The Evolution of Religious Branding

Abstract

Religious marketing has risen substantially over the past two decades due to a confluence of societal changes, notably the freedom to determine one’s faith and the ubiquity of mass media with its concomitant advertising. Specifically, branding—a marketing tool whereby a product is given an identity beyond its physical attributes or services—is now being employed by an increasing number of Churches. Two recent branding campaigns—one by the Church of Scientology, the other by the United Methodist Church—provide case studies of how Churches are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of marketing. Beyond simply promoting their products, these campaigns use branding to solve multiple marketing issues, from improving a sagging public reputation to re-positioning traditional denominations.

The branding of religious financial institutions in the UK: conversations with market actors within the Islamic financial sector

“…The findings of this study provide a contextualization of the thematic framework of branding IFIs in the UK. Fundamentally, it highlights the core branding practices of IFIs in the UK in light of the rise of Islamism and marketization and within the rationality of religion (Einstein, 2011). The contributions of this study are two-fold.…”

Consumption within a soft total institution: Discursive inculcation in the Tablighi Jamaat

“…The forces of modernity have not only affected religious consumers but also religion itself, the most “sacred” of social structuring institutions (Berger, ; Durkheim, ; Weber, ). Whether it is the marketization (read: commodification) and detraditionalization of the Mormon Church (McAlexander et al, ) and Islam (Rudnyckyj, ), the progression of religious branding (Einstein, ), or the crumbling of hegemonic institutional power (Karababa & Ger, ; McAlexander et al, ), centuries old doctrines have been questioned, recast, and subverted. In a study on religious consumption by McAlexander et al (), the authors illuminate how consumers undergo the painful process of reconstructing their identities after leaving the Mormon Church.…”

“…Whether it is the marketization (read: commodification) and detraditionalization of the Mormon Church (McAlexander et al, 2014) and Islam (Rudnyckyj, 2009), the progression of religious branding (Einstein, 2011), or the crumbling of hegemonic institutional power (Karababa & Ger, 2011;McAlexander et al, 2014), centuries old doctrines have been questioned, recast, and subverted. McAlexander et al (2014, p. 860) observe, "(i)n yielding to the logic of the marketplace, religious institutions are becoming increasingly detraditionalized, the consequences for some adherents being that any given church no longer holds a privileged role in providing spiritual and moral guidance".…”

Faith in the Familiar

“…38 Davie has attempted to schematize the relations between religion and modernity and religion and postmodernity even more sharply, stating that both modernity and postmodernity create problems for religion, but different problems.39 She sees modernity as characterized by grand narratives, whether religious or anti-religious, and secularization. in contrast, postmodernity according to Davie is charachterized by the fragmentation and decentering of religious and secular narratives, an opening up of spaces for the sacred in radically new forms and new forms of the sacred in general.…”

“…or is 'the sacred' these authors refer to essentialized as a constant, separate domain? in this book, i will only use this word in connection with a process of sacralization in the Durkheimian sense.40 38 Stef aupers and Dick houtman, Religions of Modernity: Relocating the Sacred to the Self and the Digital (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2010). 39 the third direction that seeks to establish new ways of thinking about the link between structural social changes and the role and place of religion is the literature on religion and globalization.41 authors variously see globalization, in the form of a globalizing modernity, as triggering a defensive growth of religious identities that are labelled fundamentalist, but also see religion as one of the motors of globalization and an arena where the shaping of alternative directions for global society takes place.…”