It’s the Equity Stupid! Protecting the Value of the Partisan Brand

Abstract

A new brand-oriented party model is employed to consider the importance of partisan brand equity, or voter-perceived value. The model conceptualizes, identifies, and evaluates political branding from a practitioner’s perspective. Working with the model and primary vote data to measure equity, I draw on the recent fortunes of the Australian Labor Party to illustrate the danger of disregarding partisan brand equity. I argue that partisan brand equity was built and then eroded by key actions of the party and its leaders over 7 years. These successes and failures offer two lessons for Labor. First, parties that intend to undertake branding should fully embrace the concept of consumer-based brand equity. Second, they should ensure that the leader’s brand equity is put into the service of the party brand. The model and the suggestions for Australian Labor may be valuable for other parties seeking to understand and manage brand equity.

KEYWORDS:

• Australian labor party
• brand equity
• political branding