Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2406046

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How to Choose a Political Marketing Orientation:

Voter Orientation or Political Brand Identity Orientation?

By TJ Weber

Abstract

No entity has as much impact on as many lives as a government. Through social programs, taxes,

military use, and many others, every life is impacted every day by public sector entities. This

power, influence, and relevance to public life is acquired through the means of marketing, with

candidates, parties, and interest groups spending billions of dollars each cycle in hopes of

“winning” the democratic process, allowing them ultimately to exert their policies upon the

public, changing the political and policy landscape of their country, city, state, or nation.

Despite the enormous importance, utilization, and impact of marketing on politics, very little

thought within marketing research literature has been given to understanding how political

marketing strategy is developed, functions, or the antecedents for its success. This paper aims to

be a starting point in changing this. It proposes a testable conceptual framework of political

marketing strategy modes, using extant research and examples from political campaigns to

develop a parsimonious model for what types of campaign modes exist, and how campaign

strategies are chosen. Further, this paper lays out an agenda for future research, aiming to help

marketing researchers move forward in researching and understanding political campaign

strategy.

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2406046

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Introduction

In recent years, considerable resources have been given to marketing professionals in running

increasingly complex and intricate marketing campaigns aimed at selling candidates or policies

to voters (Sparrow and Turner, 2001; Lees-Marshment, 2009; Gordon et al, 2012). Despite this

rapid influx in the utilization of marketing toward purely political goals, almost no research has

identified what modes of political marketing strategies exist, or how they’re chosen and

undertaken by political campaigns. In addition to this, most research on political marketing

consist of post-hoc rationalizations analyzing how individual campaigns played out, and are not

generalizable over different campaigns or time. This paper aims to reverse this trend by fusing

established literature in related fields as well as evidence from multiple elections to create a

cohesive, parsimonious, and testable framework to explain the phenomena involved with

campaign modes of political marketing strategy.

The purpose of the following sections is to identify and define the terms and expected

antecedents of a conceptual framework of campaign mode choice using established marketing

theory and relevant literature within the realm of political marketing, defined as: political

organizations adapting business-marketing concepts and techniques to help achieve their goals

(Lees-Marchment, 2001b). First, this paper identifies, defines, and elaborates on two types of

political campaign modes: voter orientation and brand identity orientation. Next, the paper

identifies the factors that lead to choosing this strategy: ideological congruity, future office

orientation, and length of term. After this, I identify moderating factors in the model:

environmental turbulence and candidate ability. The paper then concludes by establishing a

testable framework of campaign political strategy and a two by two framework to understanding

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levels of campaign strategy, followed by future research direction and discussion on how to

better understand the phenomenon in this paper.

Two Paths: Voter Orientation and Political Brand Identity

Voter Orientation

Within the study of marketing strategy, two main concepts are market orientation and brand

identity. Market orientation is the process of a company being strategically oriented toward a

customer focus (Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Jaworski and Kohli, 1993). This is contra to other

potential business orientations such as product-orientation, cost-orientation, sales-orientation,

and several others. Market orientation has been found to have innumerable benefits to business,

including, but not limited to: increased business profitability (Narver and Slater, 1990),

innovation (Hurley and Hult, 1998), organizational learning (Slater and Narver, 1995), and

development of strategic competitive advantage through market-driven capabilities (Day, 1994).

With the level of marketing research devoted to market orientation, and level of political

spending on marketing tactics, it would seem inherent that a corollary to market orientation

would exist in political campaign strategy literature.

However, this construct has not been developed. Therefore, this paper posits the existence of

Voter Orientation as a strategic political campaign mode. A voter orientation strategy is defined

for the purpose of this paper as: A political campaign that primarily focuses on current voter

demands to achieve an orientation consistent with the median voter. The closest parallel within

research literature to this is Henneberg’s (2006) “follow” strategy. Similarly, a voter orientation

is a campaign strategy focused on external demands of voters. However, given the dearth of

empirical evidence within marketing literature surrounding market orientation, and profound

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lack of it in any related concepts within literature in other disciplines, conceptualizing it as

parallel to market orientation is the most helpful in explaining the phenomenon. With this

definition, this paper aims to develop the antecedents of choosing a voter oriented political

marketing strategy.

