The Public’s Views on the British Monarchy 1403613, 1406193, 1405138, 1402798
Introduction
Attitudes & Perceptions
Branding the Monarchy
“The Queen is one of the few people we can trust unreservedly. In the near 60 years she has occupied the throne, she has shown herself to be above politics. Perhaps most remarkably of all, she is still working hard in her ninth decade” (Vickers, 2011). The British royal family, especially the queen are prominent figures in the UK society. However do all public members trust them? From this it was decided to set aims to investigate and analyse people’s attitudes and perceptions towards this matter.
In this section of attitudes, the critical analysis of public perceptions towards the Monarchy will be broken down to review the culture of the Royal Family. “Attitudes represent our summery evaluations of various elements in the world around us”. (Wilkie, 1990, p.309). Attitudes continuously get altered due to actions undertaken by the various personalities in the Monarchy; this is why a thorough review is taking place including gender differentiation towards general interests and the referendum, public and monarchy connections, annual tax costs, tourism revenue, international ambassadors, Royal Family behaviour and what personnel will be securing the Monarchy for another generation.
“A name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them” (Keller et al, 2012, p.2). When considering the royal family as a brand the public will know the name ‘Monarchy’, the biggest symbol being Buckingham palace. Nevertheless does the brand image stand as strong as the individuals brand identification? To answer this, you have to consider the aspects that Royal role models play in society. An important component for this is how the individuals are branded to the public, showing a diverse range of results; Royal behaviour will alter opinions on the brand depending on how the individual is influenced by the Royals activities.
The aim within this questionnaire is to establish the UK’s views on the Royal Family. The objectives are to analyse the public’s feelings and perceptions towards them as a family and as a brand. The Royal Family could be seen as a brand through the heritage sites that they attract people to as well as being role models for the country.
As the graphs shows the majority of both males and females would vote to stay as a monarchy. The results show that more males would vote to become a republic than females showing that females are more supportive of the monarchy than males. These results compare with a poll where 70% of people agreed that they would vote to stay as a monarchy. This is very similar to the 74.2% of females who vote to stay as a monarch (Ipsos MORI, 2002). Although, the poll did not analyse males and females to see if there was a difference in opinions. This graph demonstrates how there is a difference in opinion as females are more favourable of staying as a monarch than males.
Before forming this survey a literature review was undertaken to assess the previous work done on obtaining the public’s view on the Monarchy. Research was conducted looking into Palmer’s book on Royal Tourism where it talks about how Buckingham Palace attracted thousands of visitors topping “329,000 in its two-month opening period” (Palmer,2008). Research was also based on polls conducted by organisations such as YouGov and Ipsos MORI. Basic questions were asked at the beginning of questionnaire to establish the demographic in order to analyse their opinions and attitudes on the royal family. This graph shows how the majority of respondents were females with 31 completing the survey compared to 21 males. This means that the results may be slightly biased to a female’s point of view therefore showing the importance of comparing gender with the collected results. The questionnaire shows how the majority of respondents are British. Two are from Europe and one from North America. Therefore the survey shows an understanding of the UK’s attitudes towards the Monarchy more so than the rest of the world’s view. This was the predicted result when disturbing the questionnaire to mainly British students and therefore the questions were targeted towards UK citizens.
Most respondents are students with a small proportion in fulltime employment and 1 that is part- time employed and 1 that is unemployed. Again this affects the attitudes collected in the survey as it is mainly based on the younger student population. Students are also easily influenced by their friends resulting in them having similar opinions and perceptions.
This introductory question gives an initial insight into how people feel about the royal family. This question has uncovered that the majority of people are very interested in the royal family, with there then being a gradual decline in interest. This gives an initial opinion that the fact that people are interested in them must mean that they like them. This result is investigated in more depth within the rest of the questionnaire.
This graph displays the differences in genders and their interest in the Monarchy. As can be seen there is a higher interest from females, this complies with secondary research found from YouGov (2015). This therefore shows that Females have a higher interest in the Monarchy, which could be attributed to public events such as the Royal Wedding and the Royal births, as females may relate with these more compared to males.
