Branding the Vote: The Strategic Role of Candidate Image in Political Marketing on Social Media

Social media has revolutionized political marketing by enabling candidates to shape public opinion and voter behavior through strategic digital engagement. This study contributes to political marketing research by introducing a pre-campaign model that integrates political marketing on social media, candidate image, and the Theory of Planned Behavior to explain and enhance voter intention. The current study makes a significant theoretical advancement by introducing candidate image as a mediating construct within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to better explain how social media-based political marketing influences voter intention. Drawing on survey data from 891 Indonesian voters during the 2024 pre-campaign period, the study employs Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to assess both the measurement and structural models. Results indicate that political marketing on platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp significantly affects voter intention both directly and indirectly through its impact on candidate image, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. This multidimensional TPB-based model addresses a notable gap in political marketing literature and offers new insights for political consultants and campaign strategists by underscoring the importance of digitally curated candidate personas in building voter trust and engagement. The findings contribute to the literature on political branding in emerging democracies and provide actionable strategies for optimizing candidate positioning in the digital age. This paper extends political marketing research by demonstrating how candidate image mediates social media strategies within a TPB framework in Indonesia’s 2024 election.