Voter orientation has yet to have any empirical research on it as a strategy mode, including

identifying its existence, antecedents, or effectiveness. Some related research has found evidence

of voter orientation as a construct without identifying it as such, such as campaigns in Europe

and the US increasingly relying on sophisticated qualitative and quantitative research to align

directly with current voter concerns rather than relying on standardized party ideology and its

associative heuristics like many previous campaigns (Lees-Marchment, 2001b; Sparrow and

Turner, 2001). Within the literature that does identify a voter orientation, it has primarily focused

internally from an organizational behavior perspective rather than a strategic function, calling it

“political market orientation”. (Omrod and Henneberg, 2008; Ormrod and Savigny, 2012).

Others have also researched it as an organizational process (Lees-Marchant, 2001a), as well as a

form of political marketing evolution within campaigns in the UK (Lees-Marchment, 2001b). It

has also been found conceptually as a possible way for EU politicians to better serve their

constituency’s and regain popularity (Balestrini and Gamble, 2011). However, no research has

developed voter orientation as a mode of political strategy or identified the reasons for choosing

it as such.

While each of the previously identified findings are congruent with the conceptualizations in this

paper, its scope is to identify reasons for choosing voter orientation and brand orientation as

differing (but not inherently separate) modes of political marketing strategy.

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An illuminating example of voter orientation is Scammell’s (2007) account of Tony Blair’s

repositioning before the 2005 election. Concerned with rising unpopularity and cynicism

regarding both his candidacy and his Labour Party, Blair enlisted the help of a consulting firm

specializing in repositioning. The firm, Promise PLC, researched and found which undecided

and female voters that previously voted for Blair and the Labour Party were primarily disaffected

through decisions to enter the Iraq War and the perception that Blair had lied about the reasoning

for doing so (Scammell, 2007). Because of this, the party had Blair focus on candor, humility,

and a willingness to listen, which forced Blair into publicly being put into awkward and hostile

situations, including a hospital worker publicly asking him if he’d be willing to “wipe someone’s

backside for £5 an hour” (Scammell, 2007).

Meanwhile, in the background, the consultant group also built Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the

Exchequer, up as a figure with credibility to focus as the maintainer of the party’s key priorities,

without Blair (Scammell, 2007). This helped the party show accountability for its actions and

leaders, while also showing a new way forward, re-orientating itself toward voters and more

importantly for them, maintaining control of the British government. This is a clear example of

voter orientation positively influencing election outcomes through a clear and concise strategy to

realign with voter interests. Therefore, the following proposition is made:

Proposition 1: Voter orientation has a positive relationship with positive electoral outcomes

Political Brand Identity Orientation

Further, work on political branding within research on political campaigns is virtually non-

existent. The nearest concept to a branding orientation in political science literature is

Henneberg’s (2006) “lead” strategy. It is a strategy primarily focused with energy and ideas from

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within rather than voter orientation’s external focus. Like with voter orientation, the level of

empirical studies in branding in marketing research enhances and explains the phenomenon in

parallel much better than the extant literature from other fields. For the purpose of this paper,

political brand orientation is defined, using an adapted variation of the American Marketing

Association’s (2013) definition, as: "a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that

identifies one politician distinctly from other politicians”. Further, in consumer marketing,

branding focuses on creating an identifiable marker or symbol for a product or service to

simplify choice, promise a particular level of quality or engender trust with consumers (Keller

and Legmann, 2006). This strategy is also used similarly in political marketing, and with this

definition, this paper aims to develop the antecedents of choosing a brand identity oriented

political marketing strategy.

