Make My Brand Great Again: Exploring the Wisdom of Political Brand Personality

National and global politics have now subsumed consumer culture. How you vote seems to have a direct relationship to how you shop, where you shop, and the products you purchase (Dumana and Ozgenb 2018; Ordabayeva and Fernandes 2018). Firms and brands are routinely categorized as either Democratic or Republican (Gelb and Sorescu 2018). Moreover, consumers appear fully aware of the politicization of brands and tend to punish or reward brands "on a permanent basis because of [their] perceived association to a particular political ideology" (Sandıkçı and Ekici 2009, p. 208). While this process of political consumerism has been studied for some time (Stolle, Hooghe, and Micheletti 2005), researchers have yet to investigate what makes a particular brand Democratic or Republican. What are the underlying dimensions and specific trait-image attributes of political brand personality? And, how important are these political brand personality characteristics in consumer decision making? Accordingly, the current work has three main objectives. First, the work explores the issue of political brand personality (PBP) and uncovers the underlying dimensions behind consumer-perceived Democrat and Republican brands. Second, the work investigates the relative importance of PBP trait-attributes on consumer decision making. Third, the work serves to further validate research on political consumerism. Brand personality is defined as the "set of human characteristics associated with a brand that serves a symbolic and self-expressive function through the use of a brand" (Aaker 1997, p. 347). People consume in ways that enhance or maintain their self-concepts in relationship to these brand personalities (Aaker 1997; Sung and Kim 2010). Consumers simultaneously avoid objects they consider to be incongruent with their existing self-concept. According to Wolter, Brach, Cronin, and Bonn (2016), "The danger of having a personality is, someone, inevitably won't like you. Brands with strong personalities attract consumers through consumer brand identification but alienate other consumers through consumer brand disidentification" (p. 785). When consumers judge brands according to political personality dimensions, their actions translate to acceptance or avoidance through political consumerism. Moreover, highly partisan consumers are likely to be more inclined to accept and reward (as well as avoid and punish) brands which they perceive as congruent (incongruent) with their strong party affil