Consuming Politics: How are Political Party Brands viewed by Australian Voters?

Marketing concepts, particularly branding and brand equity, are increasingly used to analyse political parties and voter behaviour. This paper examines how perceptions of party attributes are translated into party ‘brands’ in the minds of voters. A sample of 200 Australian voters were asked what words or phrases came to mind when they thought of each of four main Australian federal political parties. Graphics of brand penetration and brand concept maps were developed using Computer Aided Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). Wordle was used to generate word clouds demonstrating strength of brand associations, and the level brand penetration across subsets of voters in the sample. Leximancer provided concept maps on which participants’ voting intention was overlaid. This process revealed a more nuanced picture of how political party brands were viewed. Further work will extend to a broader sample to consider political party brand strength, uniqueness and favourability.