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Journal of Political Marketing

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Conceptualizing and Testing Brand Personality in British Politics

Gareth Smith
a a

Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom Version of record first published: 09 Jul 2009.

To cite this article: Gareth Smith (2009): Conceptualizing and Testing Brand Personality in British Politics, Journal of Political Marketing, 8:3, 209-232 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15377850903044858

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Journal of Political Marketing, 8:209232, 2009 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1537-7857 print=1537-7865 online DOI: 10.1080/15377850903044858

Conceptualizing and Testing Brand Personality in British Politics

GARETH SMITH
Loughborough University, Loughborough, United Kingdom

This paper considers whether branding is an appropriate concept to be applied (and thus researched) in politics. It identifies the problems entailed in a managerial approach to branding in politics and forwards a consumer learning perspective as an alternative. The latter approach is then used to explain how and why brand personality forms in politics. Next, a conceptual model of party political personality (PPP) formation is developed. Key antecedent influences on political personality are discussed (namely, politicians, political parties, events, advertising, current users, and endorsers of the brand) and their likely effect on consumer learning of PPP developed. Having conceptualized PPP, the paper then focuses on whether the currently available brand personality scale is appropriate in the context of British politics. Empirical research reveals that a different personality structure operates in the context of British political parties than for brands generally. Using this modified measure, the effect of partisanship reveals a difference between high and low levels of allegiance and perceived PPP. The research also identifies unexpected differences between the personality profiles of the government and the main opposition party. The differences between politics and commercial markets are then used to help interpret the findings. The paper concludes by identifying its limitations and the main opportunities for future research in the area. KEYWORDS brands, measurement, partisanship, personality, political parties, politics

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Address correspondence to Gareth Smith, Loughborough University Business School, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, United Kingdom. E-mail: I.G.Smith@lboro.ac.uk 209

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INTRODUCTION
Brands affect how consumers evaluate products and services. In an often-cited experiment, consumers in blind tests (brands not revealed) favored Pepsi over Coke. When the brand was known, Coke became the favored drink by a wide margin (de Chernatony and McDonald, 2000). This brand effect has also been identified in British politics. Researchers asked two groups of people whether they agreed with the Conservative Party policy on immigration. One set was told it was Conservative policy, and the other just had the policy described to them but unattributed. The unattributed policys net approval rate was 12 points higher than the attributed one, which strongly suggests that the Conservative Partys image was so bad that people suddenly stopped liking policies when they found out they belonged to the Conservative Party (YouGov, 2006). Under these circumstances, it was not surprising that David Cameron began his leadership acceptance speech by acknowledging the partys image problem and the need to change how the party is perceived. An important component of a brands image is its brand personality (Keller, 1993), and much research on the construct has been conducted. To date, however, this literature has focused on the brand personality of commercial brands, and brand personality in politics has been scarcely considered. This paper therefore seeks to develop understanding of this important construct. First, consumer learning theory is used to gain a better understanding of how and why voters learn about politicians and their parties personalities. Second, a conceptual framework is developed of the key antecedent sources of knowledge used by voters to formulate brand personality, highlighting the unique nature of the political brand in the process. Third, a brand personality scale, amended for use with U.K. political parties, is developed. Finally, the way party personality is affected by partisan allegiance is investigated, and further evidence of the unique nature of the political market is provided.

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ARE POLITICAL PARTIES BRANDS?

To begin with, it is necessary to take a step back and justify using the concept of the brand in party politics. There is a general acceptance in the marketing literature that the brand is one of the main assets of an organization (Aaker, 1991, 1996; Keller, 1993; Kapferer, 2004). Also, with the broadening of the marketing concept into social markets (Kotler and Levy, 1969), the range of organizations and markets in which branding has been applied has grown to encompass the church, the Metropolitan Police, and universities. Indeed, branding principles have been applied in virtually every setting where consumer choice of some kind is involved, e.g., with physical goods, services, retail stores, people, organizations, places, or ideas (Keller, 2002,

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p. 151; italics are the authors). It is axiomatic that political parties are organizations in which politicians seek to exchange ideas and promises for electoral support, thus the steady stream of papers accepting political parties and or politicians as brands (Kavanagh, 1995; Kotler and Kotler, 1999; Schweiger and Adami, 1999; White and de Chernatony, 2002; Needham, 2005). Despite this, there remains some contention over the appropriate use of the brand concept because of differences between political and commercial markets. Lock and Harris (1996), for example, point out that parties differ from other brands in the complexity of their range of product offerings (from promises on education, health, overseas aid, defense, immigration, and so on). In voting, the individual is required to accept all or none of a partys policies. Few, if any, commercial brands operate in this way. In addition, the policies bought from a party at the time of voting are more mutable those for other services, as parties may compromise on them in the face of political conditions once elected (Butler and Collins, 1999).1 There are also profound concerns about the damaging effect of branding on the democratic process. In seeking a competitive advantage, branding practices have been seen to narrow the political agenda, demand conformity of behavior=message, and even increase political disengagement at the local level (Scammell, 1999; Lilleker and Negrine, 2003; Needham, 2005). These critiques view branding as benefiting the political party at the expense of the political process. Their approach is similar to that of Klein (2000), whose book No Logo argues that the benefits of branding accrue to the brand owner at the expense of society at large. While this negative analysis of branding is both valid and of importance, it is also partial. The implied role of branding it propounds is a productoriented one, focusing on what the organization (party) does to the consumer (voter) with its brand. An alternative approach, and that followed by the vast majority of the extant academic branding literature over the last 20 years (see Keller, 2006 for an overview), adopts a consumer-oriented perspective, investigating how and why consumers learn about brands. More specifically, this literature is based on the premise that consumers have an innate motivation to learn about and decide about brands, both to know where to spend their money (or cast their vote) and to cope with the increasingly complex and over-communicated world in which they live. It is this view of branding, as a learning process adopted by the electorate as a means to help them decide on which party, if any, to vote for that is adopted in this paper.

