BRAND PERSONALITY AND VOTER’S LOYALTY OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN RIVERS STATE.

Abstract

The paper attempts to evaluate the relationship between brand personality and intention to voters’ loyalty to political parties in elections in Rivers State. The researcher employed the descriptive method which allowed for the identification and analysis of a pattern and described the behaviour of the given phenomenon without additional force. A cross-sectional survey method was used to establish the level of customers’ or voters’ satisfaction at a given point in time. Furthermore, the explanatory research design was used to show the predictor power of the two variables (dependent and independent), thereby showing cause and effect.   The population was all the voters in the twenty- three (23) Local Government Areas of Rivers State. The current population of registered voters in Rivers state is 3,215,273. A sample size of 400 respondents was drawn from the study population using the Taro Yamane formula. The study employed the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient to test the hypothesis with the aid of SPSS. The results showed that political brand personality had a positive influence on voters’ loyalty in Rivers State, Nigeria. It recommends that political parties should strive to maintain and sustain voters’ loyalty through political brand association such as perception, experience, vigour, feelings and uniqueness.