A group of scholars have tackled what is a significant problem in much of the research in the field of marketing. They note that the previously published research predominately sees political ideology in binary terms. There is a Conservative (or Republican) bucket and a Liberal (or Democratic) bucket. This causes problems. Their message is simple, beware binary thinking about politics when doing marketing research.
Beware Binary Thinking About Politics
A systematic review of the marketing literature on the topic reveals the prevalence of a binary classification of consumers’ political ideologies into conservative / Republican versus liberal / Democrat groups. However, this binary view omits from consideration individuals in the political middle who do not belong to either party or ideology.
Nailya Ordabayeva and colleagues (2025) Abstract
You could argue marketing research is about understanding the differences between people. As such, it is a bit odd if we lump everyone into two, not especially well-defined, groups. In elections Americans often face a binary choice between viable candidates, so a binary categorization is forced sometimes. Yet, this simple view of political choice isn’t how people all think about their political stances. We are much more complicated than a simple description and the complex nature of our thoughts is likely to influence our actions, e.g., buying from a company that shares our values.
The Middle Is A Big Place
The scholars want to add a third category — the middle. (To be fair, there is a bit more than that to the discussion). This is understandable, as the problem of what to do with voters who don’t identify as conservative or liberal has long been a challenge in US politics. You get plenty of weak partisans. They might tend to vote Republican or Democratic but can be persuaded to change in the right circumstances or by a really strong candidate. They are quite different in their thinking than partisan die-hards.
In the “middle” you get a very mixed bunch. Some might be passionate centrists. There are other people who seem like extremists to other but who really don’t like to admit they are actually part of a group. You might get single-issue voters whose issue cuts across parties. You also get people who never think about politics. Is being vacuous and/or being lazy really the same as having really strong views that don’t fit in a neat box?
When you look at the center it is pretty diverse. Pew analyses different types of voters. Here is their classification from 2014, i.e., BDT (before Donald Trump). We see skeptics in the middle, those who feel left out of politics, and those who can’t be easily classified.
The Edges Aren’t Monolithic Either
It is worth saying that the political edges aren’t monolithic either. On the left, you get passionate Democrats but also Green voters who think the Democrats are sell-outs. (Ralph Nader still has a unique place in US political history). You also get various versions of the right and far-right. Traditional Republicans for many years fought hard to prevent entryism — taking over of their party by extremists with abhorrent views. (Oh, the good old days when Republicans distanced themselves from people like Nick Fuentes).
Even looking at the condensed typology of the Pew data, we see divisions on the right between the socially conservative right and the business-friendly right. These two groups don’t necessarily have too much in common ideologically even though they both generally vote Republican. On the left we can see significant ideological divisions too. When some called for defunding/abolishing — rather than improving — the police that didn’t feel left-wing to me. Logically it seemed more aligned with the libertarian right. “All grab your guns to defend yourselves and your families because the state can’t be trusted”.
It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that political ideologies aren’t entirely consistent or even stable. That is what makes research potentially interesting.
America Is Not The World
One thing that was very noticeable about the article was that it was heavily US focused. The term liberal is used in a US context to mean left-wing. The term morphs when it travels. Liberal is more centrist in the UK, and more right-wing in Australia. Plus, liberalism has a philosophical traditional which seems very different to the ideas of Bernie Sanders and democratic socialists, for good, bad, or indifferent.
This papers reviews past work so some of the US-centricity comes from what was published in the past. Still, it was a bit odd for a paper in IJRM (International Journal of Research In Marketing) to focus so heavily on US politics. There are other countries in the world. In many ways these might work better for research on political ideology because most countries have a greater number of parties. This should tend to give (slightly) more ideological coherence to any given party identification, and hence the potential for more meaning to any research based upon partisan data.
The Danger Of Letting The Data Lead You
Fundamentally, how politics impacts marketing strategy is a complex question. The authors are correct to argue that we should beware binary thinking about politics. I would say, though, that we need to be more radical and change the way we do research. Researchers often want definitive answers to simple questions. So, researchers try and answer bizarre questions like “does corporate political involvement help the bottom line?” The problem is that this is a deeply silly question. The answer is clearly yes. The answer is also clearly no. And the answer is also maybe. Sometimes politics drives consumer choices and sometimes it doesn’t. Of course, that is the case. What else could ever be the answer?
When Marc Benioff agreed with Donald Trump’s idea that troops should patrol the streets of San Francisco it was a pretty bizarre move for a California businessman. Did it pay off? I’m not sure. I’d guess not but it may have won some political goodwill. I am deeply suspicious of anyone who gives a firm answer.
There are plenty of business leaders who have made money by fawning over Donald Trump but others who haven’t. Should you fawn over Donald Trump? No of course not, but my answer is based upon ethical values. (I’m a fan of them). Will fawning over Donald Trump make you money? Honestly, maybe it will, although maybe it won’t.
Going Forward
We hope that our discussion of promising directions for future research will inspire new investigations of the political middle in marketing and beyond and deepen our understanding of the nature of this important group…
Nailya Ordabayeva and colleagues (2025) page 11
I agree that marketing research needs to get beyond forcing the world into simple categorizations and then doing some cool stats based upon the very small number of categories. Research based upon binary categorizations gets published because it is doable and the math works. Yet, it is completely useless, because anyone who knows anything about the world knows it is meaningless. Academics drift further from relevance with every such simplification. So yes, beware binary thinking about politics but we can go further. Beware all such simplistic thinking.
For more on political marketing see QAnon and Political Marketing, Political Marketing And The Modern Age, Misunderstanding Political Marketing, and Winning And Political Marketing
Read: Nailya Ordabayeva, Selin A. Malkoc, J. Christine Kim, Monika Lisjak, Elicia John, Grant Donnelly, Lisa A. Cavanaugh, Vikas Mittal (2025) Politics in the middle: A call to study nuanced political differences in a binary world, International Journal of Research In Marketing, Advance Copy Before Publication