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POLITICAL BRAND PERSONALITY AS CONSUMER KNOWLEDGE

Brands, according to Keller (1993), are not physical but intangible, being the knowledge about a particular object that is held in the memory of consumers.

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Brand knowledge is made from individual pieces of information (called nodes) that link together in memory to form more complex associative networks (Collins and Loftus, 1975; Wyer and Srull, 1989). Information is recalled from memory when a node is stimulated from rest by a process known as activation (de Groot, 1989). Thus, the stimulus of seeing Tony Blair on television can activate from memory other associations such as the Labour Party, Cherie Blair, weapons of mass destruction and the case for going to war in Iraq, and so on. Personality is defined as the set of meanings constructed by an observer to describe the inner characteristics of another person (Allen and Olson, 1995, p. 392), and brand personality is the set of human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker, 1997, p. 347). From a consumer learning perspective, therefore, the personality of a political party is viewed as an associative network of the human characteristics relating to that party, held in memory and accessible when stimulated from the memory of a voter. The potential number of sources from which personality knowledge may develop is enormous. Therefore, a model of the key antecedent sources from which this associative network of personality knowledge is built is developed in a conceptual framework for political party personality (PPP) later in the paper.

CONSUMER MOTIVATION TO DEVELOP PPP

Explaining the process by which personality is built up in memory does not shed much light on why voters are motivated to develop a complex associative network of information about a political party. For many voters, gathering political information is viewed as costly in terms of the effort needed to assimilate it versus the motivation to do so (Downs, 1957). Moreover, British political parties, in seeking to occupy the middle ground, increasingly offer valence products to the electorate, where all parties agree on the ends (such as the need to invest in public services) and differ only on the means of achieving them (Nelson, 1984). This increases the effort needed to differentiate the parties, and faced with these learning costs, voters can save time and energy by using informational shortcuts to help them reach their voting intention (Popkins et al., 1976). Perceptions of the personalities of the respective parties can provide such a shortcut, providing personality differences and obviating the need to actively learn about party policies. Recent market research in the United Kingdom confirms that the leaders and partys images were more influential in attracting voters than the policies they espoused (MORI, 2005). Brand personality can also be utilized by voters to reduce the perceived risk of voting for the wrong party. Politics is a so-called credence service (Mahajan and Wind, 2002) in that, at the time of purchase (voting), it is very

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difficult to know whether policy promises will be delivered. For example, has New Labour improved public services since coming to power in 1997, or has the extra money spent on them been wasted by structural inefficiencies? Faced with a credence service and similar parties in policy terms, it is likely that undecided voters in particular will seek to differentiate and reduce risk by supporting the party most trusted to implement their promises. In the absence of any objective way to determine trust, trust in the perceived personality of the leader and his=her party acts as a surrogate measure.

A MODEL OF BRAND PERSONALITY FOR POLITICAL PARTIES

Having identified why voters learn the personality of politicians and parties, the wider marketing literature identifies important benefits that may be obtained by an organization (such as a political party) from a positive brand personality. A distinctive brand personality can help create a set of unique and favorable associations in consumer memory (Keller, 1993; Johnson, Soutar, and Sweeney, 2000; Phau and Lau, 2000). As a result of this differentiation, brand personality has a critical role in directing consumer preference and choice (Batra, Lehmann, and Singh, 1993; Biel, 1993). In politics, too, the ability of personality in directly influencing voting intention has been noted (Newman, 1999).2 As mentioned, there is a limitless supply of potential sources of information that can impact a partys perceived personality. To understand better the brand personality construct, a model of the main antecedent sources that have the potential for impacting PPP is provided in Figure 1. Partisanship, the level of commitment to a given party, is treated in the model as a moderator, filtering the effect of personality information on voting intention (this will be explained more fully later). The model also indicates that brand personality has a direct influence on voting intention. It does not suggest that brand personality is the only influence on voting behavior

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FIGURE 1 Conceptualizing brand personality in politics.

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(though for some voters this may be the case). Newman (1999), for example, identifies personality as one of five core influences on voter behavior. What follows is a development of the above conceptual model. To illustrate the discussion, personality traits that each antecedent factor might influence are highlighted (with italics). (A full listing of personality traits is shown later in Figure 2.)

