Journal of Islamic Marketing

In a constantly changing and increasingly globalized world, religion still plays a significant role in influencing social and consumer behavior. This study will analyze what influence Islamic faith and intensity of belief has on attitudes towards the advertising of particular controversial products and services. A questionnaire was distributed to 209 people in Turkey. The results indicated some statistically significant differences between the devout and the lenient Muslims which can have important implications for marketers.

Business & Economic Review, 2019

Religious beliefs can shape the perception, behavior and reaction of a person towards marketing activities. This study aimed to examine the direct effect of Islamic religiosity on consumers' attitudes towards Islamic and conventional advertisements in Pakistan. Moreover, the study has also examined serial mediating effects of consumers' attitudes towards Islamic and conventional ways of advertisements and attitude towards brands between Islamic religiosity and their purchase intentions. Consumers' attitude was explained through the theoretical lens of Value-Expressive theory of attitude. Experimental design was used to examine the relationships. Several statistical tools including Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) were used for screening and preparing the data for analysis. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping method for mediation was used to examine the mediation effects of consumers' attitudes towards Islamic and conventional ways of advertisements and attitude towards brands. Results of the study showed positive relationship between Islamic religiosity and attitude towards Islamic way of advertisements and negative relationship between Islamic religiosity and conventional way of advertisements. Further, results showed that attitude towards Islamic way of advertisement and attitude towards brands positively mediate the relationship between Islamic religiosity and purchase intention, while these relationships were negative for conventional way of advertisements.

Journal of business and policy research, 2017

This study aims to explore the consumers' attitude towards promotion of controversial products, the reasons why they are controversial and how the degree of religious commitment in Sudan affects attitude. The study presents the results of an online survey of 203 Sudanese respondents to determine the type of products seen as controversial when advertised on TV and why considered controversial. The results revealed that in general Sudanese hold negative perceptions of controversial products and their advertisements. The findings revealed that the religious beliefs can potentially impact the perception of offensive advertising among Sudanese. Muslims of different levels of religious commitment show different degrees of offensiveness to controversial products advertising. The study also found that age, gender, and education have effects on survey participants' attitude towards some products controversial advertising. These findings may have important implications for international marketers in countries with religious orientations such as Sudan, or other Muslim countries.

2014

Religion plays a significant role in the way consumers perceive the advertising of controversial products. Religiosity, which describes an individual’s commitment and adherence to religious values and beliefs, is also of a noteworthy relevance in how consumers appraise product advertisements. Conducted in Lebanon, the study employed a survey design that was administered to a randomized sample including respondents from the two main religions in the country, namely Islam and Christianity. The questionnaire was completed by a representative sample of 527 Lebanese consumers. Those sampled from each region were chosen based on religious sects’ distribution in each of the five local conglomerates, with a fair representation of gender and age groups. The results indicated significant differences in perceptions between Muslim and Christian, and highly religious versus less religious respondents with regards to the offensiveness of the advertising of controversial products. Briefly, the more religious consumers were largely more offended by the advertisement of the 17 products studied than nonreligious consumers. Also, Muslim consumers from both sects, showed greater level of offense than their Christian counterparts. These results have significant implications on both advertisers and marketing managers aiming to expand their field of business in the Middle East, as well as in other international regions where religion plays an integral role in the society.

Journal of Islamic Marketing, 2022

Purpose-The purpose of this study was to investigate whether including an Islamic appeal in a culture-neutral product advertisement has a positive effect on consumer attitudes to the advertisement leading to higher purchase intentions while considering religious affiliation and religiosity as moderating factors of the relationship. Design/methodology/approach-Conditional process analysis was applied to examine the mediation of the relationship between ad version and purchase intention through attitude to the advertisement as well as the moderating role of religious affiliation and religiosity among 819 consumers within the Dubai market. Findings-The analysis in this paper revealed that including an Islamic appeal in an advertisement does not have a positive effect on attitude to the advertisement or purchase intention, neither for Muslim consumers in general nor for Muslim consumers with high levels of religiosity. Conversely, including an Islamic appeal has a significant negative effect on the purchase intentions of Christian consumers within the Dubai market, as well as on those consumers who did not state their religious affiliation. Research limitations/implications-Marketers should reconsider the use of Islamic appeals in product advertising, especially in relation to the promotion of culture-free products within diverse expatriate populations such as that represented by the Emirate of Dubai. Originality/value-This study sheds light on the underexplored role of religious affiliation and religiosity in relationship to consumer behavior within the field of Islamic marketing in a major retail hub in the Middle East.

