A Brief Guide to Political Branding

A crucial element of marketing is branding. When it comes to political marketing, branding has played a key role in building parties' relationships with voters. It is a vital process to reduce people’s decision-making and any risk association.

Noting its importance, one must understand how a political brand comes into being. Commonly, one can be formed based on the political:

- Ideology,

- Party, or

- Leader.

Recently, the trend of leader-centric politics has brought more weight to the branding of political leaders. To stand out against the opposition, the image of the party's leader needs to be imprinted in voter's minds, with a positive and reliable association. It is a process that occurs over time, not in a short moment.

For this, marketing focuses on how the party or politicians define themselves, along with their main strengths. There is a journey that the image of the brand takes in the voters' minds with the help of marketing strategies. This journey occurs in four stages.

The first stage is that of brand awareness, wherein the voters are exposed to the brand's image in their daily lives. This creates recognition and recall of the brand's identity in their minds.?

This stage is followed by brand association. At this point, voters seek to understand the politician's story and start to link certain aspects of life with the brand's ideology.

The third stage is brand acceptance, in which the customer begins to choose this particular political brand over others. Reaching this point is pivotal to winning over the opposition and building credibility.?

The final stage is brand advocacy, wherein the voters themselves start recommending the brand to others, and defending it against any negative association. This is when your political brand has won the hearts of the voters and turned them into ambassadors, continuing the cycle of brand-building in other's minds.

These steps form the basis of marketing and branding and can be used in the political setting to gain a dependable voter base. For further queries regarding how to build your political brand, contact @Stimulus Research Services.