Abstract
This introductory essay sets up the context for discussions of religion and macromarketing. The essay provides some of the author’s own views before introducing the eight refereed articles and book review that comprise this special issue. Two more articles and another book review will be forthcoming in the next issue of the journal. The author concludes by thanking the authors, the reviewers, and Editors-in-Chief for their assistance in preparing this special issue.
This special issue on Religion and Macromarketing is the outcome of a session fielded at the 39th Macromarketing Conference at Royal Holloway, University of London, in July 2014. That session was Religion and [Macro]Marketing. The response to the call for papers surprised most; we ended up having a double session. So I entertained the thought of a special issue of the Journal of Macromarketing (the idea was not mine, and I don’t remember who suggested it, but I thank him or her). The call for papers for this special issue went out to all. It was not limited to those that presented at the 39th Conference, although some who presented at the conference are represented in this issue. The response to the call for papers for this special issue was also surprising. There were many quality submissions, more than one issue can accommodate. Two articles and one book review, identified below, will appear in a subsequent issue of the Journal.
The idea for the panel at the 39th Conference came to me when, by happenstance, I read David Burns and Jeffrey Fawcett’s 2012 article, “The Role of Brands in a Consumer Culture: Can Strong Brands Serve as a Substitute for a Relationship with God?” They asked if “strong brands” are viewed by consumers “in a vein similar to religion—a secular religion well suited for the consumer culture?” If so—and they provided confirmatory evidence—then “is a primary activity of marketers actually idol-making?”
Following their lead, I wondered whether in pursuing our role as marketing educators, (teaching students how to build strong brands and brand communities), we are not teaching students how to develop idols for worship. In this way, are we not proselytizing on behalf of consumer culture? And if that is the case, what are the implications in a macromarketing sense? Could it be that by proselytizing on behalf of consumer culture we are inadvertently contributing to “why the rest hates the West”? This question was posed by Pearse (2004) in the aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.
It seemed to me that the Burns and Fawcett article was particularly timely, given the political atmosphere of the time—and it was decidedly macromarketing in orientation though not published in the Journal of Macromarketing! While religion has not been completely shunned as a topic in the Journal, neither has it been center stage. But if mainstream economics is a non-theocratic religious belief system (Beckerman 1956; Benton 1982, 1986, 1990, 2014; Cox 1999; Foltz 2007; Graham 1982; Loy 1997; McDaniel 1997; Nelson 1991, 2001) then religion has not been shunned at all since marketing, macro- or otherwise, is intimately related to mainstream economics (Benton 1987, 2011; Cochoy 1998). As the political scientist Jay McDaniel wrote (1997, p. 105), In our time the dominant religion of the planet is “economism.” Its god is endless economic growth, its priests are economists, its missionaries are advertisers, and its church is the mall.
Others might prefer ideology as the focal term here rather than religion (see Eckhardt, Dholakia, and Varman 2012). I do not. In my analyses, economics (and hence marketing, including macromarketing) has a worldview (a model or image of the way the world in sheer actuality is) and an ethos (a model or set of generalized rules for living in that world). As such economics fits precisely Clifford Geertz’s definition of religion as a cultural system (1973) and marketing fits his account of common sense as a cultural system (Benton 1987).
This may seem strange, but let me relate a story. In an early edition of Phil Kotler’s textbook, Marketing Management (perhaps the fourth edition) he wrote something to the effect that what the Church considers to be missionary work is really just marketing by another name. After a Macromarketing Conference in Rhode Island (sometime during the mid-1980s) I shared a taxi to the airport with Kotler. In the back seat of this taxi I reminded him of this passage and then asked if it is true, would not the reverse also be true? That is, would what we consider marketing activity be just missionary work by another name? (He conceded it would.)
I considered this an opportune time to bring religion in from the shadows and give it a proper place in the Journal of Macromarketing with this Special Issue on Religion and Macromarketing. It is an opportune time to reflexively think about the relationship between religion (broadly construed) and macromarketing.
