Donald Trump has estimated his net worth to be in the
billions of dollars, mostly based on the brand value of his last name. Prior to
Donald Trump’s run for president of the United States, the Trump brand stood
for luxury, success, risk taking and fearlessness.
Now that Donald Trump is the Republican nominee for
president, we wanted to determine if his campaigning has changed his brand perceptions.
To that end, we conducted a nationwide online survey between June 24 and July 4
to better understand Donald Trump’s brand perceptions. We asked 300 people how
well each of 115 personality attributes described him. We compiled these
attributes from articles written about Donald Trump combined with our battery
of standard brand personality attributes. Here is what we found:
- No one perceives him to be shy
- Few view him to be subtle and very few perceive him to be politically correct
- Most everyone perceives him to be confident and outspoken
- Almost everyone identifies him as ambitious and a businessman
- Most identify him as rich and a billionaire
This is where the agreement ends. We found significant
differences in brand personality perceptions by political party affinity, educational
attainment and, to a lessor extent, household income level. We also found that people who were unemployed and
looking for work and those disabled and unable to work had much more positive
perceptions of Donald Trump than people who were employed and those who were unemployed
by choice. Interestingly, there were very few differences in perceptions by
gender.
Republicans primarily described him using these words (in
decreasing order):
- Businessman
- Hard working
- Successful
- Confident
- Leader
- Strong
- Real
- Entrepreneurial
- Competent
- Ambitious
- Rich
- Positive
- Energetic
- Passionate
- Professional
- Loyal
- Billionaire
- Interesting
- Good
- Smart
- Responsible
- Brave
- Honest
- Reliable
- Inspiring
- Outspoken
- Trustworthy
- Dependable
And they used many more positive words and almost no
negative words to describe him.
While Democrats primarily described him as (in decreasing
order):
- Outspoken
- Egotistical
- Narcissist
- Loud
- Bully
- Rude
- Greedy
- Sexist
- Bigoted
- Dangerous
- Intolerant
- Superficial
- Selfish
- Pretentious
- Narrow-minded
- Ambitious
- Crass
- Ill-mannered
- Angry
- Boorish
- Impulsive
- Confident
- Huckster
- Elitist
- Fraud
- Businessman
- Ambitious
- Hard working
- Confident
- Successful
- Outspoken
- Rich
- Entrepreneurial
- Billionaire
- Leader
- Real
- Outspoken
- Egotistical
- Ambitious
- Confident
- Loud
- Crass
- Narcissist
- Impulsive
- Rude
- Outspoken
- Ambitious
- Confident
- Businessman
- Rich
- Successful
- Hard working
- Entrepreneurial
- Billionaire
- Passionate
- Confident
- Ambitious
- Outspoken
- Egotistical
- Businessman
- Loud
- Flashy
- Entrepreneurial
- Rich
- Authoritarian
- Crass
- Energetic
In summary, those who (a) are Republican, (b) have less than
a college bachelor’s degree and (c) more modest household incomes and (d) are unemployed
looking for work view Donald Trump as a rich, successful, outspoken businessman
who has many positive traits. Put another way, Republicans and those who are less
successful have positive perceptions of Donald Trump. Those who are Democratic,
and are fully employed with higher educational attainment and income view
Donald Trump in a very negative light. The first groups would view the Trump
brand similar to historical brand associations, while the latter groups have mostly negative perceptions of the Trump brand.
The data would indicate that his style and demeanor appeal more to people who are less well educated and who have more modest incomes. For instance, more highly educated people and people with higher incomes perceive him to be loud, while people with less education and lower incomes do not. Crass and other negative adjectives follow the same pattern, while likeable and other positive adjectives follow the opposite pattern.
The data would indicate that his style and demeanor appeal more to people who are less well educated and who have more modest incomes. For instance, more highly educated people and people with higher incomes perceive him to be loud, while people with less education and lower incomes do not. Crass and other negative adjectives follow the same pattern, while likeable and other positive adjectives follow the opposite pattern.
If I were a Republican brand strategist, I would focus on
Donald Trump’s bulldog qualities and his ability to “get the job done” on
behalf of those who are fed up with the status quo. If I were a Democratic brand strategist, I
would focus on Donald Trump’s narcissism and propensity to operate only in his
own self-interest and I would present evidence that he is not nearly as competent and successful as he portrays himself to be.
Interesting branding questions that emerge from this study are:
- Is all publicity good publicity?
- Does the extremely high awareness of the Trump name mostly help Trump, even if recent polls show that approximately 60% of US citizens have negative perceptions of Donald Trump? Which is more important, brand awareness or brand perceptions?
- Will these negative perceptions of Donald Trump affect his ability to license his name for royalty income?
- How does this affect the asset value of the Trump brand?
- Does this affect the Ivanka Trump brand, and if so, in what ways?
For more information regarding the results of this survey,
contact Brad VanAuken, president of BrandForward, Inc. at
vanauken@brandforward.com.
