Symposium: Branding in the Public Sector
Symposium Editors:
Staci M. Zavattaro University of Central Florida (staci.zavattaro@ucf.edu)
Jasper Eshuis Erasmus University (eshuis@essb.eur.nl)
Alex Marland Memorial University of Newfoundland (amarland@mun.ca)
Images are powerful, integral elements of public administration and public policy. A 2017 Pew Research Center poll found that trust in the American government is at an all-time low, with only 20% of respondents believing the government will do what is right most of the time (Pew Research Center 2017). OECD countries fair slightly better, with only 43% of stakeholders trusting government institutions (OECD 2017). Bureaucrat bashing is a popular technique to win elections, blaming so-called lazy public servants for government waste and bloat (Terry 1997), yet we also see positive images of public service innovation as a foil (Borins 2000). Images pervade public administration, management, and policy.
Communicating within the public sector is not new (see Mordecai Lee’s extensive research, for example), as democratic states require open and transparent communication (Graber 2002). As society changes, and we retain our consumer orientation and reliance on digital technologies, we also see public communication moving into a branding and marketing era. Public branding and marketing are outgrowths of organizational image and reputation management (Waeraas & Byrkjeflot, 2012; Waeraas & Maor; 2014) and focus on how public places (cities, states, nations, hospitals, schools, etc.), people (politicians, agency heads), and agencies (government bureaucracies) attempt to craft an identity to engender positive public images that create an emotional connection. Internally, negative images can influence how public servants behave and act, taking away their motivation if they are always the cause of political pander (Rho, Yun and Lee 2015).
In the public policy space, images and emotional connections are how policies live or die. In her seminal work, Stone (1998) identifies types of stories people use to justify policy preferences. Her book is a strike against rationality in public policy and management, picking up on the famous Simon-Waldo debates about the same. Miller (2002) articulates how images can become so powerful in public policy that eventually their original signifiers are gone, leaving only the image to stand. In other words, sometimes words do not matter as much as images. With this Symposium on public branding and marketing, we are seeking research about: message coordination/control in public organizations; political use of communication resources, images, slogans, and messages; government visual communication in a digital environment Image and reputation management within public administration Government corporate identity (i.e. – logos, slogans, color schemes, etc.); construction of political spectacles and pseudo-events; and behavioral aspects of public branding, from creators and users.
What is Public Branding and Marketing?
Following Eshuis and Klijn (2012), a brand is “a symbolic construct that consists of a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of these, created deliberately to identify and phenomenon and differentiate it from similar phenomena by adding particular meaning to it” (p. 19). Branding, then, is the proactive act of bringing a brand to life through concerted, concentrated efforts from all key stakeholders (Marland, Lewis and Flanagan, 2017). Public branding is the strategic, deliberate control of elements that communicate about the place, organization, policy, elected officials, or bureaucrat (Karens et al, 2016; Marland, 2016). As a governance tool, public brands: articulate public policy frames and solutions; mobilize actors in the branding and governance process; and communicate information (Eshuis and Klijn 2012). Public marketing largely follows the same logic, relying on stakeholder feedback to guide policy and organizational preferences (Lamb, 1987). “Because government agencies are owned essentially by citizens, potential clients often have performance expectations that exceed their expectations for private organizations. Government agencies are expected to uphold higher levels of integrity, fairness, responsiveness, and accountability” (Lamb, 1987, p.58).
Within political marketing, elites use stakeholder feedback to create or reshape a public image (Less-Marshment 2015). Universities, in another example, are trying to “keep up with the Joneses” when it comes to launching branding activities to tout their strengths to potential students and donors (Fay and Zavattaro 2016). Whether we know it or not – or like it or not – public branding is everywhere and deserves more attention. Public brands, though, are only as successful as users perceive them to be, as they serve as non-rational, cognitive shortcuts for decision making (Eshuis and Klijn 2012). Brands create emotional connections, for good or ill. Branding necessitates core messages, policies, and values, a name, slogans/taglines, logos/visual consistency (the look and feel of the brand) leading to a brand image (Marland 2016). In today’s digital age, where messages can spread in seconds, organizations and politicians are now more than ever key players the public branding and marketing game.
We take a stratospheric approach to understanding the prevalence of public branding and marketing practices. Stratospheres have layers, and public branding and marketing take place within each yet blend across boundaries. Typically researchers fall into disciplinary silos, tackling political marketing, for example, separate from place branding. Conceptually this makes sense, but we see a space to bring those scholars and practitioners together to find similarities across silos. We welcome papers that advance knowledge in the area of public branding and marketing using a broad range of methodologies appropriate to the questions posed. We plan to organize guidance and feedback for authors at the 2019 meeting of the American Society for Public Administration meeting in Washington, D.C., bringing together potential authors and practitioners interested in public branding.
Micro-level Questions:
Antecedents of public branding practices – With this line of inquiry, we are interested in papers that explore why organizations and people decide to undertake branding and marketing strategies in the first place. Literature usually points to economic reasons – increasing tourism, upping a tax base, attracting large economic development projects, etc. – yet what else is there? Is there something unique about the motivations in the public sector to brand? Some additional questions can be: What are some of the major goals of public branding strategies? What internal issues do branding professionals face when beginning a campaign and how are those overcome? What comparative perspectives can we use to better understand why agencies, people, or policies have brands? Can Public Service Motivation tell us anything about personal branding for political leaders or top public servants? How can Behavioral Public Administration shed light on individual motivations to brand? What experimental methods can be done to showcase brand development and implementation?
