Thank You, Mr. President: The Impact of National-Populist Election Victories on Advertising and Price Promotion Effectiveness
(A2025-124414)

AUTHORS

Albert Valenti, IESE Business School; Chadwick Miller, Washington State U; Daniel Brannon, University of Northern Colorado; Íñigo Gallo, IESE Business School

ABSTRACT

The authors explore the differential impact of national-populist election victories on the effectiveness of marketing strategies for domestic vs foreign brands. The authors hypothesize that following a national-populist election victory, both advertising and price promotion effectiveness will decline for foreign brands relative to domestic brands. The authors find support for these predictions using the 2016 USA election as a natural shock. The authors further find that the relative change in advertising efficacy is driven by a decrease in advertising effectiveness for foreign brands after the election. In contrast, the relative change in price promotions is driven by an increase in effectiveness for domestic brands after the election. These findings are generalized experimentally in the context of textiles and the 2024 EU French election. This research provides insights on effectively deploying marketing tools in an era increasingly characterized by populism and polarization.