POLITICIAN PERSONALITIES
Personality traits are created in memory by inference based on observation of the behavior of another person. If a person is seen kicking a dog, it can be inferred that he=she is cruel. Brand personality formation is determined by the same process as human personality. It involves the personification of the brand based on that brands observed behaviors, allowing human traits to be inferred from action or stated intended action. Political parties and politicians have already been shown to have yn ska, 2004; Schneider, 2004). The leader is discernible personalities (Skarz particularly powerful in personality terms because, self-evidently, it is easier for voters to learn his=her personality traits than those of an inanimate entity, such as a party.3 It has been argued that politics is increasingly about symbolism as opposed to policy implementation, image rather than content. As such, politicians can be viewed as actors (OShaughnessy, 2003) performing in a purposive way to achieve predetermined party political objectives. For example, in 1995, Clinton followed the advice of his pollster, Dick Morris, and eschewed his preference for holidaying with wealth and celebrity on Marthas Vineyard and went whitewater rafting instead to affirm his outdoorsy, tough persona (Baker, 2005). William Hague tried (with a spectacular lack of success) to show his trendy and young persona at the Notting Hill carnival and at a theme park (wearing a baseball cap). Most recently, David Cameron has lost no time in exhibiting his dynamism and modernity by cycling to work, wearing designer sneakers, using an iPod, associating with fair-trade products, and installing a wind turbine at his home. As all these behaviors are designed to illustrate personality traits relevant to the choice of party and=or leader, their purpose is to illustrate the political brand rather than the real personality of the politician. In addition to action (actual and stated intention to act), the physical appearance of politicians allows for personality inferences to be made. Thus, being young, David Cameron will find it easier to be perceived as contemporary than his predecessor, Michael Howard. Conversely, Cameron may find it harder to be perceived as reliable, as Howard was. It is apparent that the prime minister is advantaged by being better known per se and having greater media coverage of action that has personality implications. World summitry, for example, is likely to impact

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personality traits such as leader, successful, confident, and hardworking. Opposition leaders have less ability to act (i.e., implement), and this makes leadership traits in particular more difficult to build.

POLITICAL PARTIES
Although the leader has a more direct ability to influence personality, the party, like corporate brands, generally offers the umbrella of cohesion, recognition, and predictability (Singer, 2002). Its greater longevity than that of politicians means it has a wider array of possible meanings associated with it. Thus, it will be an important source of personality traits derived from the partys ideology=core values. For example, the Labour Partys long-term commitment to reduce child poverty might reasonably be expected to impact its perception on family-oriented and wholesome personality traits. A partys past behavior also produces a kind of brand heritage.4 The Labour Party, for example, was electorally weakened throughout the 1980s and early 1990s because it was seen by many as not up-to-date and not competent. These traits were learned from, among others, the Winter of Discontent strikes of 1978 and 1979, support for unilateral nuclear disarmament, and continued support for the nationalization of key industries (through clause four of its constitution). Current policies also are likely to have an effect on perceived personality. For example, actual or proposed action on crime, benefit fraud, industrial relations, and so on can make a party appear tough. The Conservatives decision (championed by their election strategist, Lynton Crosby) to focus on gypsies and immigration in the 2005 general election campaign, while consolidating their core vote, also stimulated links in the memory of others to its past perception as the nasty party.5 For voters, the personality of the party and its politicians are not separate but amalgamated to form an associative network in memory of the overall brand. As with corporate and product brands generally, they interact and, ideally, positively reinforce each other.6 In recent British politics, this has often not been the case, and the personality of the leader has been used to reposition their less wellperceived parties. Blair did this successfully from his accession to the leadership in 1994. Conservative leaders have been less successful in this task since the Thatcher=Major period, though the latest, David Cameron, has made a determined start.

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BRAND USERS AND ENDORSERS

These have also been identified as a possible influence on the personality of the brand (Aaker, 1997). Party members, as stereotypical users of the

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brand, can provide strong clues to the wider public as to the personality of the party overall. The Conservatives, for example, have been stereotyped by their membership as an aging, white, middle-class party, with concomitant negative party personality connotations. To avoid such associations, parties increasingly manage their conferences to portray themselves as businesslike, organized, and disciplined7even surrounding the leader with an ideal mix of their supporters (by age, sex, ethnicity, etc.). An increasingly used source of personality associations is derived from endorsers who have celebrity gained outside the realm of politics. Their strength in influencing PPP is determined by their attractiveness, credibility, and trustworthiness (Ohanian, 1991). These criteria apply to the likes of Bob Geldof (ex-musician and third-world poverty activist) and Zac Goldsmith (green campaigner) who have been recruited to David Camerons policy review process (Beckett, 2006). Celebrities are valued by party strategists because they possess personality traits different from professional politicians. Those mentioned above are more associated with personality traits such as trendy, exciting, cool, and young than are most, if not all, politicians. Importantly, these associative meanings have been shown to be able to transfer from one brand (the endorser) to another (the political party) even though they are in different markets (McCracken, 1989; Street, 2001). It is, however, a high-risk strategy ifas the Conservatives policy chief, Oliver Letwin, has warnedthe views of these celebrities are not turned into policy and they use their status to criticize the party (Branigan, 2006). As with the other antecedent influences on PPP, both positive and negative associations may be transferred by endorser involvement.

