Battles for branding: a political marketing approach to studying televised candidate debates

摘要

Political debates provide candidates the opportunity to brandthemselves to voters. Through an analysis of survey responsesfrom participants who viewed one of two 2018 U.S. Senatedebates, the current study incorporates a political marketingperspective to analyze how televised political debates influencevoters’ brand associations toward candidates. This study introducesthe concept of Debate Candidate Branding, where participatingin a debate is more likely to generate positiveassociations with supporters than it is to generate negativeassociations with detractors. Each of the candidates in thisstudy saw more positive in-group associations than negativeout-group associations, highlighting the potential of debates asbranding opportunities. Moreover, brand favorability, i.e., howmany positive or negative thoughts individuals had towardcandidates, was significantly associated with changes in candidateevaluations. Additionally, respondents offered more brandassociations about the candidates as people than they didabout the policy positions or party affiliation of the candidates.