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Self-esteem values, with the new art of living, in the minds of Indians, lead to establish faith among the spiritual organization. Later on, the spiritual organizations brand their names and market the products in their branded name. These brands, which are inspired by faith and created by Indian spiritual gurus, have even disrupted the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market by being customer-centric instead of being geared by lucrative returns. It is in this context that this paper aims to find the cultural divergence factors that lead to change the consumption pattern of FMCG and how such brands of faith have been segmented in the Indian perspective by spiritual gurus. The research concludes that cultural divergence variables such as power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation influence the brands that are inspired by faith. Spiritual gurus in India are using sociocultural marketing activities such as social endorsement and cause-related marketing strategies for segmenting the markets.

The primary data were collected from the 1,678 customers of the Isha products. The respondents were selected based on the snowball sampling. The responses were collected from the followers who visited the foundation at least three times during the period of two years in Coimbatore and purchased Isha products worth more than Rs 500. The data were collected between the period August 2016 and April 2018. Of 1,678 responses, 1,465 responses were validated after coding. Of 1,465 responses that were validated, 1,126 responses were found reliable.

“Cause-related marketing” and “social group endorsement” activities of the firms tend to create a brand image. To find out which of the above activities highly influence the brands of faith, realistic-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was carried out. ROC curves were drawn to assess the brands of faith centroid values with social group endorsement and cause-related marketing variables. ROC curves explored the precision of diagnostic tests and were used to find the best “cut-off” value for impressive and unimpressive cluster test results.

Cultural divergence variables such as power distance, collectivism, uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation are influencing the brands of faith. The followers of the spiritual foundation have their own distinct culture, and their social affinity values increase the brands of faith. Social group endorsement and cause-related marketing are the marketing strategies suitable for spiritual foundation (to market their product/ service). Age, education and occupation are demographic values that influence the brands of faith. The spiritual foundations are segmenting their customers based on the occupational values, and they use the cause-related marketing strategies to increase the values of brands of faith.

As the cultural values related to the art of living have been recognized by society as the measure of social well-being, the spiritual leaders can enhance their brands of faith. The social media communication about cause-related marketing can create trust in society. On the other hand, societal marketing activities cannot target the entire society. Hence, it is to be stratified. While stratifying, the players of diversity markets have to target a group based on the values generated by the stakeholders in the foundation. The diversified markets created by the Indian spiritual gurus are providing cultural diversity.

The business value created by spiritual foundations is increasing the social values which are essential to uplift society. The author concludes that if business values and societal values are integrated by any group of people, it improves economic value to that society and they can use the social currency in the form of “brands of faith”.

The cultural values of a society are measured and compared with national and global index. The enumerate method is an original one.

Over the years, a considerable depth of research has established the link between trust, commitment and relationship marketing and its relevance to consumers’ brand preferences. Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research on how they are linked to religiosity. Accordingly, this paper aims to address the palpable gap.

This paper is conceptual and draws from the eclectic review of the extant literature that revolves around the key themes associated with the topic.

The paper emphasises the significance of trust and religiosity in consumers’ commitment to specific market offerings and brands which invariably strengthen relationship marketing. A model entitled Brand-faith Relationship model (BFR) is proposed to understand brand positioning in the marketplace in relation to faith. With this model, a four-category typology of brand position scenarios is suggested in this paper. Passive brand-faith relationship, faith trust established in the absence of brands, brand loyalty without any faith associations and brand loyalty, with positive brand-faith relationship.

This paper has significant implications for brand management in relation to segmentation, targeting and the positioning of brands in the marketplace. It also raises marketers’ consciousness on the potency of trust embedded in consumers’ faith/religiosity in their brand preferences.

This paper explores the concepts of trust and consumers’ brand choices within the relationship marketing literature vis-à-vis the role of religion, which is rarely examined.

