Branding In Business and politics
It’s March Madness, which means I’ve forsaken all of life’s duties for hours of college basketball and, by extension, hours of ads. As I watch AT&T’s Lily climb on Steven Adams’s back for the 100th time, I cannot help thinking about the relationship between consumer marketing and my field, politics.
Politics is marketing. Political entrepreneurs must consider the same things businesses do: branding, advertising, market share, and customer satisfaction.
(Recently, marketing has become much more political, but we’ll save that for another time).
This is the first in a series of essays comparing marketing in The Business World with The Political World. So, if your bracket is busted and you’re looking for something else to do, please join me as we explore branding as an economic and political exercise.
What is Branding?
A brand is “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers” (American Marketing Association, cited in The Branding Journal). Branding provides information to customers, helping them make decisions. All companies hope to create brand loyalty; the dream is that their brand becomes part of their customer’s identity.
Let’s unpack this definition as it relates to The Business World and The Political World.
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature…
The Business World
A brand is a name. Except for generics, every company gives a name to its product. What those names mean is a different story. Both the Porsche 911 and the Pontiac Aztec can get you from Point A to Point B, but ask anyone if they are the same thing.
A brand is a term. Companies carefully choose slogans to represent their brand. “The Ultimate Driving Machine,” “Built Ford Tough!” “It’s not a car, it’s a Volkswagen.”
A brand is a design or symbol. See if you can guess the companies behind these symbols:
A brand is any other feature. Companies brand themselves in song and jingle. McDonald’s ba-da-ba-ba-ah; Speed Stick by Mennen; “the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup”; or “I’d love to be an Oscar Meyer wiener.”
The Political World
We don’t often think of citizenship or nationalism or patriotism as the consequence of branding efforts, but in many ways, they are. Before the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, the polity was defined by religion, bloodlines, conquest, or whatever the King said it was.
Today, most countries have diverse citizens with a multitude of identities. How do you get a varied group of people to see themselves as Americans instead of, say, rich or poor, Democrats or Republicans, white or Black, Protestants or Catholics, Californians or Texans, Dodger or Giant fans, or any other source of identity one might have? The answer is branding.
Political scientist Benedict Anderson called modern nation-states “imagined communities,” where ideas, symbols, and songs—not blood or religion—bind citizens together. And because political communities are imagined, crafting an allegiance to country is not so different from corporate branding.
A brand is a name. The United States of America has near-universal brand recognition. So, too, do China, France, and Brazil. Country names are more than a convenient way to mark geography. Names convey meaning to those inside and outside the country.
A brand is a term. The United States is “the land of the free and home of the brave,” “the land of opportunity,” and “the greatest country in the world.”
A brand is a design or symbol. Americans learn the symbols of the country from an early age. Think of what you learned in grade school about the Stars and Stripes.
A brand is any other feature. And from an early age, Americans learn national songs. Songs are so important to the brand that the National Anthem is played before most sporting contests.
Branding identifies seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.
The Business World
Companies can’t sell a product if consumers don’t know it exists. And in a competitive market, companies want consumers to a) recognize their brand and b) prefer it to the alternatives.
As I shopped for my parents in the early days of the Covid lockdown, I soon learned Mom has firm opinions about food brands. In no uncertain terms, Mom told me to buy Duncan Hines Classic Yellow cake mix. It wasn’t on the shelf, so I figured Betty Crocker was the same thing. It wasn’t.
The Political World
Candidates and political parties can’t win elections if voters don’t know who they are. Name recognition is a necessary, and sometimes sufficient, condition of electoral victory. That is why incumbents, celebrities, and candidates who spend more on advertising usually win.
Maybe the only good thing about political polarization is that party brands mean more today than ever before. Vote for a Democrat? You’re getting a liberal. Vote for a Republican? You’re getting a conservative. It wasn’t always like that. Until the mid-1960s, if you voted for a Democrat in the South, you got a segregationist. A vote for a Republican in the North might land you a liberal Rockefeller Republican. Strong party brands might not be good for the country, but they sure make voting easier.
Branding provides information to customers, helping them make decisions.
The Business World
In a 2022 survey by Strategic Vision, consumers rated Apple cars the highest in “quality impression.” The irony is that Apple hasn’t even announced it is making cars. Nevertheless, the Apple brand conveys information, even on a product that no one has seen and might never come to market.
For a few lucky companies, the brand is synonymous with the product. Our family needs more Kleenex® when we’re sick, not more tissues. We use Q-Tips®, not cotton swabs. If you can’t get a marketing monopoly, a duopoly is the next best thing. Coke and Pepsi. Visa and MasterCard. DC and Marvel Comics.