CONTROLLABLE AND UNCONTROLLABLE EVENTS

The government has been seen to have the greatest opportunity to manage its personality through its leaders access to the media. Thus, controllable events such as Britains presidency of the European Union in 2005 allowed Blair to exhibit positive leadership as well as other personality traits. The danger in terms of perceptions of leadership and competence traits are when a controllable event is poorly handled (Smith, 2005). For the Labour Party, the debacle that was the Millennium Dome is such an example and Iraq another. Uncontrollable events play a greater role in politics than for most other organizations. In one year (2000), New Labour was impacted on by 28 separate politically significant, uncontrollable events that had the potential to influence (positively or negatively) perceptions of its brand image (Smith, 2001). In PPP terms, a critical phase is when events are linked together in the memory of voters to form a wider pattern (schema) from which a basic

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personality trait is observed. For the Conservatives, the Pergau Dam scandal (misuse of aid funds), perceived impropriety of Neil Hamilton (cash for questions), Jeffrey Archer and Jonathon Aitken (both perjury), all coalesced into the broader sleaze epithet that still dogs them. Since 1997, New Labours personality as honest and thus trustworthy has been tarnished by the Bernie Ecclestone (donations for policy changes) and Hinduja brothers (fast-tracking passports) affairs, unfounded claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (misleading the House), and most recently issues over party funding (loans for titles). The nature of media coverage of such events is therefore critical in how the personality of a party is perceived, and it helps to explain New Labours fixation with spin. Building and=or defending a partys image requires the right messages to be communicated over time to the public via unpaid media.
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ADVERTISING
Outside of politics, marketing practitioners have become increasingly aware of the importance of building a clear and distinctive brand personality through paid advertising (Yaverbaum, 2001, p. 20). In U.K. politics, there have been several notable attempts at positive personality development via film biographies of party leaders in party election broadcasts. There was Edward Heaths A Man to Trust in 1970; Hugh Hudsons Kinnock the Movie in 1993; The Journey in 1992, showing John Major revisiting his roots in Brixton; and Molly Dineens informal kitchen Party Election Broadcast for Tony Blair in 1997 (Pearce, 2001). These attempts have been isolated and piecemeal, however. Part of the reason for this is that, unlike the private sector, political parties are constrained in their ability to afford a consistent personality-driven campaign. Also, advertisings use, concentrated on the general election campaigning period, is outside the control of the Advertising Standards Authority. This allows for greater negative advertising, which typically focuses on the personality of opposition leaders=parties. Thus, the last U.K. general election was characterized by negative personality advertising by the two main parties. The Conservatives notably concentrated their attack on the lack of trust in Blair and his party (Dermody and Hanmer-Lloyd, 2005). The Labour Party, too, was not above personality-based negative advertising, most notably with its abortive poster campaign that showed Howard as a Fagin-like character.

PARTISANSHIP AND PPP

It is clear that not everyone has the same level of interest in party politics. In markets generally, the level of involvement with a brand has been shown to affect the way that information about that brand is processed and stored in

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memory (Petty, Cacioppo, and Schumann, 1983). The more involved, the more information is sought and elaboration (issue-relevant thinking) takes place. In politics, preference for a candidate has been shown to affect the way that information on a party and its politicians is interpreted. More specifically, preference for a candidate leads to a filtering of information. Biased processing of information that does not agree with currently held views takes place through various defense mechanisms, such as generation of counterarguments, information distortion, source derogation, and even selective avoidance of inconsistent information (Klein and Ahluwalia, 2005).8 Thus, a negative piece of information about Tony Blair may be explained away by a New Labour supporter if it appears in a right-wing newspaper. This suggests that voters with a preference for a given party will be inclined to take on positive (congruent) information about the party and its personality and filter out negative (dissonant) information. As shown in Figure 1, partisanship is thus expected to influence the way the four key sources of personality-relevant information are processed in memory. In theory, the more partisan a voter, the more positive their perception of the personality of the party should be.9