Branding in faith-based consumer markets, in which marketing practices, religion, and consumption intersect, is largely unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how brands integrate religious concerns into their strategies through Halal branding. The central logic of authors’ view is that branding applied in a particular consumer market (i.e., Muslim) could enrich dominant (Western) branding theory.

Although challenging, qualitative research offers a valuable lens in international marketing research in allowing researchers to study organizations and contexts in their natural settings, enabling a more holistic approach, instead of imposing one’s culturally informed pre-conceptions (Boyacigiller and Adler, 1991). In this regard, a multiple case study approach considering Halal cosmetic brands is used. A replication logic is applied in interpreting the data.

Holistic branding is a broader concept than what mainstream theory acknowledges; brand attributes go beyond the functional and emotional, offering insights into a spiritual dimension. The proposed model identifies attributes that reflect the brand’s worldview and contribute to holistic branding: spiritual ethos and belief system, sustainable and eco-ethical philosophy, wholesomeness and inclusiveness.

This exploratory research represents the initial step for faith-based/Halal branding; the discussion is confined to the cases under study. The results are not conclusive and require further empirical research to validate their broader applicability.

The study highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to branding of faith-based products. The Halal market (cosmetics and toiletries) may be attractive to companies that seek to widely develop products targeting faith-based Muslim consumer markets.

The study contributes to an area of growing concern from an academic point of view (i.e. Halal branding) by proposing to add a spiritual dimension to holistic branding. Several questions remain and should stimulate further research. Hence, researchers would be able to understand more clearly the meaning of the religious environment and the impact that environmental forces are likely to exert on business decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together the thoughts and opinions of key members of the Journal of Islamic Marketing's (JIMA) Editorial Team, regarding the recently branded phenomenon of Islamic marketing – in the interests of stimulating further erudition.

The authors adopted an “eagle eye” method to investigate this phenomenon: Where attempts were made to frame general principles and observations; alongside a swooping view of key anecdotal observations – in order to ground and enrich the study. The authors participated in an iterative process when analysing longitudinal and contemporary phenomenological data, in order to arrive at a consensus. This was grounded in: triangulating individual and collective researcher findings; critiquing relevant published material; and reflecting upon known reviewed manuscripts submitted to marketing publications – both successful and unsuccessful.

The authors assert that a key milestone in the study and practice of marketing, branding, consumer behaviour and consumption in connection with Islam and Muslims is the emergence of research wherein the terms “Islamic marketing” and “Islamic branding” have evolved – of which JIMA is also a by‐product. Some have construed Islam marketing/branding as merely a niche area. Given the size of Muslim populations globally and the critical importance of understanding Islam in the context of business and practices with local, regional and international ramifications, scholarship on Islamic marketing has become essential. Western commerce and scholarship has been conducted to a limited extent, and some evidence exists that research is occurring globally. The authors believe it is vital for “Islamic marketing” scholarship to move beyond simply raising the flag of “Brand Islam” and the consideration of Muslim geographies to a point where Islam – as a way of life, a system of beliefs and practices, and religious and social imperatives – is amply explored.

An “eagle eye” view has been taken, which balances big picture and grassroots conceptual findings. The topic is complex – and so while diverse expert opinions are cited, coverage of many issues is necessarily brief, due to space constraints.

Scholars and practitioners alike should find the thoughts contained in the paper of significant interest. Ultimately, scholarship of Islam's influences on marketing theory and practice should lead to results which have pragmatic implications, just as research on Islamic banking and finance has.

The paper appears to be the first to bring together such a diverse set of expert opinions within one body of work, and one that provides a forum for experts to reflect and comment on peers' views, through iteration. Also the term Crescent marketing is introduced to highlight how critical cultural factors are, which shape perceptions and Islamic practises.

The religious-based brands are increasing daily, and different organizations target religious consumers. However, a scarcity of research in developing nations makes it difficult to determine how customers evaluate religious brands. This study aims to develop a model based on Ajzen’s (1985) theory of planned behaviour (TPB). It incorporates the three mediating factors of religious brand attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control.

