Over the last decades, political marketing research has been mainly focused on the application of the marketing techniques in the broader area of politics while shedding light on the principles and concepts that regulate the discipline. While ‘broadening the concept of marketing’, the intangible nature of the political product and its connection with the services marketing has been revealed (Harrop, Citation1990; Lock & Harris, Citation1996). As a result, nowadays, there is a growing research interest that addresses the importance of applying the branding theories and concepts to the service industry (Cheng, Luo, Yen, & Yang, Citation2016) and especially to politics.
The extant political branding literature has been found to mainly focus on political brand building (Reeves, de Chernatony, & Carrigan, Citation2006; Harris and Lock Citation2010), political brand image (Guzmán & Sierra, Citation2009; Pich, Armannsdottir, & Dean, Citation2015; Smith & French, Citation2011), the way voters use political brands to differentiate between political parties (Scammell, Citation2007; Smith & French, Citation2009), the connection of political brands to the identity projection (Pich, Dean, & Punjaisri, Citation2016), or the establishment of political brand loyalty (Needham, Citation2006; Phipps, Brace-Govan, & Jevons, Citation2010). However, political branding research is still inconclusive and critically seeks for further academic inquires.
Within a global economy where the imitation and homogenization of offerings (Hatch & Schultz, Citation2001) threatens brand trust and differentiation, the political environment is becoming more fragmented and complex. As a consequence, citizens feel greater uncertainty about their political choices and future prospects. In this vein, as current societies are characterized by continuous political changes, citizens’ political disengagement and parties’ policies convergence, political brands become machines of interpreting political decision making and repurchase behavior (Needham, Citation2006), in the sense of reelection.
The purpose of this special issue on political branding is consistent with the call to broaden the field of marketing (Bagozzi & Nataraajan, Citation2000), to explore the contribution of branding to politics as an analytical concept and aims to bring together high quality contemporary research on politics and marketing with a view to addressing challenges and future developments in turbulent times.
The call is open to both conceptual and empirical manuscripts that are highly related to the theme of the special issue. Moreover, submissions based on multiple methodological approaches including qualitative, quantitative, case study, or triangulation of methods are welcomed. Contributions to the special issue may come from a range of topics, and might include, but are not limited to:
The effects of political brands on voting behavior
Ethical aspects in the political marketplace
Party identification and citizens’ political engagement
The public service design and delivery
Political communication and political branding
Elections and voting behavior
Crisis management in politics
Political consumerism in current societies
The role of identity and image in politics
The effects of new technological advances on political branding
Measuring – development and validation of scale measuring the political brand concept
The role of psychology and sociology in political decision making process
Citizen’s suspicion in the political environment
Submission instructions
Researchers are invited to indicate their interest in contributing to this special issue by sending a 300-word abstract of their proposed paper by 1 June 2018 to Professor George Panigyrakis by e-mail at [email protected].
The deadline for full paper submission is 1 September 2018 for standard peer review.
Full instructions for authors are available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=fsij20&page=instructions
Publication for this special issue is Spring 2019.
Furthermore, papers submitted to the 2018 Global Marketing Conference at Tokyo (http://gammaconference.org/2018/?ckattempt=3) under the track titled as ‘Political Branding in Turbulent Times’, subjected to review process, will be considered for publication in the special issue of The Service Industries Journal.
Editorial information
Guest Editor: Professor George G. Panigyrakis, Professor of Marketing, Department of Business Administration, Athens University of Economics and Business ([email protected])
Editor-in-Chief: Levent Altinay, Oxford Brookes University ([email protected])
References
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