While little empirical research has been done to date, political brand identity is something that is

almost certain to exist (Gordon et al, 2012). Both political parties (Snyder and Ting, 2002) and

individuals have been found to have identifiable brands (Thomson, 2006). Within limited

research it has been found that candidates have brand personality dimensions (Funk, 1996;

Hoegg and Lewis, 2012), create entry barriers to political markets (Lott, 1986), and have similar

benefits to consumer brands (Thomson, 2006). Research has found that voters within

congressional elections tend to know more about parties as proxies for brands than individual

candidates, although nearly every candidate has significant differences from their party (Snyder

and Ting, 2002). Further, Snyder and Ting (2002) posit that candidates make a choice in which

party to join based on a comparison of their own positions to an ideal point within that brand, as

well as their chances of winning with its affiliation. In addition, both the party and candidate as a

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brand are seen as brands positioning both themselves and candidates in a favorable way in order

to win with voters (Snyder and Ting, 2002).

In the limited research on candidate dimensions, a proxy that is conceptually close to consumer

brand dimensions in many ways, Funk (1996) found several dimensions similar in nature to

Aaker’s (1997) brand personality dimensions: competence, trustworthiness, warmth/likeability,

and intelligence. Further, similar research has shown Democrats as typically more associated

within these dimensions as intelligent and Republicans as competent (Hoegg and Lewis, 2012).

It has also been posited that candidates carry with them a brand based on their appearance due to

judgments unconsciously made about their physical appearance congruent with their party and its

reputation (Hoegg and Lewis, 2012). Similarly, it has also been shown that candidates from

families with multiple elected officials carry a distinct “brand name advantage” over candidates

that are first generation politicians (Feinstein, 2010). Further, issue ownership theory has posited

that at the party level, parties differentiate themselves based on perceived competencies in

governing (Petrocik, 1996) while those using an associative network theory of consumer

memory have theorized that political brands are close yet different relatives of consumer brands,

having traits such as cultural identity, heuristics, and self-concept reinforcement (Smith and

French, 2009).

While these individual studies show evidence of a political branding presence within political

marketing strategy, no research has specifically identified, defined, and shown the antecedents of

it or choosing it as a strategy. Using these studies as well as the definition developed at the outset

of this paper, it is now possible to then identify the antecedents and possible factors involved in

building and maintaining a political brand. Possible factors include, but are not limited to: logo

(see: Bennett and Lagos, 2007 for a summary of political logos), trademark, advertising, names

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of candidates (Feinstein, 2010) and physical appearance of candidates or figureheads of

organizations (Hoegg and Lewis, 2012; Gordon et al, 2012). Each of these likely has an impact

on the choice to develop a brand, as well as the efficacy of taking such action as a political actor.

There are many great examples of political brand identity orientation and how it functions in

terms of electoral success. For example, Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign had such strong brand

identity and marketing prowess that it won two Grand Prix awards in Cannes. One for “top

campaign that advertises a provocative idea that challenges assumptions” and another for

“campaign that challenges the assumptions made in the advertising industry” (Sweney, 2009).

Another good example of this is in Michigan’s sparsely populated first congressional district,

where former congressman Bart Stupak, a Democrat, was famous for telling constituents “you

betcha” when asked any question. It turned into yard signs, television commercials, and seven

consecutive re-elections. While not at the large, operationalized, level of the Obama campaign,

Stupak turned a regional colloquial essence into an identifiable brand to which people did, and

still do, feel a connection to. Even after his controversial Stupak Amendment angering

Democrats, followed by his controversial Affordable Care Act vote angering Republicans in

2010, Stupak was considered as still having an “impeccable” reputation in his district and was

still unbeatable by insurgents from either party (Gilgoff, 2010). Using this logic, the following

proposition is made:

Proposition 2: Political Brand Identity is positively related to successful election outcomes.