A total of 499 (232 Malay and 267 Thai Muslim) respondents were surveyed systematically by adopting the purposive non-probability sampling technique. Empirically three studies with the extended model were tested in a cross-cultural context.

The results illustrate that the religious brand attitude affects the buying behavioural intentions of Muslims. The analysis found the significant role of Islamic brand attitude and mediating variables. Islamic brand by the customer is the second most significant component after Islamic brand by country of origin. The research provides a theoretical model for the research foundation and a model to analyse religious brands in diverse backgrounds.

Only three different religious brand views were considered independent factors in this study, together with the development of TPB behavioural expectations. The research looked at three different regions in Malaysia as well as Thailand. The research also provides a model that can be used to analyse how various customers view well-known companies and religious brands.

Researchers, teachers and practitioners in the domains of advertising, marketing communications, consumer behaviour and sociology will find this study useful.

The authors develop a novel dual religiosity conceptual model to delineate the sequential nature of religious opinion formation, behaviour and consumption of religious brands. In addition, the authors provide an example using the PLS model analysis as a supporting example.

This paper aims to offer a systematic view of religious consumption and its iterative influences on consumers, as well as their differences in attitudes, values and behaviors.

Using a mixed-method approach – both qualitative and quantitative – the study develops religious self-transformation and self-categorization scales to empirically evaluate the hypotheses.

The convergence of consumption, self-identification and religious attitudes and behaviors proffer an essentially subjective concept useful in understanding the existential reflection and supernatural orientation that individuals may seek through consumption. Cluster analysis (based on product, services, media and practices) reveals four quadrants. The non-religious (religious) group has low (high) consumption in all four consumption categories Self-categorization (self-transformation) group has high (low) level of product consumption, but low (high) in all three other categories. This research presented four invisible identities that are visibly different in terms of life satisfaction, religious brand preference, dollars spending on religious products and monetary donation.

This research only considers one medium-size city as opposed to all types of cities. All religious affiliated and nonaffiliated respondents are included in the total sample.

The study offers new insights into the triadic relationship between religious self-identification, religious consumption, and the marketplace that can be used in branding, segmentation, targeting, positioning, and persuasive advertising, public relation and social media, and services marketing.

Religion addresses the nature of existence. In this religion–consumer–brand nexus, consumption is a way for consumers to experience and immense themselves in the sacred to solidify, communicate, transform, improve and transport who they are capitalizing on religious self-identification can affectively promote positive social change.

This work proposes four invisible identities that are different in consumption of religious products and services in terms of patterns and purposes. These groups of consumers shape the marketplace through the derived utility of their religious consumption based on their self-identification, which in turn influences their religious brand preference.

This paper uses social identity theory to investigate the sequential mediating effects of extrinsic religiosity and perceived role of religious leaders in the impact of consumers' intrinsic religiosity on perceived value of brands endorsed by religious leaders.

This paper comprises two survey-based studies with urban consumers in two emerging markets, India (N = 303) and Indonesia (N = 150).

Intrinsic religiosity has a direct positive effect on extrinsic religiosity, which in turn mediates the effect of intrinsic religiosity on the perceived value of the brands endorsed by religious leaders in both India and Indonesia. However, extrinsic religiosity has a significant positive effect on the perceived value of these brands through the perceived role of religious leaders in India but not in Indonesia.

Samples for both the studies are drawn from urban consumers in India and Indonesia, which also have large rural populations. Hence, future research may use both urban and rural samples from other countries to replicate our results.

The study findings may help both local and global brand managers in the emerging markets with religious societies, such as India and Indonesia, to understand how they may use endorsements by religious leaders to manage the differences in the impact of consumers' intrinsic versus extrinsic religiosity on their brand perceptions and evaluations.

This paper extends social identity theory to the international marketing context by showing that religious consumers in the emerging markets are likely to support the brands endorsed by religious leaders vis-à-vis other national or multinational brands. Thus, religious identification offers a unique sacred worldview and unlimited group membership, unlike other social groups, especially in the highly religious emerging markets.

