The 2016 presidential campaign between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump saw citizen typography emerge in highly visible and highly impactful ways, particularly as the candidates made seemingly little attempt to maintain full control over their visual brand identities. But what does the surprising significance of typography in this recent campaign reveal about marketing and citizen participation in politics, about political brand management in a networked media environment and about typography’s role as a key pillar of branded political communication? This essay offers two key concepts: the networking of political brands and an emerging logic of participatory aesthetics – both of which point to a decentralization of traditional ‘brand management’ in favour of affectively driven political engagement through visual communications disseminated over communication networks.
ArvidssonA. (2005) ‘Brands: A Critical Perspective’, Journal of Consumer Culture5(2): 235–258.
2.
Banet-WeiserS. (2012) Authentic™: The Politics of Ambivalence in a Brand Culture. New York: New York University Press.
3.
BennettW.L.SegerbergA. (2012) ‘The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics’, Information, Communication & Society15(5): 739–768.
4.
BillardT.J. (2016) ‘Fonts of Potential: Areas for Typographic Research in Political Communication’, International Journal of Communication10: 4570–4592.
5.
BrodieR.J.Benson-ReaM.MedlinC.J. (2017) ‘Branding as a Dynamic Capability: Strategic Advantage from Integrating Meanings with Identification’, Marketing Theory17(2): 183–199.
6.
ButlerP.HarrisP. (2009) ‘Considerations on the Evolution of Political Marketing Theory’, Marketing Theory9(2): 149–164.
7.
CastellsM. (2013) Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8.
CovaB.WhiteT. (2010) ‘Counter-Brand and Alter-Brand Communities: The Impact of Web 2.0 on Tribal Marketing Approaches’, Journal of Marketing Management36(3–4): 256–270.
9.
HayJ.CouldryN. (2011) ‘Rethinking Convergence/Culture: An Introduction’, Cultural Studies25(4–5): 473–486.
HennebergS.C.OrmrodR.P. (2013) ‘The Triadic Interaction Model of Political Marketing Exchange’, Marketing Theory13(1): 87–103.
12.
HennebergS.C.ScammellM.O’ShaughnessyN.J. (2009) ‘Political Marketing Management and Theories of Democracy’, Marketing Theory9(2): 165–188.
13.
JenkinsH.BillardT.J. (2018) ‘Participatory Politics’, in NavasE.GallagherO.BurroughX. (eds) Keywords in Remix Studies, pp. 230–245. New York: Routledge.
MoranR.E.BillardT.J. (forthcoming) ‘Imagining Resistance to Trump Through the Networked Branding of the National Park Service’, in JenkinsH.ShresthovaS.Peters-LazaroG. (eds) Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: A Casebook. New York: New York University Press.
16.
MunizA.M.O’GuinnT.C. (2001) ‘Brand Community’, Journal of Consumer Research27(4): 412–432.
17.
O’CassA. (2009) ‘A Resource-Based View of the Political Party and Value Creation for the Voter-Citizen: An Integrated Framework for Political Marketing’, Marketing Theory9(2): 189–208.
PapacharissiZ. (2015) Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology, and Politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
20.
PittL.F.WatsonR.T.BerthonP.. (2006) ‘The Penguin’s Window: Corporate Brands from an Open Source Perspective’, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science34(2): 115–127.
PreeceC. (2015) ‘The Authentic Celebrity Brand: Unpacking Ai Weiwei’s Celebritised Selves’, Journal of Marketing Management31(5–6): 616–645.
23.
ScammellM. (1995) Designer Politics: How Elections Are Won. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
24.
ScammellM. (2003) ‘Citizen Consumers: Towards a New Marketing of Politics?’, in CornerJ.PelsD. (eds) Media and the Restyling of Politics, pp. 117–136. London: SAGE Publications.
25.
ScammellM. (2007) ‘Political Brands and Consumer Citizens: The Rebranding of Tony Blair’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science611: 176–192.
26.
SchroederJ.E. (2005) ‘The Artist and the Brand’, European Journal of Marketing39(11/12): 1291–1305.
27.
SchroederJ.E. (2009) ‘The Cultural Codes of Branding’, Marketing Theory9(1): 123–126.
28.
SmithG.S.FrenchA. (2009) ‘The Political Brand: A Consumer Perspective’, Marketing Theory9(2): 209–226.