With definitions for voter orientation and brand identity orientation established, this paper will

now identify the factors used by campaigns in selecting their strategic mode. These include:

ideological congruity, which represents the extent to which a candidate and its constituency are

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alike politically; length of term, or the frequency at which a candidate has to run for re-election

in order to maintain office; and future office orientation, or the extent to which a candidate plans

to run for higher office in the future. The next three sections will identify these factors and how

they impact the decision of a campaign to select either campaign mode.

Ideological Congruity

Political ideology, as measured using an X-Y equilibrium with the extremes of authoritarian and

libertarian on the y-axis and socialist and capitalist on the x-axis, measures the ideology of the

candidate and its constituents. The difference between these two ideological scores gives us the

ideological congruity, or the level to which a candidate and the seat he’s running for tend to

agree on political issues. In theory, the ideal ideology for a candidate is that of the median voter

of the constituency for which they’re running (Snyder and Ting, 2002). However, that ideal is

rarely realized, and candidates tend to have differing ideologies which in turn have an impact on

their choice in mode of political marketing strategy. Beyond the obvious axiom of Democrats

typically winning liberal constituencies and Republicans wining conservative ones, the

difference between the perceived ideology of candidates and their constituencies is often a

defining issue in a campaign.

For instance, in a 2013 special election Elizabeth Colbert-Busch ran against former South

Carolina governor Mark Sanford in South Carolina’s First Congressional District. Sanford,

coming off a disgracing resignation from his governorship after being caught in Brazil on tax-

payer dollars visiting a mistress, was widely written-off as a candidate (Cillizza, 2013).

Meanwhile, Colbert-Busch was covered very favorably in the media as a strong but moderate

female businesswoman coming to DC to mend deals and preach bipartisanship (Isenstadt, 2013).

However, Colbert-Bush ended up losing handily by around 9%. How? South Carolina’s First

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Congressional District is one of the most conservative in the US, with a partisan registration

advantage favoring Republicans by 11% (Cook, 2013). In fact, The Cook Political Report does

not consider any seat with a registration advantage of more than 5% in either direction to be a

competitive seat (Wasserman, 2012). This example shows the positive impact of ideological

congruity on voter orientation.

Proposition 3a: Ideological Congruity is positively correlated to voter orientation as a mode of

political marketing strategy.

In contrast, at times these ideological congruity issues, as daunting as they are, can be overcome

through campaign strategy. A telling example of this is Democrat Jim Matheson in Utah’s 2nd

Congressional district. The congressional district and the state of Utah are routinely one of the

most conservative electorates in the country, with Republicans typically winning by margins in

the region of 20%. However, Matheson has won six consecutive re-elections in the district

through building his own brand: he is an active member of the Mormon church, touts

bipartisanship, and has been against signature Democratic policies such as the Affordable Care

Act, same-sex marriage, and legalized abortion. In fact, in 2012 he won 23% of the Republican

vote within his district (Monson, 2012). Through this, he has been able to differentiate himself

from the national Democratic Party, establishing himself as his own brand, resulting in election

success. Therefore, the following proposition is made:

Proposition 3b: Ideological Congruity is negatively correlated to brand identity as a mode of

political marketing strategy.

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Length of Term

Length of term also has an important impact on the concept of voter and brand orientation, as it

is inherently impacting the time orientation of a campaign, one of the main differentiations

between the two orientations. For instance, amongst the “tea party wave” of 2010, Nevada

Senator and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was a top target for the NRSC behind heavily

funded candidate Sharron Angle. In April of 2010, poll aggregators had her leading outside their

margin of error by almost 5%, with some individual polls showing her lead as high as 11%

(Rasmussen Reports, 2010) in a mid-term cycle where Democratic turnout is also typically lower

than Republican turnout and Democratic turnout in Presidential years (Real Clear Politics, 2010).

