Measuring Political Brand Equity in Ireland

Abstract

This article will apply cognitive mapping techniques to understand the manner in which political brand equity is formed, and how it differs, across the four largest Irish political parties, from the perspective of citizens. It assesses the fundamental aspects of branding and brand equity in the marketing and political marketing literatures. Primary data were generated in spring 2012 through the participation of 232 citizens in the political brand elicitation stage and a further 75 citizens were involved in creating cognitive maps of brand equity. From the mapping process, we see that Irish political party brands are plagued by a number of negative associations. Fianna Fáil's brand is overshadowed by past mistakes and former leaders with bad reputations; while the Fine Gael brand is wracked by low levels of engagement. This article constitutes the first attempt to measure the political brand equity of Irish political parties.

Keywords:

• political
• brand
• equity
• parties

Notes

1 Byrne and O'Malley (2011) have recently argued that there is in fact a cleavage basis for support in the Irish party system, and this is based upon divisions and migrations that took place a thousand years ago.