Campaigning by Human Branding: Associating with American Presidents
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Campaigning by Human Branding: Associating with American Presidents Neil Collins1,2 Received: 1 August 2020 / Accepted: 29 August 2020 © Fudan University 2020
Abstract Human branding has become an essential issue in political marketing. It is exemplified in the election of American Presidents. This paper examines the American experience to suggest a typology of human branding that may apply in both presidential and other political systems. It examines examples of presidential human brands from George Washington on but, given significant changes to electoral procedures, concentrates on first-time successful presidential candidates since 1901. The fourfold typology offers an interrelated set of ideal types that will augment the analysis of human branding. It is applied to presidents when they take up office rather than after serving. The typology draws on the source of primary brand association and relation to the core political system of each politician. Keywords Human branding · Branding by association · US presidential elections · Typology · Political marketing
1 Introduction For political scientists, presidential elections and primaries present analytically interesting issues of policy, representation, power broking and societal unrest through which to see various presidential bids. The clash of ideas is seldom more dramatically rehearsed than during the race to presidency. When observed through a “marketing” analytical lens, a fresh perspective exists that may help clarify complex situations. In such contests, the competition and outcomes between the parties and the candidates may be explained by the relative strategic positions they take up and how they communicate to the electorate. The marketing analysis offered here concentrates less on particular policy positions, but rather focuses on the place of the * Neil Collins [email protected] 1
Political Science and International Relations, Nazarbayev University, Nur‑Sultan, Kazakhstan
2
Department of Government and Politics, University College Cork (UCC), Cork T12 K8AF, Ireland
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N. Collins
candidates in the public’s mind relative to their political rivals. In this analysis, politicians are seen as creating a brand by their perceived association with the social and political features that have meaning and symbolic value to sections of the electorate. It also suggests that this marketing outlook may offer insights into the dynamics of both contemporary and past US presidential elections. This article applies the idea of human branding to construct a typology using the brand identity of US presidents. Further, it provides a post hoc segmentation approach to set out the relative market positions of the candidates in presidential elections starting from the early twentieth century. It also reviews previous contests to show that, despite not consciously marketing, all presidents leveraged their brand image. In marketing, branding is an essential topic for research because “brand” is a core concept underpinning an understanding of custom
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