Political Leaders and Marketing: A Brand Identity Study

Abstract

Brands are powerful determinants of success. It is unsurprising to see how branding tools and processes are employed in political context. Notwithstanding the differences, the exchange, choice and discrimination between competing candidates makes the political arena similar to marketing in general. A democratic form of governance enjoys several similarities with competition. The Indian political space is highly divided and fragmented based on voter demographics and psychology. In sync with market reality, the political players are also highly diversified. In the next general elections, the most dominant voting group is going to be the youth segment often called now generation. Change is also visible in the political leadership of two major national parties. The competing leaders Narendra Modi of the BJP and Rahul Gandhi of the Congress have a brand building is task in their hands. The first question in brand building is to understand what the brand stands for. This study explores the identity of these two leaders by applying content analysis to their communication. It is interesting to find that both brands are driven by a dominant discourse on change, but seem to adopt different routes to achieving the same.