Promote me or protect us? The framing of policy for collective good

Abstract

Purpose - The aim of this paper is to identify the best marketingcommunications for policy messages that makes these messages acceptableand fair to the public. Within the context of the Vehicle Miles Traveled(VMT) tax, this paper examines how framing messages through thealternative perspective of tribalism can increase individual supporttowards the corresponding policy.Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses a mixed methods approach.Study 1 uses a qualitative content analysis process based on groundedtheory to identify the themes that surround 331 public comments on atransportation policy. Study 2 follows with two 2x2 quantitativefactorial experiments to test specific hypotheses.Findings - If messages are framed to address the collective losses ofthe political tribe for collective good, then they generate morefavorable attitudes towards the policy, as opposed to the self-interestperspective.Research limitations/implications - This paper focuses on two politicaltribes: the collective good and self-interest. Additional research needsto address the other socially symbolic political tribes to develop theempirical research on the theory of tribalism.Practical implications - The marketing of public policy based ontraditional segmentation is limiting. Policy messages can be moresalient if they are framed for the political consumption of the sociallysymbolic tribe.Originality/value - A key contribution is that the paper is the first touse a mixed methods approach, with two studies that examine the effectsof framing policy from a tribalism perspective.