Assessing Political Brand Equity in Policy: Trump and the Centers for Disease Control's “Slow the Spread” Campaign Card

Abstract

This study examines the effect of a political actor's brand equity in relation to a salient policy domain. The premise of this work is that political actors establish brands, akin to commercial counterparts, which can accumulate equity in the form of approval ratings. These brands are conveyed through various mechanisms, including symbolic imagery, name, personal appearance, and slogans. Establishing a political brand is important to personalist leaders. Therefore, we explore President Trump's brand equity in the March 2020 “Slow the Spread” public service announcement (PSA) campaign postcard. Using a click heatmap methodology, we test whether subjects' implicit attributions of the PSA to President Trump's brand are associated with approval of his presidency and his handling of the COVID-19 crisis. We find that those who click on Trump's name (rather than other institutional brands presented in the material) exhibit lower approval ratings of his presidency and his performance during the crisis.