MEASURING BRAND PERSONALITY IN BRITISH POLITICS

To progress the investigation of brand personality in politics via primary research requires an appropriate measure of the construct. Aakers (1997) seminal work developed a general brand personality scale using commercial brands, and this stimulated a stream of research in this area (Aaker, 1999; Siguaw, Mattila, der, and Keller, 2000; Ferrandi, Valette-Florence, and Austin, 1999; Bauer, Ma and Fine-Falcy, 2000; Diamantopoulos, Smith, and Grime, 2005). Aakers (1997) scale was developed empirically by asking respondents which, from a list of 114 possible personality traits, were relevant in describing specific brands. Some 37 brands were used in the research, covering a wide range of consumer brands; some services (Visa credit cards, CNN); and some complex brands requiring extended decision making (Apple and IBM computers, Mercedes automobiles) as well as fast-moving consumer good brands (Pepsi-Cola, McDonalds). The resulting scale has five main dimensions that are made up of 42 individual personality traits. Sincerity is one such main brand personality dimension, and it is derived from specific personality traits such as honest, wholesome, down-to-earth, and sincere. The brand personality dimension excitement is made up of traits such as exciting, imaginative, daring, and up-to-date. Competence is the personality dimension assigned to brands that are perceived to be reliable, hardworking, and successful. A brand is sophisticated if it is perceived to be upper-class, good-looking, and smooth. Finally, a brand has ruggedness if it has a perceived personality that is masculine, tough, and rugged.

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Clearly, a given brand will not be perceived by consumers as having all these personality elements. For example, a sophisticated brand may struggle to also be perceived (or want to be seen) as rugged. Prima facie, political brands will wish to be perceived as sincere and competent. Together, these can be seen to affect how trustworthy a party is perceived to be. It is also plausible that parties may at times be seen as sophisticated and exciting (New Labour in its honeymoon period in 1997; the Conservatives under their current leader). A full listing of Aakers brand personality scale is provided in Appendix A. Schneider (2004) applied the scale unaltered to (German) politicians and to political parties. He used it to measure the level and stability of political brand knowledge but did not test its validity as a measure of PPP. Recent research, however, has identified situations in which the measure has needed to be amended before application (Aaker, Benet-Martinez, and Garolera, 2001; Sung and Tinkham, 2003; Venable, Rose, and Gilbert, 2005). Given that political brands have been seen to differ from other brands, it is not clear that the structure of brand personality will be the same in U.K. politics as it is with U.S. consumer brands. To test this, Aakers approach was used with U.K. political parties to see whether a similar brand personality structure applied. Before the questionnaire was finalized, it was first subjected to two separate pretests to see whether the personality items (traits) from Aakers measure were appropriate for British politics. First, an expert pretest was conducted with three academics possessing in-depth knowledge of the subject area. This was followed by a second pretest comprising eight students similar to the research group. The pretests revealed that some traits (e.g., Western and small-town) were seen as confusing in the context of U.K. politics, and these items were removed from the questionnaire. The questionnaire was then completed by 183 students enrolled in an undergraduate business studies degree program at an English university. Each used Aakers (1997) brand personality scale to measure their individual perceptions of the personality of both the Labour and Conservative parties. Of the responses, 67 were Labour supporters and 91 were Conservative supporters. While clearly not representative of the electorate at large, their relative homogeneity as a group (by age, sex, education, etc.) was useful for scale testing purposes, as argued by Calder, Phillips, and Tybout (1981).

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RESULTS The Brand Personality Framework

As discussed, Aakers (1997) brand personality framework consists of the so-called big five personality dimensions (sincerity, excitement, competence,

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sophistication, and ruggedness). To test whether this framework is the same for political parties, her statistical approach10 was used on the above sample with the Labour and Conservative parties as the focus personalities. Factor analysis was used to discover whether the personality traits in the questionnaire could be explained in terms of a smaller number of factors (or dimensions) and whether these factors (dimensions) were the same in the political market as in the five-factor model. The results were not as predicted by Aakers (1997) research. The above big-five dimension solution explained only 53% of the variance, which is unacceptably low (Hair et al., 1998). Also, 10 personality items loaded on factors different from Aakers (1997) model. As such, the five-factor solution was rejected. In its place, the latent root criterion approach was used (using eigenvalues >1), which produced a six-factor solution and explained a more acceptable 62% of the total variance. Analysis of individual items in the scale led to the removal of several more of them (e.g., corporate and glamorous), as they did not improve the explanatory power of the factor structure (Nunnally, 1978). After their removal, the analysis was rerun. The resultant scale exhibits acceptable reliability (a mean, .78; median, .8062) in line with recommended thresholds (Peterson, 1994) (See Appendix B). The modified six-factor structure is shown in Figure 2. Although some dimensions are similar to those in Aakers (1997) model (e.g., leadership and honesty) the overall structure is significantly different (see Appendix A for Aakers structure). There is one new personality dimension (uniqueness), which contains traits that address how the partys personality is different from that of other parties. It is also clear that some personality traits have loaded differently to create dimensions that are amalgams of Aakers original five

FIGURE 2 Modified brand personality scale for U.K. political parties (traits are shown in ranked order, highest item to total correlations at top).

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dimensions.11 This necessitated changing the names of all the dimensions to reflect better the underlying structure of brand personality in British politics. The above differences support the view that the structure of brand personality in politics is of itself unique and that directly using Aakers (1997) version in this context is inappropriate.