But unless we are talking about true monopolies, like Standard Oil, the seemingly bounded nature of consumer choice is all in the consumers’ heads. Your choice of tissue isn’t limited to Kleenex®; you could just as easily buy Puffs, Cheeky Panda, Finetouch, or Plush. These rivals are usually cheaper, and, who knows, might also be better. However, brand recognition limits what consumers consider when they have a stuffy nose.
The Political World
A lot of people hate political parties. The Founding Fathers certainly did, which is why the Constitution does not mention them. But I have a hard time imagining life without parties.
Who would you vote for in this three-person race for city council?
o John Masket
o Susan Wadsworth
o Mike Thomas
Now, imagine that same ballot looks like this:
o John Masket (Democrat)
o Susan Wadsworth (Green)
o Mike Thomas (Republican)
Consider how much information is conveyed by the words in parentheses. Party brands tell us who to vote for and who can win (not Wadsworth, as we will soon see).
Everyone thinks the United States has a two-party system. In reality, you have far more choices than just Democrat or Republican. In the 2020 Presidential Election, 38 candidates ran from 18 different political parties. As I discuss in “You’re Voting Wrong,” the U.S. has a two-party system because people think we have a two-party system. If everyone who liked the Green Party voted for the Green Party, we wouldn’t have a two-party system. And even if we do have a two-party system, nothing says it has to be the Democrats and Republicans. The two main parties could just as easily be the Democrats and Greens in liberal districts, or Republicans and Libertarians in conservative ones. But most of us never think about voting for a minor party because the Democrats and Republicans have cornered the political market, thanks to branding.
All companies hope to create brand loyalty.
The Business World.
All companies hope to build brand loyalty; those that can’t usually go out of business. Apple has loyal consumers: only 10% of iPhone users switched brands between 2019 and 2021. HTC does not have loyal customers: around 89% of HTC users switched to another brand between 2018-2019.
The Political World.
Political parties hope to build brand loyalty; those that can’t are never heard from again. Democrats and Republicans have loyal voters: only around 10% of Democrats and 10% of Republicans switched parties between 2018 and 2020. The Reform Party does not have loyal voters: precisely 100% of its voters switched parties between 1996 and 2004.
…the dream is that their brand becomes part of their customer’s identity
The Business World.
The brass ring for corporations is that consumers start to see their product not as a product but as an identity. Harley-Davidson owners don’t just like motorcycles; they ride Harleys and tattoo the company logo on their bodies.
https://bodyartguru.com/harley-davidson-tattoos/
The Political World
For many people, being a Democrat or Republican isn’t just a political preference, it’s an identity. Partisan identification is fast becoming the best way to predict people’s behavior and attitudes on any number of issues, political or not. Consider Bob, a Republican. Does Bob watch NASCAR or the WNBA? Drive a truck or a Prius? Drink Budweiser or Chateau Lafite Rothschild Puillac, 2010? Partisan identity is so strong that only 4% of marriages in 2020 were between a Democrat and a Republican.
Conclusion
There is much more to say about branding in The Business and The Political Worlds, but I’ll leave you with this: corporations and nation-states are all in our heads. Not “all in our heads,” like “all I can think about right now is an In-N-Out Double-Double.” More like, “corporations and nation-states exist because we think they exist.”
In his book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harai argues that Homo sapiens came to dominate the world because we can imagine things that don’t exist in the physical world. And it is this ability to imagine things that facilitates large-scale cooperation. Valentine’s Day is a stupid, made-up holiday designed to sell flowers and get me into trouble. Nevertheless, Americans spent nearly $26 billion last February 14th, and we forget Valentine’s Day at our peril. Physically, a $100 bill is just a little green piece of paper. But its value comes from a collective understanding of what that paper means, and this collective understanding is the bedrock of capitalism. As Harai writes, “Any large-scale human cooperation—whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city, or an archaic tribe—is rooted in common myths that exist only in people’s collective imagination.”
If it is true that companies and nation-states exist only in people’s collective imagination, then it stands to reason that branding matters. At the end of the day, branding tells people what something is. All watches tell time; wearing a Rolex tells you something about me. All humans are flesh and blood with the same physical needs; being an American or a Democrat tells you something about how well my needs are probably met and what I think the government should do about meeting the needs of others.
Saying that something exists in the social world but not the physical one does not mean it is any less real. And saying that corporations or countries are “myths” is not meant to trivialize either. Instead, if corporations and countries are part of a collective imagination, then there must be some ways of building that collective imagination. That way is called branding.
