Brands Associated With US Presidential Hopefuls

In the 2008 US Presidential Image Power Survey, released by branding agency Landor Associates in conjunction with Penn, Schoen & Berland, voters were asked to associate the potential presidential and vice presidential candidates with brands including fictional spies, retail outlets, snack foods and cars - with some interesting results. The survey polled 1,002 registered Democratic, Republican and independent voters between 1st to 6th Oct 2008.

AdAge reports that voters associated Obama with BMW, Google and Target, while McCain was compared to Ford, Wal-Mart and AOL. While you would expect the two candidates to have very different associations, there were some similarities too. Some common characteristics between the candidates were associations with brands such as iPod, Starbucks and MySpace.

Scott Siff, exec VP at Penn, Schoen & Berland, said "This shows that the candidates have a lot of similarities from a branding perspective, most of all the notion that they are both game changers."