Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Marketing Brexit: An exploratory study of young voter engagement in relation to the EU referendum

Pich, Christopher; Harvey, John; Armannsdottir, Guja; Poorrezaei, Mojtaba; Branco-Illodo, Ines; Kincaid, Andrew

Authors

Christopher Pich

John Harvey

Guja Armannsdottir

Mojtaba Poorrezaei

Ines Branco-Illodo



Abstract

This article presents a study of young voter engagement in relation to the EU referendum—a democratic vote on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union. Using the marketing concept of engagement, we examine how young voters engaged cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally with the referendum and its associated campaigns. A mixed-method study combining multiple-phase questionnaires, longitudinal social network analysis of Twitter, and sentiment analysis provides a rich empirical description of young voter engagement. The findings reveal that young voter engagement is multi-faceted and varies enormously across our sample, particularly for behavioral engagement online. We subsequently question the analytical relevance of the engagement construct for political marketing before developing a typology to classify young voters according to the variance and extent of their specific engagement profile, which we define as “Prototypical Engagement Persona.” We conclude the article by presenting an agenda for future research on young voter engagement.

Citation

Pich, C., Harvey, J., Armannsdottir, G., Poorrezaei, M., Branco-Illodo, I., & Kincaid, A. (2018). Marketing Brexit: An exploratory study of young voter engagement in relation to the EU referendum. International Journal of Market Research, 60(6), 589-610. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470785318793260

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jul 17, 2018
Online Publication Date Sep 3, 2018
Publication Date Nov 1, 2018
Deposit Date Nov 29, 2018
Journal International Journal of Market Research
Print ISSN 1470-7853
Electronic ISSN 2515-2173
Publisher World Advertising Research Center
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 60
Issue 6
Pages 589-610
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1470785318793260
Keywords engagement, political marketing, social media, young voter,
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1401611

You might also like



Downloadable Citations