Macron: Political Branding & Consumerism
More than just his image?
The 25th French president Emmanuel Macron and his “En Marche” shows a notion of dynamism and movement. It is in the name of his party, simple and catchy. The politician himself has played a lot on his image and his brand. He presents as a young prime minister who is not afraid of US President Donald Trump’s policies and he shines in the international sphere.
The culture of Macron’s branding begs the question of how a one-year-old party was able to climb the echelons of the French political sphere and especially how this movement managed to crush the two parties which impose French political bipolarity.
The answer is simple: En Marche has also been built as a brand. A political brand.
According to Nicolas Baygert, a Belgian university professor and expert on political communication, the notion of political branding illustrates the translation of politics into contemporary communicable techniques in constant evolution.” The form-mark thus shows the affluence of politics and the consumable. This drift towards the domain of brands is explained by the appearance of a political “consumable”, through the intermediary of socio-numerical networks, the sovereignty of the consumer imposes itself as an archetype of political sovereignty. We can take the example of the political movement “Tea Party” in the United States or “Stand up for Europe” in Europe.”*
The concepts of political marketing and political branding came into being during the 1990s. The prime example is of an Italian businessman who managed his political party as a brand accentuating the importance of communication, plus in this present case of advertising, he used an advertising network and campaigns of his party organized by the advertising specialists of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi. This half-businessman half-politician is none other than Silvio Berlusconi, the leader of the Forza Italia party that had been in power for many years. People who worked for commercial marketing also worked in political marketing.
We have recently been witnesses to former US President Barack Obama’s political branding “Yes, we can”, candidate Hillary Clinton “Hillary for America” with its pretty logo, and Donald Trump with his “Make America Great Again”.
On the other hand, a benchmarking technique, a marketing technique which consists of studying and analyzing management techniques, organizing modes of competition in order to draw inspiration from them and drawing the best out of them, similar to another young leader, Canadian Prime Minsister Justin Trudeau. Macron shows himself with Trudeau, and he makes videos with the legend of cinema, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with the slogan “Make the planet great again” to tackle Trump and his slogan. Every single action is calculated in order to have a positive effect on his image.
Macron is truly a political brand and at the moment he invests in his image, his capital/name, a concept created by Caroline Giran-Samat, in order to grow his brand and increases public awareness and loyalty.
After all, one is faced today with a marketing discourse in politics, on voting for a candidate acting as a product purchase. There is indeed a political consumerism, but the question is whether the candidate is only an image or if there is a real political figure with the changes that he/she proclaims. We will see which goes true with Macron.
*If you are interested in the concept of political brand & consumerism, check out the book ” Le réenchantement du politique par la consommation.Propriétés communicationnelles et socio--sémiotiques des marques politiques.” written by Nicolas Baygert. You can find it at the link below
https://pul.uclouvain.be/book/?GCOI=29303100391770#