Frontiers: Polarized America: From Political Polarization to Preference Polarization

Verena Schoenmueller (), Oded Netzer () and Florian Stahl ()
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Verena Schoenmueller: ESADE, Universitat Ramon Llull, 08172 San Cugat del Valles (Barcelona), Spain; Bocconi University, 20136 Milano, Italy
Oded Netzer: Columbia Business School, New York, New York 10027
Florian Stahl: University of Mannheim, 68131 Mannheim, Germany

Marketing Science, 2023, vol. 42, issue 1, 48-60

Abstract: In light of the widely discussed political divide and increasing societal polarization, we investigate in this paper whether the polarization of political ideology extends to consumers’ preferences, intentions, and purchases. Using three different data sets—the publicly available social media data of over three million brand followerships of Twitter users, a YouGov brand-preference survey data set, and Nielsen scanner panel data—we assess the evolution of brand-preference polarization . We find that the apparent polarization in political ideologies after the election of Donald Trump in 2016 stretches further to the daily lives of consumers. We observe increased polarization in preferences, behavioral intentions, and actual purchase decisions for consumer brands. Consistent with compensatory consumption theory, we find that the increase in polarization following the election of Donald Trump was stronger for liberals relative to conservatives, and that this asymmetric polarization is driven by consumers’ demand for “Democratic brands” rather than the supply of such brands. From a brand perspective, there is evidence that brands that took a political stance observed a shift in their customer base in terms of their customers’ political affiliation. We provide publicly available ( http://www.social-listening.org ) access to the unique Twitter-based brand political affiliation scores.

Keywords: political marketing; social media; data mining; political polarization; branding (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormksc:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:48-60

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