brand on the run: political affiliations and twitter social media presence
TRANSCRIPT
Brand on the RunPolitical affiliations and Twitter social media presence
Dr Stephen DannResearch School of Management, ANU College of Business & Economics
Voter Political Affiliation Declining voter political affiliations are
an accepted house wisdom of contemporary political marketing strategy Newman, 1999; Lees-Marshment, 2001;
Kosiara-Pedersen, et al. 2014
If people are less inclined to identify with a political party, are parties less inclined to identify themselves to people?
Politician Political Affiliation? Are political figures disassociating from
political parties? Whither the party brand?
Where does the brand affiliation fit the political participant?
Politics and Marketing It’s okay, we’re here to help
Marketing is not just communications
If you’re just doing communications, you’re missing the good stuff
(annoyingly, this is a branding paper)
Political Marketing a set of activities, processes or political
institutions used by political organisations, candidates and individuals to create, communicate, deliver and exchange promises of value with voter-consumers, political party stakeholders and society at large
Hughes and Dann (2009)
Branding From flying the colours to wearing the
right type of rose to the war, political groups have worked to produce distinctive emblems that identify their cause, followers and strongholds
Branding is inherent in politics Marketing learns from politics
Brand Core Concepts brand
identifies a product or service is a sellers promise to deliver a
consistently specific set of features, benefits and services to buyers (Kotler 2000)
four important characteristics attributes, benefits, values and personality
(Kapferer 1992; Keller 1993)
The Umbrella Brand Umbrella brands
Overarching brands that connect a series of products, sub-brands and not necessarily related activity (Govers, 2011)
Can political brands reconnect their candidates with the parent brand?
Can the local member’s personal brands and traits be identified to the party?
Will connecting the personal brand of the candidate back to the party to strengthen the party?
The Study: Context Queensland Election
LNP with majority ALP with terrible odds
Would QLD be the political Battle of Brands?
The Study: Sample Social Media and QLD
QLD politicians and candidates use social media
Prior data set from The Grand Defeat Nothing says generalizability problems like
the QLD 2012 election Except, maybe, the Grand Defeat II More swings that a kid’s playground manufacturer
Sample 65 accounts were identified as
associated with current or former members of the Queensland State Parliament (2012-2015)
identified through searches of Twitter, Google, and political party websites
If you couldn’t be found this way, you didn’t want to be found
Data Collection Dann (2015b)
Twitter timeline data three intervals
Campaign Week 1 Campaign Week 3 Election Night (Campaign Week 5)
Twitter account profiles Screen capture on five sampling intervals
Every Wednesday night + election night
Account Profiles Measure 1: Public
indicators number of tweets, follower and
following counts, use of favoured
tweets membership of
lists
Measure 2: Brand Affiliations Party affiliation Political branding
header photo, profile photo, bio statement account name
A slice of profile lifeFour selections from the 65 studied
Now it gets depressing(spoiler: it’s not good)
ResultsWeek Header Photo Profile
Any mention of the party
1 2 1 15 162 3 0 13 143 4 0 16 174 3 0 14 155 4 0 12 14
If only there was some reason for candidates to have branded head shots available for their twitter profile images…
Oh yeah
Well, that was a bit of a let downNow what?
How about the time lines?Surely somebody mentioned the party
Who’s brand is it anyway?ALP Top Mentions
1. Campbell Newman (18)2. Curtis Pitt (14)3. Neil Symes (13)4. Michael Crandon (12)5. Gavin King / Jackie Trad
(11)
Labor Top Mentions
1. Michael Crandon (385)2. Annastacia Palaszczuk
(205)3. Scott Emerson (192)4. Mark Robinson (191)5. Curtis Pitt (140)
Uh, people?LNP Mentions
1. Curtis Pitt (344)2. Joann Miller (331)3. Jackie Trad (268)4. Michael Crandon (244)5. Annastacia Palaszczuk
(210)
Liberal 1. Jackie Trad (9)2. Curtis Pitt (7)3. Joann Miller (6)4. Jon Krause (5)5. Michael Hart (3)
This is not how branding works.
We need a goddamn intervention
Getting back from this brink 1. Brands matter
If there’s a problem with your brand then there’s a problem with your promise Fix the promise
Brands are the canary in the coal mine Fix the core, replace the budgie
Getting back from this brink Brands acquire meaning through use
If you’re not talking about your brand, why not?
If you’re talking about their brand, and not your brand, who’s side are you on?
Why is your air time being donated to their cause?
Conclusions Label up
Brand on.
Logo in place
Go earn the brand’s reputation back.
Questions / [email protected]@anu.edu.au