90% of respondents believe that William and Kate have secured the monarchy for another generation. William and Kate had made headlines and increased media attention in the Royal Family since their wedding. Their wedding “was live-streamed 72 million times, demonstrating how influential the young royals are for both the public and the monarchy’s image” (Gibbs, 2015). With this level of attention and interest in the couple the public clearly want both William and Kate to carry on the monarchy.
As the graph displays most people believe that the monarchy receives between 20 to 40 million from the Sovereign Grant in the year 2014-2015. The actual figure received by the monarchy was £37.9million for the same period (The Sovereign Grant and Sovereign Grant Reserve, 2015). This shows that respondents have a good understanding of how much the Monarchy receives from the government. Although there are a number of respondents of roughly 27% who believe the figure is above 50million. There are also a proportion of respondents who think the figure is less than 20million showing that the public may not know how much the UK government pay to monarchy.
As you can see by the graph, there is a clear opinion on which Royals deserve tax payer’s money. The most notable royals are more in favour of deserving money than the less well known royals. This might be because we know more about them and know that they are the most charitable. The royals, who are less deserving, are the ones that get less publicity. These results are similar to a YouGov survey which found that Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Prince William should all get taxpayers money. Apart from Prince Harry who was borderline all other royal family members do not deserve taxpayer’s money according to the results from YouGov. This is similar to the results gained from this survey apart from the fact that Prince Harry and Prince Charles are at the same level at 21 respondents voting yes.
Evans, M. (2015) Prince Andrew denies ‘underage sex slave’ allegations made in US court. Available at: http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/549852/PrinceAndrew-child-sex-allegations-US-lawsuit (Accessed: 10 December 2015). Gibbs, A. (2015) The Monarchy’s royal gift to Britain’s economy. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/14/the-monarchys-royal-gift-to-britainseconomy.html (Accessed on: 9th December 2015) Ipsos MORI. (2002) Public Recognition& Attitudes Towards the Monarchy. Available at: https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/ poll.aspx?oItemId=1277 (Accessed on: 9th December 2015) Ipsos-Mori (2002) Ipsos MORI | poll | public recognition & attitudes towards the monarchy. Available at: https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/ researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=1277 (Accessed: 10 December 2015). Keller, K., Apéria, T. and Georgson, M. (2012). Strategic brand management. Second Edn. Harlow: Financial Times/Prentice Hall. Khazan, O. (2013) Is the British Royal Family Worth the Money? Available at: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/is-the-british-royalfamily-worth-the-money/278052/ (Accessed on: 9th December 2015)
Royal Family
The Sovereign Grant and Sovereign Grant Reserve. (2015) Financial Report. Available at: http://www.royal.gov.uk/pdf/Annual%20report% 20201515/102069_Sovereign%20Grant%20Summaryp1.PDF (Accessed on: 9th December 2015) Vickers, H. (2011). More than ever, the Royal Family is worth every penny. [online] Telegraph.co.uk. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ queen-elizabeth-II/8627800/More-than-ever-the-Royal-Family-is-worth-every-penny.html [Accessed 3 Dec. 2015]. Wildash, N. (2015) The monarchy: Popular across society and ‘here to stay’. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2015/09/08/monarchy-here-stay/ (Accessed: 10 December 2015). Wilkie, W. L. (1990) Consumer behavior. United States: John Wiley and Sons (WIE). YouGov (2003) YouGov survey results the monarchy. Available at: https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/today_uk_import/YG-Archives-lif-mos-Monarchy031111.pdf (Accessed: 10 December 2015). YouGov. (2015) The British Monarchy. Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/opi/browse/The_British_Monarchy(Accessed on: 7th December 2015)
Royal Family are Im-
Correlation Coefficient
portant to Britain
Sig. (1-tailed)
Royal Family
are Concerned
are Important
about the Peo-
to Britain
ple
N Royal Family are Con-
Correlation Coefficient
cerned about the People
Sig. (1-tailed) N
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (1-tailed).
