An eye tracking study on determining the visual effects of political products through the eyes of young voters: Example of Fırat University

Nowadays, just like goods and services, political parties and the political products they prepare are also marketed. The political products, which are prepared by the political party senior management and contain many elements are presented to the voters in a package. The content of this package includes political products such as the leader of the political party, its slogan, its logo, its projects, its policies. Close to the elections time in return for this package offered to voters, voters are asked to vote. Voting processes of voters were tried to be determined by traditional marketing methods. However, with the developing technology, changes occurred in the needs, demands and expectations of the voters. These changes brought along needs such as analyzing voters better, revealing their wishes and expectations. With the thought that traditional methods are limited and voters' reactions to different stimuli cannot be determined, political parties and researchers have turned to a new marketing approach, neuromarketing. With neuromarketing, it was tried to reveal how voters react to different stimuli, how political party choices are given, and real reasons for voting decisions. In the study, it was aimed to determine the visual effects of the political parties' visuals containing the political products by using the Eye Tracking method. The research was carried out with a total of 30 volunteer participants, 15 Turkish and 15 Foreign Nationals, aged between 18-25, who are students of Fırat University in the 2019-2020 academic year. In addition to the main purpose, it is tried to be determined whether the visual effects differ according to demographic characteristics. Volunteer participants were presented with political product images, including the leader, slogan and logo of 4 different political parties, and the eye movements of the participants were recorded simultaneously with the Eye Tracking analysis method. After the visuals were shown, a questionnaire with demographic questions was applied to the participants to compare and evaluate the results. Findings were obtained by comparing the participants' Eye Tracking data with the answers given to the questionnaire. According to the findings; It has been determined that political party leaders have a very important visual impact on voters and the participants mainly focus on the leaders of political parties. In addition, it was observed that the data obtained differed according to demographic characteristics.