As special issue editor, I invited one contribution to the issue, an investigation into the history of writing about religious topics in the Journal of Macromarketing. To preserve the academic integrity of the process, in cases where the paper authors were affiliated with my university (of which there are two in this issue), Editors-in-Chief Terry Witkowski and Mark Peterson controlled the entire review process. I was kept out of the loop.
I thank the anonymous reviewers for their diligence in reviewing manuscripts for this special issue. The issue would not exist without their considerable efforts. I thank them for their largely unseen, but hugely important, contribution. Similarly, special issues would not exist if there were no contributors. I thank those who submitted their research and essays to this special issue. It is my privilege to present your work here. Finally, many thanks are due to the Journal editors Terry Witkowski and Mark Peterson for their support of this project.
A Preview of this Special Issue
The first article in this collection is Jenna Drenten and Kristy McManus’s “Religion Related Research in the Journal of Macromarketing, 1981-2014.” They consider 34 years of research on the topic, pointing out that while the Journal of Macromarketing has always been open to the consideration of religion in understanding the macromarketing landscape, the actual attention given to the topic has been recent in coming. Indeed, more than half of the religion-related papers in the journal have been published in the past decade.
They identify several gaps in macromarketing research that deserve more attention. They write, “[T]o date, much of the current research focuses on how religion shapes marketing and markets,” rather than on how “markets or marketing shapes or impacts religion.” Missing, too, “is a well-rounded, all-encompassing perspective of the interactivity between religion and the market.” They continue that most of the consideration of religion in the journal has been in regards to monotheistic, mainstream religions, with Christian faiths dominating the discussions. The extant literature has largely ignored agnostics, atheists, folk and tribal religious, and other religious traditions such as Wicca.
Third, they point out that macromarketing research into religion lacks methodological diversity. None of the religion-related research in the journal (within the time span they considered) examined religion from a quantitative perspective. That is, the extant literature has been primarily qualitative or conceptual. Future macromarketing research, they suggest, could build upon this rich history of qualitative research to develop a quantitative approach. Finally, the religion-related research in the journal lacks substantive diversity. Over half of the religion-related articles in the Journal of Macromarketing focus on consumer culture and consumer behavior. Greater substantive diversity, they suggest, is thus warranted. For example, “Sustainability and environmental issues are a substantive area in which religion and macromarketing research is lacking.” Indeed, “no research to date examines environmental issues through the lens of religion.”
The second paper in this collection, “Fairtrade and Halal Food Certification and Labeling: Commercial Lessons and Religious Limitations” by Gareth White and Anthony Samuel, considers how the successes of Fairtrade certification and labeling systems may be applied to Halal food supply chains. Drawing on previous macromarketing literature, the article develops a conceptual model of the Halal food labeling system.
The third paper, “Religion, Markets, and Digital Media: Seeking Halal Food in the U.S.,” by Yusniza Kamarulzaman, Ann Veeck, Alhassan Mumuni, Mushtaq Luqmani, and Zahir A. Quraeshi, explores the role of social media in mediating and connecting religious communities and markets. They find that social media can help overcome obstacles to finding and verifying Halal food sources.
In their article, “Exploring Catholic Social Teaching in a Social Marketing Context: History, Lessons and Future Directions,” the fourth in this issue, Susan Dann and Stephen Dann look at the interaction between Catholic Social Teaching and social marketing. They argue that CST provides a framework that is both relevant and compatible with social marketing as it is evolving beyond its roots in the parent discipline of marketing. The potential they highlight is for social marketers to draw on CST intellectual work to inform social marketing practice.
In the fifth paper, Diego Rinallo, Pauline Maclaran, and Lorna Stevens look at Neopaganism and explore how marketplace dynamics affect religious authority in that context in “A Mixed Blessing: Market-mediated Religious Authority in Neopaganism.” Using a qualitative methodology they reveal how engagement with the market may cause ongoing tensions based on the perceived contradictions between spirituality and commercial gain. As a result, market success is, at best, a mixed blessing. While specifically considering a Neopagan community, their research is concerned more broadly with how the processes of globalization affect religion.
