Branding the Image of a Fox: The Psychological Profile of EU President Herman Van Rompuy

2018

Politics & Policy

There are explicit calls for deeper understanding of the creation, orientation, and development of “new” political brands from an “internal relational” perspective. Responding to this gap in the body of knowledge, this study explores the establishment, orientation, and position of the Jury Team; a U.K. political brand founded in March 2008. This article opted for an exploratory case study approach. Interviews were conducted with the Party founder‐leader. Semistructured interviews were conducted from September 2012 to October 2013. Transcripts were analyzed via qualitative thematic analysis. This research presents the challenges that face new political brands, particularly the barriers from the media and existing political system and difficulties with managing candidates and a national‐local campaign. Further, this study provides a “political brand development matrix” for brands within and beyond politics; a mechanism to deconstruct their offering and make adaptations if required. Related Articles Related Media BBC News. . “Rantzen Backs Jury Team Project.” May 20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8059333.stm BBC News. . “European Election 2009: UK Results.” June 8. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_999999.stm

Section: Relational Political Brand Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

An Exploratory Case Study Focusing on the Creation, Orientation, and Development of a New Political Brand: The Case of the Jury Team

2018

Politics & Policy

“…Further, each political co-brand is supported [by the corporate brand] to determine the political emphasis and agenda for the local community (Pich et al 2017). This demonstrates the complex and multifaceted nature of political brands (Grimmer and Grube 2017;Milewicz and Milewicz 2014;Pich et al 2017;Smith 2008). Therefore, political co-brand identities are a cluster of individual values, personal ideological beliefs and past personal experiences aligned with corporate 'broad church' historical ideologies and pragmatic values, which in turn co-create the desired brand identity as illustrated in figure 4 (Aqeel et al 2017;Gyrd-Jones and Kornum 2013;Helmig et al 2008;Kornum and Muhlbacher 2013;Nguyen et al 2018;Thomson 2006).…”

Section: Creation and Development Of Political Co-brand Identitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the creation and development of political co-brand identity

2019

QMR

Purpose 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. Design/methodology/approach 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. 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. Research limitations/implications 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. Practical implications 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. Originality/value 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.

“…Further, there are explicit calls within the existing literature that more research should be devoted to explore the internal orientation of individual-sub political brands (Phipps, Brace-Govan and Jevons 2010;. Despite the calls for more research in this area, there are a few studies that have investigated individual-local political brands or candidates that have turned their attention to personality, equity or image rather than generate deep insight internal brand identity (Cwalina and Falkowski 2014;De Landtsheer and De Vries 2015;Milewicz and Milewicz 2014;Smith and Spotswood 2013). Nevertheless, individual-local brand identity was briefly highlighted in the findings sections of and ; however both studies focused on the corporate political brand rather than the individual-sub political brand.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Responding to the calls for future research and gaps in the body of knowledge (Cwalina and Falkowski 2014;De Landtsheer and De Vries 2015;Milewicz and Milewicz 2014;Phipps, Brace-Govan and Jevons 2010;Smith and Spotswood 2013), this study aims to explore the internal identity of individual-sub political brands from an internal standpoint. Further, this paper seeks to reveal how individual-sub (local) political brand identity is created and developed in the context of a distinct case study of a Member of Parliament of the UK Conservative Party.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Political brands are complex multilayered entities that can be segmented into corporate political brands otherwise known as Parties and individual-sub political brands often conceptualised as individual politicians and candidates (Cwalina and Falkowski 2014;De Landtsheer and De Vries, 2015;Milewicz and Milewicz 2014;Speed, Butler and Colins 2015). Research into individual-sub political brands has received little attention compared with corporate political brands with calls for more research dedicated to individual-sub political brands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Creating and Developing Local Political Brand Identity: A Constituency Focus

Marketing at the Confluence Between Entertainment and Analytics

2017

INTRODUCTIONPolitical brands are complex multilayered entities that can be segmented into corporate political brands otherwise known as Parties and individual-sub political brands often conceptualised as individual politicians and candidates (Cwalina and Falkowski 2014;De Landtsheer and De Vries, 2015;Milewicz and Milewicz 2014; Speed, Butler and Colins 2015). Research into individual-sub political brands has received little attention compared with corporate political brands with calls for more research dedicated to individual-sub political brands. This is particularly the case with studies on political brand identity. Political brand identity is seen as the internal view or reality of the organisation and focuses on how the entity projects itself to the external audience. Further, leading authors within the field call for more dayto-day and non-traditional focus within political marketing and investigate how political brands are positioned are needed (Needham and Smith 2015;O'Cass 2001;Ormrod, Henneberg, Forward, Miller, and Tymms 2007). More specifically, Pich and Dean (2015) call for more insight and understanding into the individual-sub political brands in order to ascertain and strategically utilise their potential of building long term relationships with voters. Responding to the identified gap in the body of knowledge, 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. This study highlights a distinct case study of a Member of Parliament of the UK Conservative Party. This will offer insight into the sub-brand political brand and assess consistency with the corporate political brand. Further, this study will provide unique first-hand perspectives of how identity is created, developed and maintained within the political environment. The findings have implications not only for political parties but also for politicians, candidates and other political entities. The paper will review and refine the concept of localsub political brands and illustrate how to investigate the internal orientation of individual political brands. This study will demonstrate that individual political brands can be tailored to address the wants and needs of each unique constituency yet remain consistent with the corporate political brand. BACKGROUND