The Effect of Partisanship on Party Personality

The amended personality structure was therefore used to analyze the personality of both the Conservative and Labour parties. As previously discussed, rather than assume that all supporters are the same, respondents were asked to identify the level of their commitment to their party of preference. This allows PPP to be compared between partisan and less partisan respondents. Knowledge, although not an area focused on in this research, has been identified as an influence on response to brands (Bettman and Park, 1980; Johnson and Russo, 1984). Herein, it has been treated as a covariate to remove its effect before the experimental effect of partisanship is calculated (Hair et al., 1998). Table 1 reveals that the Labour supporters have a similar perception of the partys personality, irrespective of the level of their support (the exception being that less partisan supporters saw the party as less honest). The Conservatives supporters, however, exhibit significant differences on all personality factors based on their level of support. The partisan supporters have a more positive view of the partys personality than the less partisan supporters (sympathizers and residual identifiers). (For a full listing of the variables used, see Appendix C.)
TABLE 1 A Comparison of Partisan Allegiance Effects on Brand Personality Labour Partisanshipa Brand personality dimension Honesty Spirited Image Leadership Toughness Uniqueness High 3.45 3.50 2.89 3.56 2.78 3.37 Low 2.95 3.27 2.59 3.21 2.69 2.72 Conservative Partisanshipb High 2.91 3.05 2.84 3.10 2.37 3.33 Low 2.40 2.60 2.35 2.74 2.04 2.99

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Significant at p < .05 level, significant at p < .01 level, significant at p < .001 level. a Labour supporters mean scores: high partisan, low sympathizers and residual identifiers. b Conservative supporters mean scores: high partisan, low sympathizers and residual identifiers.

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In addition, analysis shows that for this sample, those who preferred the Labour party had a significantly more positive perception of the partys personality than did Conservative supporters of their own party. Honesty, spirited, leadership, and toughness were all significantly higher-scored personality traits (see Appendix D for confirmatory statistics).

DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS The New Personality Scale for British Politics

The paper has investigated the role of brand personality in influencing voting intentions. It has also identified politics as a mutable, credence brand and, as such, different from most other commercial brands. Now we are able to add to the list of differences by concluding from the empirical findings that the personality of political parties differs from that for other, commercial brands. In particular, 8 of the 42 original traits (nearly 20%) were seen as either confusing in politics or did not add to the scales explanatory power and were deleted. Also, the factor analysis revealed a differing underlying structure of brand personality in politics. Personality dimensions known a priori to be important to politics (e.g., honesty, leadership, image) are reflected within the modified political structure that has emerged from the analysis. Rather than simply seeking to explain each dimension of the new structure in terms of politics, what follows is a discussion of how the observed differences in political personality may be attributable to those unique differences that characterize the political marketplace. A notable difference between the political and other commercial markets is the greater importance of honesty in the former. Although there have been occasions when the honesty of commercial brands have been called into question (e.g., Enron), these are rare and brands do not survive if they are perceived to be dishonest (i.e., promising benefits they cannot provide).12 As such, it is likely to be less important in defining the personality of commercial brands. Conversely, in politics, the promises parties make are on a much wider scale than those of commercial brands. Also, the honesty of politicians is regularly called into question, both by the media and competing parties. Such conditions provide an explanation for its emergence as a dimension in the amended personality scale. Another significant difference is the greater impact on brand personality by people (politicians) in politics than in other markets. Commercial brands (with the notable exception of easyGroups Stellios Haji-Ioannou and Virgins Richard Branson) tend not to have leaders who are widely known from whom the personality of the brand may be inferred. They have to rely on endorsers to transfer their personality to their brands. In politics, personality, as has been seen, may be gleaned directly through the personality of related politicians, particular a partys leader. It is notable, therefore, that both image

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and leadership dimensions are defined more by items that are descriptive of a person (e.g., good-looking, young, leader, confident, intelligent) than an object (e.g., technical, secure) and that this differs from the personality of consumer brands. The occurrence of a uniqueness dimension of political brand personality is prima facie an unexpected one. The imperative to be a catchall party to attain electoral success (Kirchheimer, 1966) has created greater policy similarity between the two main parties as they position themselves on the center ground of British politics. This might be expected to make uniqueness less relevant as a measure of political personality. On reflection, however, the main parties have vied for power for generations during which time the idea that there are differences between them has become inculcated. Differences have become more entrenched than differences between, for example, Hertz and Avis, Pepsi and Coke, and Adidas and Nike. In commercial markets, brands are typically positioned away from the competition, but negative, comparative advertising is rarely used. In politics, even when policies are similar, the constant, very public, and acrimonious way that political parties compete (what David Cameron recently called the Punch and Judy nature of British politics) maintains the impression of marked differences between them in a way and intensity not witnessed between commercial brands. In addition, it should be remembered that there are many ways to be seen as unique, even if policies are similar. We have already noted the personification of parties in the shape of their leaders that allows perceived personality differences between brands to be recognized by voters. Although the reasons forwarded above for the differences observed between political and commercial consumer brand personality are plausible, they are still speculative. All that can be said for certain is that whatever the actual reasons for the different personality structure for political brands, differences exist. This finding supports the wider argument that given the differences between politics generally and the private sector, a contingency approach is needed when applying marketing ideas, methods, and particularly scales to politics.

