brand on the run: political affiliations and twitter social media presence

Brand on the RunPolitical affiliations and Twitter social media presence

Dr Stephen DannResearch School of Management, ANU College of Business & Economics

@stephendannStephen.dann@anu.edu.au

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 / Comments?@stephendannOrStephen.dann@anu.edu.au