This paper aims to offer a marketing perspective to the multidisciplinary debate on whether religion is expanding, declining or resurging in contemporary and allegedly secular society. Specifically, it examines the “secularization hypothesis”, which predicts that religion tends to lose its central role in people’s lives as secular reasoning spreads and scientific knowledge accumulates.

Borrowing from psychology literature, the authors identify the psychological and social needs satisfied by religion and in doing so uncover its functions. They then discussed whether religion can be claimed to be functionally obsolete.

The authors identified four functions of religion: explanatory, relieving, membership and moral. The content of religious doctrines offers consumers of religion unambiguous knowledge, absolute morality and promises of immortality, immanent justice and centrality in the universe. Religion also provides a social identity, through which people can build meaningful connections with others in the community and with their own history.

A change in the role of religion would be highly relevant for consumer research because religious ideologies shape consumption practices, social relations, products and brands. The authors observe that the content of religious answers is so well-crafted around human psychology that the explaining, relieving and moral functions of religion have not lost reliability. However, cultural change has weakened religion’s ability to gratify human psychology through social identity and meaningful socialization, which led to the marketization of religion, the rise of spirituality and the intensification of socialization around consumption.

Most people typically view Peter Drucker as the founder of management theory, or the originator of concepts such as management by objectives. Few are aware of his larger vision of a free society of functioning organizations, much less the intellectual influences that drove that vision. This paper seeks to discuss four individuals whose ideas informed Drucker's concept of a moral society of modern institutions: Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Julius Stahl, Alfred Sloan, and Joseph Schumpeter.

Drucker's own writings, as well as correspondence, interviews, and other archival sources, are analyzed to illustrate the influence of each of the four people. Specific examples of each influence are shown, as well as a case study of one organization that exemplifies Drucker's entire vision in action.

Drucker's life and work represent a struggle to achieve his vision of a moral society of functioning organizations. His larger vision is imprinted on his ideas of the self‐governing plant community, management by objectives, leadership integrity, and the morality of profit. However, Drucker's overall vision remains elusive in practice in large part because of its complex intellectual origins.

Future research into additional intellectual influences on Drucker's work is suggested.

The paper offers an in‐depth analysis of Drucker's work with respect to the influences of Kierkegaard, Stahl, Sloan, and Schumpeter, illustrating Drucker's intellectual lineage and history. It provides an important connection between the discipline of management and the liberal arts.

The purpose of this paper is to address the challenges which the concept of halal presents – when attempting to understand how halal‐conscious consumers behave and what it takes to maintain an emotive, credible and authentic brand proposition.

Interpretive phenomenological analysis and syllogisms, as a basis for conceptual metaphor theory and critical discourse analysis, were employed. Evidence supported by discussions and participant observation method, whilst attending Oxford Global Islamic Branding and Marketing Forum, 26‐27 July 2010, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford – in addition to the empirical data presented by keynote speakers.

The author asserts that halal‐conscious consumers are risk averse, which drives discerning and high‐involvement behavioural traits. Furthermore, in the face of this, brand managers are still unclear how far they can push more emotionally led brand messages. Finally, the paper presents a halal decision‐making paradigm – as a basis for constructing salient and engaging brands. The halal paradigm is a nub where the perceived importance of halal is brought into the Muslim consciousness. This is a dynamic and cyclical process, whose final verdict is finite and perishable – due to hyper‐sensitivity and environmental factors influencing Muslim perceptions of what is halal.

The models presented synthesise conceptual thinking with primary and secondary data. Further, tests related to specific brands are suggested.

Whilst the author concurs with the general Islamic principle of halal being the norm and haram as the exception, within the halal paradigm of consumption attached to consumerism, an argument is put forward asserting that this is increasingly being reversed. Furthermore, it is proposed that brand theory could view brands as Muslims.