Branding in Politics

The aim of the course is to present students the theory of Branding in politics and to deliver tangible and practical tools and methods (including those from the disciplines of commercial marketing and business management), which can be applied to politics in order to build strong political brands. In particular, there are several hypothesis put forward during the course, such as the important role of simplicity, credibility, authenticity, symbols and emotions used in the communication of a brand or the significance of the possession of a strong leader and distinguishing brand personality. The course discusses a wide range of branding topics, which are used in politics, such as the creation of brand added value, measuring this value, positioning or rebranding.

Basic literature:

1) D. Aaker, Measuring brand equity across products and markets, “California Management Review” 1996, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 102-120

2) L. de Chernatony et al., Creating Powerful Brands (any edition)

3) L. de Chernatony, From Brand Vision to Brand Evaluation (any edition)

4) G. Davies, T. Mian, The Reputation of the Party Leader and of the Party Being Led, “European Journal of Marketing” 2010, vol. 44, no. 3/4, pp. 331-350

5) P. Kotler, K. L. Keller, Marketing Management (any edition)

6) J. Lees-Marshment, Political Marketing: Principles and Applications, Routledge, London 2009

7) R.P. Ormrod, S.C.M. Hanneberg, N.J. O’Shaughnessy, Political Marketing. Theory and Concepts, Sage, Los Angeles‒London‒New Delhi‒Singapur‒Washington 2013

8) G. Smith, Conceptualizing and Testing Brand Personality in British Politics, “Journal of Political Marketing” 2009, vol. 8, pp. 209-232

Complementary literature:

9) J. L. Aaker, Dimensions of Brand Personality, “Journal of Marketing Research” 1997, vol. XXXIV, pp. 347 356

10) K. L. Keller, Strategic Brand Management, (any edition)

11) C. Needham, Brands and Political Loyalty, “Journal of Brand Management” 2006, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 178 187

12) D. Lilleker, R. Scullion (eds.), Voters or Consumers: Imagining the Contemporary Electorate, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle 2008

13) K. Zajdowski, Marketing produktu politycznego, Elipsa, Warszawa 2017

Knowledge:

LO1 Develop in-depth knowledge of the field of marketing and insights into the practicalities in political campaigning.

LO2. Provide students with a comprehensive awareness and balanced understanding of the range of marketing tools and concepts utilized in political branding today.

LO3. Encourage students to reflect about the implications of political marketing for democracy in the 21st century.

Skills:

LO4. Relate theoretical knowledge about campaigning and different campaign styles and techniques to real-world examples.

LO5. Manage branding campaigns.

LO6. Advise political parties, organizations and candidates during elections.

LO7. Critically understand and comment political campaings.

LO8. Ability to present public speeches in English.

LO9. Develop English language skills in political science.

Social competences:

L10. Ability of team cooperation (preparation of group preseantations).

L11. Participation in the political life due to the understanding of the use of social psychology in politics and political marketing / political communication mechanisms.

- group class presentations in Power Point,

- final test,

- active participation in discussions during the seminars based on the obligatory reading.

All members of each group should actively and systematically work on presentations during the semester. At the end of the semester each group should indicate students, who were engaged in the preparation of campaign presentations. It is required to use the obligatory literature in order to prepare branding campaign presentations.

Class participation will be evaluated based on quality rather than quantity. The quality of participation will be judged based on the standard criteria: comments should be insightful, raise new issues, be concise, clear, brief, germane and challenging, reference to the obligatory reading. It is mandatory to read the literature in a timely manner to be prepared for each seminar.