European Journal of Marketing, 2004

In a constantly changing and increasingly globalized world, religion still plays a significant role in influencing social and consumer behavior. This study will analyze what influence religion and intensity of belief has on attitudes towards the advertising of particular controversial products and services. A questionnaire was distributed to 1,393 people across six different countries and resulting in samples of four main religious groups. The results indicated some statistically significant differences between the groups, which can have important implications for global marketers.

Using positivistic perspective, this paper seeks to investigate the antecedents of general consumer attitude towards religious advertising in Pakistan. We tried to check the impact of various aspects including a ection, hedonic pleasure, social image, product information, attitude as an instrument and attitude as an institution on religious advertising. For this purpose a research design based on regression analysis was used as it is an appropriate way to test relationships between six predictor variables and one predicted dependent variable. Online survey was used to investigate the antecedents of the General Attitude towards Religious Advertising (GARA). In total, 576 closed-ended questionnaires were filled from re- spondents. After analysis, the research shows that Attitude Institution (AI), a ection and social image are strong predictors of the GARA. However, other variables like attitude instrument, product information and hedonic pleasure are not significant predictors. Moreover social image and product information have negative relation with GARA. As this study involved students as a sample, not diverse as a group in terms of demographics, the results cannot be generalized to the population. The findings of this study serve as the guiding tool for marketing professionals especially for top management. This study helps in adopting the appropriate appeal to influence customers through religious advertising. This paper fills a gap in the research as there were few studies done on the subject. This paper has presented the ways to improve practices of religious advertising.

Annals of Behavioural Science

The study attempts to investigate the effect of controversial advertisements on consumer attitude, behavior and purchase intention of religious consumers. The study also aims to investigate what difference of attitude is prevailing between men and women. 200 participants ranging in age from 20 to 25 at first were randomly selected. Religious Commitment Inventory-10 was distributed to the 200 participants. 40 participants (20 males; 20 females) having the highest and nearly equal scores on the RCI-10 were selected. The selected participants were shown censored advertisements first and the responses were collected on Consumer Attitude Questionnaire and Juster's 11 Point Probability Scale. After collecting the questionnaires, participants were shown uncensored versions of the same advertisements, and responses were then collected again on same scales. The analysis of results using t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient suggested that controversial advertisements negatively affect the consumer attitudes of religious consumers; moreover females with high religiosity are more offended by controversial advertisements as compared to males with high religiosity. However, the analysis of results showed that consumer attitude is not a strong predictor of consumer behavior, as there might be other mediating and moderating variables that shape the ultimate purchase intention and consumer behavior.

Studies have shown that religiosity is an important variable in determining consumer behaviours. This research paper attempts to investigate the relationship between religiosity and controversial products and offensive nature of advertising appeals. A survey of 278undergraduate students was conducted at a local university located in the South of Peninsular Malaysia. Descriptive analysis and correlations analysis were performed to analyze the data. Results showed that religiosity is positively related to controversial products and offensive nature of advertising appeals. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed towards the end of this paper.

Asian Journal of Social Science Studies

Religion is a system of beliefs and practices that dictates individual response and interpretations regarding what is supernatural and sacred (Mukhtar, and Butt,2011). Religion is one of the most universal and influential social institutions that has strong influence on people’s belief, personal identity and value systems (Nooshin Ghodsimaab, 2016).The impact of religion on culture is exerted from the Quran and Sunnah (Abuznaid, 2006; Delener,1994).Religion has received little attention from consumer researchers mainly because they believe that the influence of religion on consumption processes are indirect and the topic of religion has no place in consumer behavior theories and literature.As a result of the widening gap and cultural conflict between the West and Muslim countries, many international companies have become negatively affected by the changes in the international environment, which is reflected in changes in consumer behavior (Al-Hayari et al., 2012).This research aims ...