Political Party Branding and Voter Choice in Ghana

Abstract

Political Parties have sprung up in Ghana under the fourth republic to participate fully in national elections and to promote democracy for the people of Ghana. In recent times, academics, political and media observers as well as practitioners have spoken of politicians and parties as brands. This observation has been given prominence by research findings that offer valuable insights on political party behaviour, candidates’ personalities and policy attributes. The concept of branding is known in commerce as a tool used to create difference; aiding consumers to make a purchase decision easily. Hence, the idea of branding as a differentiator is transferred on to political party management, candidate grooming and policy development. This research was motivated to investigate political party branding and voter choice in Ghana with the aim of assessing how party brand elements are differentiated from each other to establish difference and clarity in Ghana’s Political arena. The study employed sequential mixed method approach in collecting data from political parties with representation in parliament of Ghana and a survey of 450 (four hundred and fifty) Ghanaian student voters. Interview guide was developed to collect data from the political parties to provide detailed in-depth information about the thought process that went into the selection of brand elements to build their party brand. A likert-scale questionnaire was used to collect data from voters about political party branding and their impact on voters preferred choice of political party in Ghana. The findings showed that, political party branding elements such as ideology, policy and colours are statistically significant and have positive influence on voter’s choice of political party in Ghana. The research provides policy guidelines for branding political parties in Ghana.