The sixth paper, “‘Whatever Works’: The Marketplace Mission of Singapore’s City Harvest Church,” by Jeaney Yip and Susan Ainsworth, contrasts with that of Rinallo, Maclaran, and Stevens in that it looks at the success of Protestant megachurches in the Southern hemisphere by preaching a version of “prosperity gospel” where market place success is not a mixed blessing but proof of spiritual blessing. Using a case-study approach to one such megachurch in Singapore, they explore how City Harvest Church is involved with marketing and the marketplace and how the church purposefully uses the dichotomy between the sacred and secular 1) to frame the meaning of their involvement in the marketplace, 2) to target particular types of enterprising and professionally-oriented individuals, and 3) to embody their mission. They show how this construction reflects the pragmatism, entrepreneurial and business orientation of Singapore.
The seventh paper, by Bret Leary, Elizabeth Minton, and John Mittelstaedt, brings to the discussion the intersection between religion and sustainability. Their paper is entitled “Thou Shall Not? The Influence of Religion on Beliefs of Stewardship and Dominion, Sustainable Behaviors, and Marketing Systems.” They investigate how religion influences beliefs of dominion and stewardship, which subsequently influence marketplace attitudes and behavior regarding the environment. The results of a substantial survey conducted among adults reveals that the religious more frequently express beliefs about dominion, while the non-religious more frequently express beliefs about stewardship. In turn, stewardship beliefs positively influence one’s tendency to engage in environmentally positive behavior, while dominion does not. Insight is also provided into whom respondents hold responsible for solving sustainability issues. The religious place responsibility on producers while the non-religious place responsibility on consumers.
The eighth paper is by Nancy Landrum, Connor Tomaka, and John McCarthy. Their work, entitled “Analyzing the Religious War of Words over Climate Change,” serves to dispel any sense that there is complete agreement within religious communities on environmental issues and climate change. As such it complements the argument put forth by Leary, Minton and Mittelstaedt. While still focusing on Christianity, and particularly Protestant faiths, Landrum, Tomaka, and McCarthy consider how two organizations, characterized as the religious right and the religious left, each communicates with their followers. Their research suggests that the climate change debate is not a conflict over the science but a conflict over cultural views of an ideal society.
This special issue concludes with a book review. Religion and the Marketplace in the United States, reviewed by Thomas Klein, consists of eleven papers (plus an introduction) that were presented at a conference organized by the Center for American Studies at Germany’s Heidelberg University. The papers represent a range of disciplines (cultural anthropology, religious studies, history, and literature) and each discusses how the market paradigm has invaded the sphere of religion in the U.S. The primary focus is on the emergence of evangelical mega-churches during the past century, and, as such, connects with the contribution to this issue by Yip and Ainsworth.
Two articles for the special issue on Religion and Macromarketing will appear is a subsequent issue of the Journal. They include “Religion-Motivated Enterprises in the Marketplace,” by Thomas Klein, Gene Laczniak and Nicholas Santos, and “Harnessing the Power of Religion: Broadening Sustainability Research and Practice in the Advancement of Ecology,” by Hounaida El Jurdi, Wided Batat and Aliakbar Jafari. A review of Father Gregory Jensen’s The Cure for Consumerism by Eve Geroulis and Ray Benton will also appear in the next issue of the Journal.
Conclusion
Drenten and McManus (in this issue) identified four gaps in the macromarketing literature’s focus on religion. First, macromarketing researchers would do well to direct more of their research and theory development to explain how markets and marketing impact religion. Second, macromarketing would benefit from researchers including religions that are not usually considered in research about market activity and religions, or faith traditions, such as agnostics, atheists, folk/tribal religions, and Wicca. Third, macromarketing needs more research about religion and marketing which uses a quantitative approach. Finally, our sub-field needs more research on religion and environmental sustainability. This special issue addresses each of these four gaps. I wish I could say that that was by design, but it was by fortuitous accident and happenstance. It merely represents the interests of those that responded to the call for papers on Religion and Macromarketing.