Positive World Cloud
Negative Word Cloud
Palmer, N. and Long, P. (2008) Royal Tourism. UK: Clevedon Solomon, M. and Bamossy, G. and Askegaard, S. and Hogg,M. (2010) Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective. Fourth Edn. pp. 277. Essex: Pearson Education Limited The British Monarchy. (2015) The Royal Household. Available at: http://www.royal.gov.uk/theroyalhousehold/overview.aspx (Accessed on: 9th December 2015)
Conclusion
Correlations
Spearman's rho
During the survey participants were asked what 3 words they felt described the Royal Family the best. Positive and Negative word clouds were produced. These word clouds can be compared with a study conducted by YouGov in which they collected results from people who dislike and like the monarchy. The negative word cloud has produced similar words to YouGov such as outdated and old. There is also similarity in the positive words collected from the survey and those that YouGov collected. These include traditional, important and respect. This shows how some people like and value the Royal Family while others do not see the point of them. (YouGov, 2015)
When looking at it from an altered perspective of sites wished to be visited, the results change to project a positive relation of being branded successfully. From the frequency of responses it shows a contradiction between certain sites being wished to visit, yet on the other hand having low interest from the public means that the branding based around each site is fluctuating due to the type of personality being exposed. This could be due to the underlining issues of accessibility, media exposure. For example Buckingham Palace is the most well know palace while Banqueting House is less well known and had limited coverage in the media.
Heritage sites of no interest clearly need a stronger branding base connecting to the Royal family in order to keep a perceived value to the Monarchy. It is clear that many public members were unsure of what the sites of no interest were offering by visiting. This could be due to the undeveloped Monarchy link, the accessibility, for example not being as central to a London heritage site like Buckingham Palace or even the brand itself and people not associating themselves much with the Monarchy in their lives.
Looking into the future of Britain, it is clear to see that the public believe we will be a monarchy long into the future; Wildash (2015) asked a similar question and found that the majority of respondents (62%) believed we would be a monarchy for the next 100 years. This could be due to a multitude of reasons: Royals weddings, birth of royals and popularity of younger royals (William, Catherine, Harry). Thus, it could be seen that people feel they can relate to these royals more so than their predecessors (Charles, Camilla, Anne). In turn, the causes that the royals support could have contributed to changing attitudes to a more positive one, which could guarantee the Monarchy’s safety in Britain.
A Spearman’s Rank Co-Efficient test was conducted to determine if a significant association existed between if the royals are important to Britain and if they are concerned about the people. A null hypothesis of no significant association and an alternative hypothesis of a significant association were established, and a 95% confidence level was assumed. Null Hypothesis – There is no significant relationship between how important the Royal Family are to Britain and if they are concerned about the people in need Alternative Hypothesis (one tailed) – This is a positive relationship between how important the Royal Family are to Britain and if they are concerned about the people in need The test results indicates a modest association. Which was significant: r=.631, n=52, P (<0.0005)<0.05. While the test is significant, given the moderate level of association, the importance of the Royal Family to Britain has limited impact on whether people believed
Furthermore, there was another category on whether certain royals are actually known to the general population. Ipsos-Mori (2002) looked at how well known the 4 children of Queen Elizabeth II are and found that Charles was known by 90% of people and Edward 73%. This follows a similar theme to the results in the graph with Charles being well known and Edward not. This could be down to the fact that Edward isn’t seen in the public eyes as often and doesn’t have much of an association to the throne
The branding of the heritage sites could have some intangible aspects falling under the Customer-Based Brand Equity model. This involves a number of different criteria including: history, heritage and personality (Keller et al, 2015, p.72). Looking at the few heritage sites that have been most visited, fall under one of these criteria in some way. For example Buckingham Palace is the landmark for the Royal Family events. Second is the Tower of London with the major symbol of the crown jewels being held there. Third is Hampton court, historically known for the residency of Henry the viii during his reign. Lastly is Windsor Castle which is known as the holiday home of the Royal Family.
Like the figure for the Sovereign Grant respondents have mixed opinions on how money the monarchy brings in via tourism each year. The majority of respondents said the figure was either between 201-300million and 501-600million. The actual figure is £500million per year (Khazan, 2013). Only 6 respondents picked this answer showing how the UK public are unaware of how much money the monarchy generates for the country.
