Factors responsible behind political brand preference: an empirical study on Indian voters

Abstract

Purpose – 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. Design/methodology/approach – 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. Findings – 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. Originality/value – 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.

An examination of the interplay between country-of-origin, brand equity, brand preference and purchase intention toward global fashion brands

“…Consumers' brand preference is an important step in understanding customer choice behaviour and has accordingly received a lot of attention from researchers (Banerjee and Ray Chaudhuri, 2016). Brand preference has been described and defined by many models that have often focused on brand characteristics based on logic (Ebrahim et al, 2016;Kulshreshtha et al, 2017).…”

Dynamics of Voter Satisfaction: Empirical Investigation of Young Indian Voters

“…Researchers have opined that the concerns and preferences crucial for voter satisfaction depend upon the level of enduring and situational involvement of voters in the election process (Ben-Ur, 2007;Gad, 2014;Banerjee & Ray Chaudhuri, 2016).…”

“…In the context of voting, previous researchers have suggested that higher voter satisfaction results in more participation of voters during elections (Hadjar & Beck, 2010). Hence, it is imperative for politicians to have indepth understanding of the factors that lead to higher voter satisfaction and hence, contribute in active voter participation in the election process (Banerjee & Ray Chaudhuri, 2016;Ehrenberg 1997;Henn, Weinstein, & Forest, 2005;O'Cass & Pecotich, 2005;Winchester, Hall, & Binney, 2015).…”

“…In this regard, earlier studies have suggested that voters rely on critical and rational thinking to arrive at election decisions (Falkowski & Cwalina, 2012;Peng & Hackley, 2009). In fact, the researchers have opined that the decision of voters to elect a political party or a leader is the reflection of their basic needs (Banerjee & Ray Chaudhuri, 2016;Burton & Netemeyer, 1992;Harris & Lock, 2010;O'Cass & Pecotich, 2005;Palda, 1975;Winchester et al, 2015).…”

An examination of the interplay between country-of-origin, brand equity, brand preference and purchase intention toward global fashion brands

“…Consumers' brand preference is an important step in understanding customer choice behaviour and has accordingly received a lot of attention from researchers (Banerjee and Ray Chaudhuri, 2016). Brand preference has been described and defined by many models that have often focused on brand characteristics based on logic (Ebrahim et al, 2016;Kulshreshtha et al, 2017).…”