Politics, Persuasion and Choice

19 Pages Posted: 12 Nov 2019 Last revised: 20 Nov 2019

See all articles by David Godes

David Godes

University of Maryland

Dina Mayzlin

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business

Odilon Camara

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Doug Chung

Harvard Business School - Marketing Unit

Chris Hydock

California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo - Orfalea College of Business

Richard Kotchmar

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Claire Lim

Queen Mary University of London; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Sarah Moshary

University of California, Berkeley - Marketing Group

Neeru Paharia

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Nils Wernerfelt

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS); Meta Platforms Inc

Pinar Yildirim

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

Lingling Zhang

China Europe International Business School

Date Written: November 3, 2019

Abstract

In the past decade, we have seen a certain convergence between politics and marketing, in sometimes unexpected ways. Political campaigns now routinely use marketing tools to persuade voters. Brands, on the other hand, are engaging with increasing likelihood with explicitly-political movements of interest to their customers. Moreover, both fields have long had an ambivalent relationship with the concept of truth and, as a result, we typically observe significant variation across individuals’ beliefs over optimal choices. In this paper, we report on, summarize, and extend our discussions at the 2019 Choice Symposium in which our session had diverse representation from marketing, economics and practice. We organize our ideas around three dimensions of political beliefs: 1) What are the characteristics of political beliefs?, 2) Who drives beliefs in the political setting and how? 3) What mechanisms facilitate truthful outcomes?

Keywords: Politics, Persuasion, Marketing, Choice

JEL Classification: M31, M37, M38, H50

Suggested Citation

Godes, David and Mayzlin, Dina and Camara, Odilon and Chung, Doug and Hydock, Chris and Kotchmar, Richard and Lim, Claire and Moshary, Sarah and Paharia, Neeru and Wernerfelt, Nils and Yildirim, Pinar and Zhang, Lingling, Politics, Persuasion and Choice (November 3, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3479876 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3479876

David Godes (Contact Author)

University of Maryland ( email )

College Park
College Park, MD 20742
United States

Dina Mayzlin

University of Southern California - Marshall School of Business ( email )

701 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles, CA California 90089
United States
213-740-3360 (Phone)

Odilon Camara

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Doug Chung

Harvard Business School - Marketing Unit ( email )

Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
United States

Chris Hydock

California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo - Orfalea College of Business ( email )

San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
United States

Richard Kotchmar

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Claire Lim

Queen Mary University of London ( email )

Mile End Road
London, London E1 4NS
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

London
United Kingdom

Sarah Moshary

University of California, Berkeley - Marketing Group ( email )

Haas School of Business
Berkeley, CA 94720
United States

Neeru Paharia

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Nils Wernerfelt

Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

79 John F. Kennedy Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Meta Platforms Inc ( email )

Pinar Yildirim

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School ( email )

3641 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6365
United States

Lingling Zhang

China Europe International Business School ( email )

Hongfeng Road
Shanghai
China

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
204
Abstract Views
1,384
Rank
238,339
PlumX Metrics