Jann Sabin, president and creative director of CreativeDepartmentUSA, says, “I don't think that votes cast at the polls have anything to do with what government policies are enacted. They are about what candidate gets elected. We then are at the mercy of good faith to assume that policies promised are actually implemented. For that reason, I'd say that dollars spent are more accountable. You can be sure that corporations will ultimately invest in the profit winners and eventually drop the losers.”

Along the same lines, Errol Saldanha of Saldanha Inc. in Toronto adds, “People would be more surprised if Volvo built an unsafe car, than if a politician didn't keep his or her word.”

Colin Bates, founder and director of BuildingBrands Ltd. in Hong Kong, notes that, “Branding is based on a pure 'one man, one vote' form of democracy that is seen in only a few democratic systems.” Referring to the US President, Bates says, “If George Bush [were] a brand, he wouldn't have won the presidency. He would be a Pepsi to Al Gore's Coke. He didn't have the support of the majority of the people, he was a 'runner up' brand, not a leading brand.”

There are of course fundamental differences between governments and the marketplace. Observes Nadeem Bux, managing director of Red Climate in London, “Governments have to deal with a broader context than commercial organizations. With their narrower frameworks and focused objectives, [brands] can react quicker and more dynamically to changing markets[…]. [Governments] are not obliged to always follow the consensus of the electorate on every issue and they do not ask the people to vote on every single decision they have to make. They do not exist just to appease public opinion.”

Still, there is a growing sense among many observers that business has overtaken politics as a force for social change.

Complicating matters is that governments may be brands in themselves. Says Tyler Cowen, professor of economics at George Mason University in the US: “I think [governments] are brands. They’re tricky brands because there are so many different groups, agencies, branches, putting together the brand image. But in some sense I think it’s what we get right now.” The challenge would therefore seem less to turn governments into brands than to make them more responsive to their constituents.

Consider as points of comparison:

• Brands are empowered by responding to what consumers want but governments acquire power through their ability to threaten with punishment.
• In politics, voters cast ballots for a promise or intention, but in the marketplace, consumers buy a finished product.
• Brands represent a spectrum of consumer choice. Selecting a particular brand does not guarantee there will be losers in the marketplace, but ballot voting is an all-or-nothing proposition that ensures that one person will win, and someone will lose.
• Voting by ballot does not tell a winning politician exactly what the voter liked about the political campaign. Voting by pocketbook sends a comparatively clearer message.
• Cost-benefit ratios are more easily calculated for brands. When you vote for a brand, you pay at the checkout counter. The relationship between ballot voting and taxes tends to be less clearly drawn.

Interestingly, there has been considerable interest in the past few years in nation branding — the process of turning countries into stronger and more marketable brands. Says Martin Roll, founder and CEO of VentureRepublic, a branding advisory with offices in Singapore and Denmark, “Across the world, many of the proven methodologies of branding are [being] applied to governments and political campaigns. In fact, more and more governments and nations are seeking assistance from branding experts as opposed to spin doctors and other political advisors.”

Randall Frost a freelance writer based in Pleasanton, CA, is the author of the forthcoming book The Globalization of Trade. Other work has been published by the New England Financial Journal, CBSHealthWatch, Modern Drug Discovery, Outdoor California and Gale.