I, along with the rest of the UK, experienced the exhilaration of voting May 6th as the country went to the polls in our general election. The whole nation has been watching this election closely as, for weeks, the predictions have pointed to the hung parliament that we indeed have got.

As it became clear that no single party was going to be elected, the parties, the constituency candidates and the leaders were all scrutinised like never before. But as I walked to our local polling station last night I thought about the brand effect. In spite of all the information that we have looked at—all the debates we have watched, all the assessments of policy, personality, track records, promises, and values—in the moment of choice we have to synthesise everything down and cast our vote. I tried to weigh up all the strong rational reasons for one of the parties, but ultimately chose another option, based on a sense that they were more fit for government in general than for any specific policy reason.

What happened here, I thought? Surely policy detail should matter most, right? Well, yes, but—in the moment of choice, the moment of truth—to borrow A. G. Laffley's term, policy detail came second to a more powerful, more simple driver of choice.

In elections, as in life, we can't take in all the data. We have to take short-cuts. We latch on to the shortlist of issues that matter most to us, screening out the mass of issues that we judge to be inconsequential. Often we choose the option that represents our value set the most. And sometimes, style trumps substance because the substance is just too complicated, confusing or undifferentiating to help us make the choice we have to make.

Put another way, when the choice is not clear, the human mind breaks down information and simplifies it to aid in our decision-making.

Of course this is also how we make brand choices everyday. There are some drivers of choice which override others, and often it is the irrational or emotional drivers which trump functional factors. This is the natural process of simplifying which we have to go through in order to make choices rather than being overwhelmed by a mass of information.

We can't function without simplifying. The brands that help us do this are more likely to win our vote.