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Partisanship and Personality Formation

With regard to the second research question, the brand personality differences between partisan and nonpartisan supporters also were not as expected from the wider marketing literature. The literature suggests that more partisan supporters will view the personality of the party differently from less partisan supporters. This was generally supported as, uniformly, partisan supporters held a more positive view of their partys personality. However, Labour Party supporters (both partisan and less partisan) were not significantly different, while the Conservative partisans were highly different from their less loyal Conservative supporters on all personality dimensions. It is possible to

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speculate from this that there is a ceiling effect on personality scores, with both partisan and less partisan for Labour being close to it, hence the lesser difference between the two types of Labour supporters when the research was conducted.13 Conversely, whenas with the Conservativesthe party is less well thought of generally, the partisan supporter remains more positive while the less committed supporter is more inclined to acknowledge problems with the party and allow personality perception to be affected accordingly. Again, the unique nature of the political market may help to explain this finding. Unlike commercial markets, the market leader (i.e., the party with a working majority of seats) effectively has a monopoly of power to act while opposition parties may only talk of action. Given the identified importance of action in influencing personality, the governments personality may be directly influenced by what it does. The effect may be negative, as when ministers seem powerless or weak or just out of touch (e.g., the fuel protests in autumn 2000), or positive, through a presidential style of leadership, reaching targets set, efficiently managing the economy, and so on. Conversely, the opposition parties are not empowered to enact their policies and so are curtailed in their ability to proactively influence personality through action. In particular, personality dimensions such as leadership, spiritedness, and toughness would appear to require being in power to realize fully. The condition in which one brand has the power to act and competitor brands are severely constrained is unique to the political market. Moreover, it suggests that personality will be more volatile in politics as the governments perceived personality is enhanced and or compromised by its actions. Opposition parties appear much less powerful in developing their personalities. As such, the old axiom that it is governments that lose elections rather than oppositions that win them looks apposite in party personality=image terms.

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH

There are a number of possible limitations in the conceptual and empirical work reported in the paper. The conceptual model (Figure 1) presented herein was derived from the extant literature and it has not been tested empirically. This seems the obvious next step, and qualitative research seems the most appropriate way of testing=improving the model. So, for example, focus group research could be used to investigate whether the model covers the full range of antecedent influences affecting the personality perceptions of British political parties among voters. It could also be used to see whether those unique differences (identified in the discussion) that characterize the political marketplace are in fact the reasons for the differences in political personality structure as speculated.

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A similar qualitative approach can be used to test for additional moderating influences on the antecedent influences. Party loyalty was the influence identified herein, but on its own this is likely to prove an oversimplification. For example, the role of the media and spin in interpreting the information that influences personality formation and change was alluded to but not investigated. OCass and Pecotich (2005) identify a range of further possible moderating influences on voting processes, some of whichlike opinion leadersmay also moderate how voters perceive political personalities. Once the model has been fully developed, the interaction between the main antecedent influences on consumer learning about a partys personality may be more fully explored. Of particular interest is the interaction between the leader and events. Under what circumstances does attribution take place such that the former is blamed (or feted) for events? Also, what is the interaction between the leader and his=her party? Will voters believe in personality change in a party as signalled by the leader if the rank and file of the party appear largely unchanged? This is an issue facing David Cameron over the next few years. In addition, although the dimensions of personality in British politics have been identified, we are not any wiser as to the relative importance of these dimensions in terms of voting behavior. For example, is honesty (at whatever ideal level) a greater influence on party choice than leadership is? This whole area of ideal personalities is an important area for future research. Do different voter groupings (segments) have differing ideal personalities of the party brands? With regard to the empirical research reported herein, it has been shown that Aakers (1997) model is inappropriate for use in politics. However, the six-dimension model developed also needs to be treated with some caution, as its generalizability to the wider U.K. electoral scene is not yet proven. As such, further research to replicate (and thus test) the six-dimension personality model is still required.14 Also, considering wider research opportunities, it is not recommended that the personality scale, having been modified for use in the British political context, be used unchanged in other countries and=or for comparative political research between countries. The experience from commercial research on commercial brands suggests that differing political cultures may well produce differing personality dimensions than those of the United Kingdom. By way of conclusion, the research reported in this paper has developed theoretically what is known about brand personality as related to politics. The primary research has shown the need for an amended measure of personality specific to the U.K. political market. It has also shown that brand personality varies within groups and, more specifically, that it can be influenced by level of allegiance to a given party. Overall, the paper highlights just how much is not understood in this area, and the scope for future research in those areas identified above is wide. Given its identified influence on voting intention, future, more sophisticated research into personalitys role in politics seems both justified and assured.

