Department of Journalism Studies Political Brand
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DEPARTMENT OF JOURNALISM STUDIES POLITICAL BRAND MANAGEMENT: FORMS AND STRATEGIES IN MODERN PARTY POLITICS. A Thesis in partial fulfilment for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY. ALBERT KOBBY MENSAH 2011 DEDICATION I dedicate this Thesis to my brother, Daniel Osei Mensah, and the entire DANMENS family in Sekondi-Takoradi (Twincity), Ghana. For your sponsorship and guidance, I say THANK YOU! ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT To God the Almighty be the glory for seeing me through it all. Firstly, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to Professor Ralph Negrine for his supervision of this research. ‗Prof‘, as I always call him, has been immensely helpful, not only in the supervision of the research, but also by encouraging me a lot whenever my morale was down. His guidance has been invaluable. I also thank my second supervisor, Professor Jackie Harrison, for attending my presentations at seminars during the course of my research. It was always refreshing seeing both Ralph and Jackie around during such presentations. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Professor Martin Conboy, with whom I shared nice and inspiring stories and jokes, for his advice to make the thesis better. The academic and administrative staff and my PhD colleagues at the Department of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield, are not left out in this acknowledgement. I also acknowledge and thank those who participated in the FGDs and the in-depth interviews, especially the party officials of the NPP, the Academics at the University of Ghana (UG) and the media practitioners and analysts. Many thanks also go to my two research assistants, Kobby Gomez Mensah and Ato Kwame Appiah, who did not complain throughout our difficult journey across Ghana. Thanks for the fantastic job done. Thanks to my family for their generous sponsorship that has seen me throughout this academic journey. My Mum and Dad, and brothers: John, Daniel, Robert, Paa Key, Samuel Wright, Kojo Mensah. All of you have sacrificed in diverse ways to get me this far. Thanks to my wife, Jane Owusu-Yeboah, and son, Darryl Kuuku Mensah (MD) for the love, prayer, and support even when I had left you for many hours to be on campus. I will cherish them all the days of my life. My appreciation also goes to Dr Baffour Agyemang-Duah, a UN Senior Governance Advisor, for his support and advice at the early stages of this research, and so to Dr Gideon Azumah and Zakaria Tanko Musah. Of special mention also are Samuel Baidoo, Daniel Agyemang-Duah, Robert-MD Semper, Phina Monney, Grace Apeagyei, Esther Owusu-Adjei and Yomi Omogbeja. All of you have consistently urged me on in diverse ways. Thanks to Simon Duphey for the inspiration we shared together. As you also push to finish your thesis, I urge you to finish hard. Final thanks to Pastor Wallace, the family, and all the members of the ICWC Church for their support and prayers throughout this journey. You have all been fantastic! iii ABSTRACT The concept of branding is known within the commercial world as the marketing tool that enables customers to make product and service choices using functional and emotional attributes which they find satisfactory. These functional and emotional attributes are what is conceptualized by producers as brands. Hence, the traditional notion of the brand as an identifier and differentiator is passed on to the political market, according to the literature on political branding. However, many years into the inquest of political branding as an essential part of our electoral processes, agreement on political brand development is still proving elusive. In the literature, there are different views on how the political brand is developed. Some argue for political brand identity management based on policy attributes, whereas others regard candidate attributes as the essential source. This research argues for the amalgamation of all the three political elements: the party, the policy, and the candidate as a comprehensive source of building a political brand that is responsive to prevailing political market conditions. Using a case study of a political party in Ghana, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the research aims to demonstrate how party values are considered to be an integral part to policy and candidate attributes in building a comprehensive political brand identity. Here, the study does not imply that the NPP deliberately used branding as a set of principles in managing its campaign. However, it proposes that the strategies and the tactics with which the party executed its electioneering campaign parallels the brand architecture concept in marketing, given the way it identified roles for the three political elements (the party, the candidate, and the policy) and occasionally rearranged them to reflect the broader party goals. The research therefore borrows from brand management literature ‗the brand architecture‘ concept to guide its analysis and the eventual development of a parallel model, ‗the political brand architecture (PBA)‘ approach for political brand management. iv ABBREVIATIONS AD : Advertisement ADV : Advertorial BA : Brand Architecture BH : Branded House CPP : Convention People’s Party EC : Electoral Commission FGD : Focus Group Discussions GJA : Ghana Journalist Association HB : House of Brands KNUST : Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology MOP : Market Oriented Party NDC : National Democratic Congress NPP : New Patriotic Party NR : News report PB : Political Branding PBA : Political Brand Architecture PM : Political Marketing POLY : Polytechnic POP : Product Oriented Party PP : Progress Party PRAAD : Public Records and Archival Administration SOP : Sales Oriented Party STP : Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning UDS : University of Development Studies UG : University of Ghana UGCC : United Gold Coast Convention UP : United Party URP : Unique Recall Proposition USP : Unique Selling Proposition v TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE..…………………………………………………………………………………..............................................I DEDICATION………………………………………………………………………………….............................................II ACKNOWLEDGMENT……………………………………………………………………………………………………….III ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………IV ABBREVIATIONS………………………………………………………………………………….......................................V TABLE OF CONTENT………………………………………………………………………………………………………. VI LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..X LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. .X CHAPTER 1 Introduction.………………….………………….……………………………………………………….1 1.1 Introduction.. .................................................................................................................................... ...1 1.2 Research Questions (RQ) .............................................................................................................. 11 1.2.1 RQ 1. What Political elements did the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Ghana consider most relevant to win the year 2000 elections? .................................................... 11 1.2.2 RQ 2. How are these political elements managed? ..................................................... 12 1.2.3 RQ 3. What are the roles of these political elements? ............................................... 13 1.2.4 RQ 4. How did NPP manage the relationships between the political elements and voters? ............................................................................................................................................ 13 1.3 The justification for the study ..................................................................................................... 13 1.4 Research Objectives ........................................................................................................................ 15 1.5 Organization of the Thesis ............................................................................................................ 16 CHAPTER 2 The Literature Review ................................................................................................ 19 Understanding Political Marketing and Branding ........................................................................... 19 2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 The character and behaviour of the Commercial firm. ..................................................... 23 2.3 Do Parties behave as firms do? Political Marketing Development. .............................. 24 2.4 Do Parties behave as firms do? Political Marketing Behaviour ..................................... 33 2.5 Political Brand Behaviour ............................................................................................................. 44 2.6 Forms and Strategies of the Political Brand. ......................................................................... 58 2.6.1 The Party brand form and strategy .................................................................................. 58 2.6.2 The Candidate brand form and strategy ......................................................................... 61 2.6.3 The Policy brand form and strategy ................................................................................. 63 2.7 The Brand Architecture (BA) theory ........................................................................................ 65 2.8 Forms and Strategies of Brand Architecture Management ............................................. 69 2.8.1 The Branded House (BH) approach ................................................................................