Attitudes towards offensive advertising: Malaysian Muslims' views

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Malaysian Malays attitude towards offensive advertising and the reasons that make these advertisements offensive. This paper aims to explore the role of religiosity on attitudes towards controversial advertisements and the reasons why they are controversial.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper consists of 279 randomly selected Malay participants. Data were analyzed using means, correlations, and ANOVA.

Findings

Results indicate that those high on religiosity differ on the nature and manner of controversial advertisements from those of low religiosity. Malay Muslims when compared on their degree of religiosity differ in terms of their evaluation of offensive nature of advertisement. More important they differ more on the reason that make these advertisement offensive compared to the nature of the products.

Research limitations/implications

Respondents are somewhat more skewed towards a younger population causing concern that the results might not be a true indication of all Malaysian age groups.

Originality/value

The original value of the research lies in its effort to examine the results from the lens of religious theology and respondent degree of religiosity.

Citation

Cyril De Run, E., Mohsin Butt, M., Fam, K. and Yin Jong, H. (2010), "Attitudes towards offensive advertising: Malaysian Muslims' views", Journal of Islamic Marketing, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/17590831011026204