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NOTES
1. The New Labour Party promised action to end fox hunting in 1997. It was notably less committed to the issue when in power. 2. Brand personality is clearly not the only influence on voting intention. For example, Newman (1999) identifies four additional influences on voting behavior including epistemic value (that of curiosity in what opposition parties might do and boredom with the existing government). 3. A partys personality, as we shall see, is inferred by the actions or personalities of significant others, including the leader, but also learned by actions over a protracted period. 4. Brand heritage is defined as those elements of a brands history that are widely known by customers and influence how they view the brand. In commercial markets, brands such as the BMW Mini and Jack Daniels actively promote their brand heritage to differentiate the current brand. 5. Teresa May, the then chair of the party, made these claims at the 2002 Conservative Party conference. 6. As will be covered later, individuals seek to maintain consistent knowledge structures often by explaining away conflicting information. 7. At the Labour Partys 2005 conference, Walter Wolfgang, an 82-year-old activist, was manhandled for heckling Jack Straw over the Iraq war. Despite profuse apologies, the symbolic meaning of an overcontrolling party remained. 8. This finding is also consistent with the social psychological theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957). 9. Given the battering the New Labour Party has received over the Iraq war and its aftermath, this could also be presented as the more partisan, the less negative should be their perception of the party. 10. To analyze the relevance of the brand personality scale to the British political market, principal component factor analysis was used with varimax rotation. 11. A good example is the image dimension. It is a mix of items previously making up exciting (cool and trendy) and sophistication (good-looking and smooth) dimensions in Aakers (1997) model. 12. A good example was Gerald Ratner (the CEO of Ratners, a major U.K. High Street jewelery retailer), who admitted in an after-dinner speech to an invited audience that the jewelery his business sold was of very poor quality. The result, when his speech became public knowledge, was the destruction of the business. Another example is that of Sunny Delight. After massive initial success based on its claim as a healthy alternative to carbonated drinks, the fact that the product contained high sugar, fats, and colorants caused consumers to reject it and sales plummeted. 13. It should be noted that the research was conducted before the full effect of the Iraq war began to erode the popularity of the Labour Party and shift perceptions of its personality. 14. This caveat is particularly true if measuring political brand personality in other countries where the differing political culture may reflect itself in differing personality dimensions than those of the United Kingdom.

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AUTHOR NOTE
Gareth Smith is a senior lecturer in marketing at Loughborough University Business School, Loughborough, Leicestershire, United Kingdom. He studied politics for his first degree at Essex University. Since then, he has maintained an interest in marketings application to politics and has published on the subject in the European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Management, and Journal of Political Marketing. He has also published on marketings application in the wider, not-for-profit sector and on the effect of brand extensions on brand personality.

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APPENDIX A: AAKERS (1997) BRAND PERSONALITY SCALE

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APPENDIX B: SIX DIMENSIONS OF U.K. POLITICAL PARTY BRAND PERSONALITY

Personality dimension Honesty Spirited Image Leadership Toughness Uniqueness Factor 1 2 3 4 5 6 Variance explained (%) 32.4 10.1 5.7 4.8 4.2 3.2 Eigenvalue 11.0 3.4 1.9 1.6 1.5 1.1 Cronbach a .86 .85 .87 .83 .70 .76

APPENDIX C: VARIABLES AND THEIR MEASURES

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Construct Brand Personality Source Aaker (1997) Description (Scoring) Example items

Party Loyalty

Jowell, Witherspoon and Brook (1987)

Amended Brand Personality Scale (for British Politics)

Five-dimension, 1. Sincerity: cheerful, down-to42-trait scale; items earth, honest, friendly, original scored (11 items in total) 5 extremely 2. Excitement: daring, trendy, descriptive, exciting, spirited, cool, unique 1 not at all (11 items in total) descriptive. 3. Competence: reliable, hard-working, secure, intelligent, technical (9 items in total) 4. Sophistication: upper-class, glamorous, good-looking, charming (6 items in total) 5. Ruggedness: outdoorsy, masculine, Western, tough (5 items in total) Partisan: party supporter. Single item on 3 (compacted from a Sympathizer: Closer to it than other parties. 4)-point ordinal Residual identifier=Nonaligned: scale More likely to support party in the event of an election= no party preference. Six-dimension, 34 1. Honesty: honest, reliable, trait scale; items wholesome (8 items in total) scored 2. Spirited: spirited, daring, imagi5 extremely native (5 items in total) descriptive, 3. Image: smooth, good looking, 1 not at all trendy (7 items in total) descriptive. 4. Leadership: leader, confident, intelligent, successful (7 items in total) 5. Toughness: masculine, rugged, tough (4 items in total) 6. Uniqueness: unique, independent, original (3 items in total)

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APPENDIX D: COMPARISON OF BRAND PERSONALITYLABOUR SUPPORTERS VS. CONSERVATIVE SUPPORTERS

Conservative brand personality by Conservative supportersa 2.74 2.90 2.67 2.98 2.29 3.23 (.55) (.64) (.57) (.54) (.64) (.6)

Personality dimension Honesty Spirited Image Leadership Toughness Uniqueness

Labour brand personality by Labour supportersa 3.13 3.37 2.70 3.37 2.73 3.08 (.57) (.66) (.61) (.61) (.73) (.74)

Significance <.001 <.001 n.s. <.001 <.001 n.s.

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n.s. not significant, p > 0.1. a Mean scores, standard deviations in parentheses.