References: duke andduchessofcambridge.org (2015) The duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry take part in DIY SOS the big build: Veteran’s special. Available at: http:// www.dukeandduchessofcambridge.org/news-and-diary/the-duke-of-cambridge-and-prince-harry-take-part-diy-sos-the-big-build-veterans (Accessed on: 10th December 2015) dukeandduchessofcambridge. (2015) Prince Harry in South Africa: Day One. Available at: http://www.dukeandduchessofcambridge.org/news-and-diary/prince -harry-south-africa-day-one (Accessed on: 9th December 2015)
However, looking at royals that aren’t considered role models, comes down to the few royals that have been involved in controversies. For instance Prince Andrew has been alleged to have inappropriate relations with a female (Express, 2015). This shows that the media has a vital impact on the Royal Family and how they are perceived. Therefore, branding wise for the royal family, it is important that they are seen to be doing well, as anything negative will be picked up by the media and spread. The branding of the Royal Family is also vital, as it has to be seen as positive, otherwise the populace will become wary and un-trustworthy and from this. It could cause un-rest in society.
As the graph demonstrates the majority of the respondents of 79% either agreed or strongly agreed that The Royal Family are International Ambassadors for the UK. This shows how prominent the monarchy is throughout the world and not just in the UK. Therefore it shows their popularity across the world and the commonwealth. The Royal Family makes a number of visits to countries around the world such as “Prince Harry’s official visit to South Africa” (dukeandduchessofcambridge, 2015).
The graph displays the majority of the demographic is 19. This means the survey will be biased towards the younger generation with only 4 respondents over the age of 30. This may give different attitudes than if the survey got equal responses from all generations. The younger generation will have grown up in a different time to the older generation resulting in different opinions on the monarchy as positive and negative events happen.
Looking at previous studies, YouGov (2003) looked into whether Royal family members are respected. In turn, this factor has been attributed towards the Royal Family being role models. From this, similarities can be seen between the Queen and Prince William both being the two biggest results. However, the Queen is no longer seen as the biggest role model, Prince William is now considered the biggest role model. The reasons for this can be due to the fact that since 2003 he has played a more prominent role in the branding of the royal family. This is via different methods such as appearing on DIYSOS for Veterans (dukeandduchessofcampbridge.org, 2015) and the royal wedding. Thus, he is showing a positive image of himself and as a brand, which will explain why he is the most prominent role model in the Royal Family.
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.
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The aims for the survey, while not thought about throughout the process, have been met. The aim was to establish the UK’s views on the British Monarchy which has been done by analysing the public’s attitudes and perceptions. This aim was also achieved by looking into the Monarchy as a brand in terms of heritage sites and role models. With the responses of our survey, we didn’t get the varied results we would have liked. For example, we intended to compare people’s attitudes with their occupancy, and see how people in full-time education compared with people working a full-time job. Unfortunately, the respondents were young students. This has prevented us from being able to effectively compare the two and made us change our aims on what we could look for instead. We have found that the majority of respondents liked the Monarchy. However, we found that even though people like the Monarchy, they didn’t necessarily believe they deserved taxpayer’s money. We decided it would be a good idea to explore where and why these results were coming from. Common attitudes involved: Taxpayer’s Money People who viewed certain Royals as role models, believed that they deserved taxpayer’s money. On the other hand, people who didn’t view Royals as role models, believed that they didn’t deserve taxpayer’s money. Gender Females were more positive on speaking about the Royal Family 61% of females agreed that they are hard working and only 38% on males agreed they are hard working 65% of females have an interest in the Monarchy, compared to 48% of males having an interest in the monarchy. We know from comparisons that there is a relationship between interest and feelings towards the monarchy. Costing Only 19% of respondents were correct about how much the Sovereign Grant was for in 2014, 40% of the total respondents believe it was more expensive than it was. 21% of respondents were correct with regards to how much revenue the Royal Family bring in through tourism, and 62% of respondents believe the figure was lower than it was. On Reflection: Looking back on the questionnaire there are a few key ideas that could have been done differently. For example there could have been more research into the academic literature before finalising the topic. This would have eradicated the issue of having to rely mainly on news articles and polls. In hindsight there could have also been clearer aims and objectives at the beginning of this process therefore enabling the questions to have a clearer meaning of the purpose and the result expected. There were general aims set out but were not followed and were forgotten about when creating the survey.