disillusioned with the political process and increasing their chances of voting for a minor party.
Brand Equity
TLDR? The bottom line is we have a system where voters are apathetic, so politicians run negative ads in an attempt to get through to them, which only succeeds in making them more apathetic, and so on.
What does this mean for political brand equity? While it is not impossible for political brands to have positive brand equity, the modern Australian political landscape certainly makes it hard. To be a truly successful political brand, there must be a brand story and commitment that builds perceptions of trust and hope.
Yes We Can
For an example of positive political brand equity I’m going to have to say, Thanks Obama. Barack Obama’s 2008 political campaign is widely considered to have changed the rules of the political marketing playbook. Largely because it was the first campaign of its kind to have access to and effectively utilise the internet and social media. The campaign also won a number of awards including with Ad Age and the Cannes Lion Ad Awards.
One big thing the Obama campaign got right was it's use of positive messaging throughout its campaign, including the slogan Change we can believe in which channeled the theme of hope throughout his messaging. This was reinforced by the 'Yes we can' slogan and speech which was turned into a music video with popular artists who supported Obama's campaign.
But the theme of hope was perhaps most effectively conveyed by the iconic Obama poster that was designed by artist Shapard Fairey. This poster became synonymous with the Obama campaign and has been widely used in popular culture to this day. This positive messaging combined with his brand's humanity, consistency, and recognisability enabled the Obama campaign to hold positive political brand equity - something that Australia's politicians could learn from.
This blog post was made for a MKTG3023 assessment task.
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