However, the length of Reid’s term – six years – allowed him to highlight past legislative

achievements, using his existing brand identity, and having less of a focus of voter orientation

than Angle, who, running on the “tea party populism” of that cycle was more closely entwined

with somewhat volatile voter trends in the state. Reid ended up winning the seat by a somewhat

comfortable +5.6% margin, despite Republican Brian Sandoval winning the governorship

amongst the same voting populace by around 12% (Real Clear Politics, 2010).

Proposition 4a: Length of term is positively correlated brand identity as a mode of political

marketing strategy.

However, in the same election a record number of house members lost their elections running on

essentially the same record and platform as Reid. However, House members don’t have the

luxury of running every six years, or of having as long of a voting record and relationship with

voters as senators do. Most are seen as generic names attached to a party label, unknown as

individuals or brands to their electorate. They are also required to run every two years in a

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variety of different environments on a variety of different issues, increasing the importance of

having a voter orientation. Therefore, length of term likely negatively impacts voter orientation.

Proposition 4b: Length of term is negatively correlated to voter orientation as a mode of

political marketing strategy.

Future Office Orientation

“Future office orientation” is defined as the likelihood that the candidate involved will someday

run for a higher office. This is an important variable, as most Presidents and U.S. Senators were

elected to a lower office before their current position. For instance, in the early 2000’s, both

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama took differing positions on whether to authorize use of force

in Iraq. While running in a close primary in 2008 for the Democratic Nomination for President, it

became a key issue. While the vote to authorize force was publicly popular in 2003 when Clinton

took the position (reflecting a voter orientation strategy), by 2008, it was one of the most

unpopular taken in US history, eventually helping Democrats retake the House, Presidency, and

Senate. This vote helped Obama build his brand within the voting public while Clinton’s more

voter orientation centric position hurt her long-term (Simon, 2008). Obama would of course go

on to win the Presidency running on this platform. Thus, future office orientation is likely

positively related to a brand identity strategy and negatively related to a voter orientation

strategy. Therefore, the following propositions are made:

Proposition 5a: Future office orientation is positively correlated to brand identity as a mode of

political marketing strategy.

Proposition 5b: Future office orientation is negatively correlated to choosing voter orientation

as a mode of political marketing strategy.

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Moderating Factors

In addition to the three independent factors above effecting choice of strategic campaign mode,

there are two moderating factors identified in the model that impact this choice. These are factors

that moderate the ability of a given campaign to successfully have a given campaign style. The

first of these is environmental uncertainty. This is the assumption that in any given political

environment, much like the business world, there is uncertainty. An electorate is an inherently

fluid and unstable collection of interests and motivations that can change rapidly, and is outside

the campaigns loci of control. Further, changes in the electoral environment can be entirely

unpredictable.

For example, in 2004, George W. Bush won re-election. Despite tenuous favorability and

approval ratings, he won the Electoral College in somewhat comfortable manner. However, two

years later, members of the Republican Party running on the exact same platform as George W.

Bush were annihilated at the polls, losing historically significant amounts of seats in the U.S.

House, Senate, and Gubernatorial seats. This shows the impact of environmental uncertainty in

impacting campaign strategy: increased environmental uncertainty wiped out an enormous

number of candidates with both brand identity and voter orientations. Therefore, it is posited that

environmental uncertainty is a moderating effect in the framework.

Proposition 6: Environmental uncertainty moderates the relationship between ideological

congruity, length of term, future office orientation and brand identity and voter orientation

Secondly, not all candidates are created equally. Therefore, it is thus posited that candidate

ability has a moderating effect on the choice of campaign mode choice. This is defined for the

purpose of this paper as: the ability of a given candidate to campaign for office. There are many

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examples that illustrate its ability to both positively and negatively impact choice of campaign

mode.

For instance, in 2012 Todd Akin campaigned to defeat incumbent senator Claire McCaskill.

