AN INTERSECTIONAL FEMINIST APPROACH TO POLITICIANS’ BRAND IDENTITY

Abstract This thesis provides an intersectional analysis of personal political brand identity from the brand creator perspective. Specifically, it offers an understanding of the construction of professional female politicians’ brand identity through the intersection of multiple identity categories, in particular gender, religion and ethnicity, in the context of Turkey. In addition, it investigates how professional female politicians leverage their identities to construct their personal political brands. In doing so, this thesis blends brand identity and personal branding and applies them to political branding to generate a deeper understanding of the personal brand of politicians (Pich et al., 2020; Armannsdottir et al., 2019a). It makes use of an intersectional feminist approach, which provides a critical perspective to the exploration of professional female politicians’ personal political brand identity and allows filling an identified gap in the body of knowledge, i.e., political marketing (Moufahim and Lim, 2009; Osuagwu, 2008; Henneberg and O’Shaughnessy, 2007), political branding (Pich and Newman, 2020) and personal branding (Lair et al., 2005) need more critical and multidisciplinary attention. This thesis utilises an interpretive approach to understand the construction of the personal brands of politicians. It draws on data from semi-structured interviews held in Turkey with twenty-five politicians. The transcribed in-depth interviews are analysed using thematic analysis. The results of this thesis highlight the importance of multiple social identity dimensions in professional female politicians’ desired brands. It is found that professional female politicians’ brand desired identity is structured around key components, including legacy, experiences, personality and values, resilience and heritage. By considering the transfer potential (Schneider, 2004) of the concepts of brand resilience and brand heritage, this thesis contributes to the area of political branding. Brand legitimacy is also utilised to provide insights into the management and communication of professional female politicians’ brand desired identities. With the concept of brand legitimacy, this research provides a deep and comprehensive approach from the brand creator perspective to managing and communicating politicians’ personal brands. Overall, this thesis provides deep insights into politicians’ personal brands through the lens of intersectionality and adds to the knowledge about personal political brands.