Meso-Level Questions:
Internal management – We move up a layer from the personal to the organizational, examining how public branding and marketing practices develop within organizations, agencies, and institutions as whole. As a governance strategy, there are many people from myriad sectors involved. Strategic processes often take more than a year and require taxpayer dollars for funding. Therefore, it is important to understand the roles agencies and organizations play in developing and managing brands internally. Some questions include: What agencies typically lead the public branding charge, why, and how? How are internal stakeholders motivated to participate? Internal stakeholders are defined as those working for the agency, but also can include residents and business owners living and working within a place. How do internal stakeholders become brand ambassadors, and why are ambassadors important for a public context? What is the leadership style needed for effective branding strategies? How do internal managers control the messaging to achieve buy in throughout the entire process? What differences are found in centralization versus decentralization related to branding and marketing development? How do systems of control compare across cultures? What organizational rules help (green tape, using deHart-Davis [2008]) or hinder (red tape) branding and marketing development? What role to political elites play in shaping branding and marketing strategies? What is the role of innovation in brand development within public administration and policy?
External communication – This level compliments the one above, focusing on how people and organizations communicate brands to stakeholders. This is where we see confluence (or not) of brand identity development described just above and user perceptions of brand image seen in this section. Public marketing is the communication aspect of public branding and often is the external face of the internal efforts. Some questions to consider: How do digital technologies help or hinder public brandings practices? How has political marketing shifted in the digital age? How has agency marketing shifted in the digital age? What platforms and kinds of posts do best at furthering brand identity and why? How are public organizations or places perceived abroad (comparative studies)? What role can Behavioral Public Administration play in understanding how users relate to communicated brand messages? How can experiments broaden our knowledge of responses to organization, policy, or organizational brand communications? Do people view brands as having furthering public values – why or why not?
Macro-Level Questions:
Governance and public branding – We move up yet another level to understand better the relationship between governance and public branding. Eshuis et al (2013) have argued that branding and marketing are key governance strategies that offer meaningful opportunities to engage relevant publics. More research, though, is needed if this is the case. We see this phenomenon taking place globally. For example, leading place branding scholar Simon Anholt developed the Good Country index to evaluate a country’s impact on the world regardless of size and GDP. The index measures how countries can come together to solve wicked problems. There is, in this sense, room for collaborative and cross-sectoral public branding to emerge. Some questions to consider: What power dynamics emerge (either between individuals or organizations) when developing and implementing a branding strategy? How do these manifest and why? How does this concept differ in systems of government (parliamentary vs. presidential)? How can/do developing nations undertake branding strategies in the name of governance? What is the principal-agent relationship that emerges in public branding, and how does each entity handle that? What role does legitimacy place in branding governance practices? Is the administrative state still a viable entity in branding process? In other words, if trust in the administrative state is low, can it still be a force in public branding or are individuals key? How, if at all, does corruption emerge in public branding processes and what is done?
Branding practice in various settings – In this level, we want to showcase how public branding and marketing practices surround us each day in theory and practice. Global contexts matter here, as what works in Canada might not work in South Africa. Form of government, such as parliamentary versus presidential, or council-manager versus strong may, might matter, but we are unclear how. Those studying national, state, and local level government could tackle this level. It is here we also consider submissions with a social justice bent. For example, the police brand in the US is caught in a fight between Blue Lives Matter and Black Lives Matter, showing a practical and ideological struggle using images but based on quite concrete social justice concerns. Some questions to consider: How do prime ministers/presidents/elected leaders brand themselves, especially in the digital age? How do political elites use marketing information and strategy in public branding? How are place brands used to gentrify communities? What are the implications of this? Are there negative brand images that are too much to overcome? In other words, when can public organizations not regain their trust? What role does tourism branding play in governance practices? How are local voices included in public branding development and execution?
Measurement – Finally, from a macro-level we need to understand how public branding and marketing success is measured. Again, if the reasons are purely economic, measurement becomes pretty easy – return on investment. As we know, brands are complex emotional appeals, so simple ROI measures are not enough. We need a deeper understanding of how to measure success. We can borrow here from the performance management literature to develop more nuanced conceptualizations of measuring success. Other disciplines, such as tourism management, are working on similar issues, but we need tools that take into account publicness in addition to economic rationale. Some questions to consider: How do practitioners measure branding success? Does this match with theoretical suggestions, why or why not? What theoretical lenses could expand our measurement understanding? How does the principal-agent relationship effect what is measured? At an individual level, how does personal branding influence annual performance evaluations? Why is this important? From a policy level, what is the role of image management in the success or death of policy provisions? What factors make for viable public brands? What is the role of social media and brand development for evidence-based policy making?
Review Process and Timeline September 1, 2018 – Paper proposal (minimum 1,000 words) submitted via email to symposium editors Staci Zavattaro (staci.zavattaro@ucf.edu), Jasper Eshuis (eshuis@essb.eu.nl) and Alex Marland (amarland@mun.ca). Editors will submit panel proposals based on abstracts to the American Society for Public Administration conference in 2019. Co-editors will coordinate panel submissions. March 2019 – ASPA meeting. Co-editors will provide feedback on draft papers during the conference. There will be a virtual option for those who cannot attend in person. July 31, 2019 – Completed manuscripts submitted to symposium editors for feedback for final screening and feedback. Authors will make those changes before submitting to PAR’s online review system. September 30, 2019 – Final papers submitted to PAR’s online editorial management system (par.edmgr.com). Manuscripts will undergo the journal’s normal peer review process as overseen by PAR co-editors-in-chief Jeremy Hall and Paul Battaglio. Invitation to submit a manuscript does not guarantee publication.