McCaskill was seen as all but dead in the water, having been a reliable Democratic vote in the

senate for President Obama, who was hugely unpopular in the state. However, Akin’s ability to

campaign hindered his ability to build any kind of voter or brand identity orientation. Hindered

by video comments disputing the definition of rape, Akin went on to lose the election handily to

McCaskill. In contrast, in the 2012 North Dakota Senate race, Democrat Heidi Heidtkamp ran in

heavily Republican territory for an open seat. Despite President Obama losing the state by

around 20%, Heidtkamp won the state with the same electorate. She did so by having an

exceptionally good campaign style, differentiating herself from the President while running on

mainly the same positions. She ran largely on character, wearing typical casual North Dakota

dressage while going town to town trying to meet as many of the 300,000 voters in North Dakota

as possible. Her ability helped her create a brand identity orientation that was able to attract more

votes than her counterparts, despite his voter orientation matching up well with the voters of

North Dakota. Therefore, it is posited that candidate ability is a moderating factor in the

framework.

Proposition 7: Candidate ability moderates the relationship between ideological congruity,

length of term, future office orientation and brand identity and voter orientation

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Figure 1: A Conceptual Framework of Modes of Political Strategy

Summary

From the ideas developed above, it is thus posited that within political marketing there are two

distinct but broadly different ways to respond to and develop a campaign strategy based on the

environmental factors: a campaign focused on voter orientation and a campaign based on brand

orientation. The latter focuses on a strategy of policies developed within the campaign and

marketed to voters, and the former on policies developed outside of the campaign, focusing on

current voter demands. They differ in the same sense as a push and pull strategy: a brand

orientation pushes a set of policies, developed and identified through branding, leading voters; a

voter orientation pulls the policies from current voter demands, letting the voters lead rather than

the candidate or party.

It’s important to note, however, that these two orientations aren’t mutually exclusive. Rather, it is

possible to have a brand identity focused on the populism of voter orientation. Many campaigns

have illustrated this: Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign won awards for its branding, yet its

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policies reflected that of the public, in rolling back a lot of the Republican legislation achieved

by George W. Bush. The same can be said for Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s

2010 campaign: he developed his brand as “One Tough Nerd” while also running to roll back

much of term-limited Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm’s policies before him (Smith,

2010). In fact, it is possible that in many cases that the optimal strategy is one that combines both

orientations, building brand identity while closely following voter trends.

Figure 2: A Framework of Potential Political Campaign Modes

In figure two, the different levels of voter orientation and brand identity orientation are grouped

into four possible categories: Campaign Failure (low brand identity orientation, low voter

orientation), “The Populist” (low brand identity, high voter orientation), “The Stalwart” (high

brand identity orientation, low voter orientation) and “The Leader” (high in both). These four

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categories of campaign mode combinations are helpful ways to think about strategic

combinations in a simplified manner. The model does not intend to serve as a definitive,

complicated, or empirical model, but a new way to think about campaign strategy in order to

move forward toward building more sophisticated and empirical models to help explain the

phenomena discussed in this paper.

Future Research Suggestions and Discussion

Due to the purely conceptual and observational nature of this paper, there are many empirical

potential future research directions from it. Firstly, testing the models in this paper would be an

excellent start at better understanding how campaign strategic modes are chosen. It could be

done by interviewing political campaign managers through interviews and then coding answers

to include in testing in the model. Further, secondary data can be used to examine relationships

between the two orientations. For instance, polling can show congruity with the electorate on

individual positions (proxy for voter orientation) as well as name recognition (proxy for brand

identity orientation).

Due to the limited amount of research completed in this area, there are an absolute myriad of

ways to test relationships and develop theory related to political marketing strategy. This paper

aims to be a starting point for just that. It is of the author’s priority to further the research area

through starting a research conversation related to political marketing strategy. In the coming

years, with unlimited spending and increased metrics publicly available to researchers, it is hard

to imagine an area within political science, communications, public policy, or marketing that has

more research gaps and public data available for study that can at the same time have such an

obvious impact on public life and public policy outcomes.

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