Search results

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 purpose of this paper is to present a new conceptualization of sustainability. The authors adopt a macromarketing perspective based on Islamic traditions while delving into divine attributes (Asmaa’ Allah-ul-Husna) as an extension to the foundational principle of God-consciousness that lies at the heart of Islamic theology and jurisprudence.

This approach relies on identifying and extending the conceptual overlaps between the literature domains of sustainability, Islamic macromarketing and Islamic theology.

Through adopting an Islamic lens, the authors identify that relating to divinity empowers the Muslim faithful to mediate between the transient and transcendent, and to make judgments according to the attributes of their creator Allah (the Abrahamic monotheistic God).

The paper adopts a conceptual approach that expands the concept of sustainability from an Islamic perspective to take on a holistic systems approach.

By making these links, the implications are fivefold: the imperative to strive for sustainable activities has greater resonance; the remit of sustainability is wider; the time horizon for accountability is extended; greater risk-tasking is encouraged; and, finally, sustainability is embedded and diffused throughout business activities – as opposed to being an upstream strategic objective.

The merge in conceptualization between sustainability and Islamic macromarketing can prove relevant to scholars delving into the new realm of Islamic macromarketing, as well as to both Muslim and non-Muslim communities in their quest for sustainable development.

The paper is original in identifying an unprecedented perspective on sustainability, namely, “Islamic-macromarketing sustainability”, which warrants further future research related to the different stakeholders involved in the Islamic macromarketing system.

This paper explores reasons behind Muslim fervour, in response to advertisements that cause them offence – where marketing promotions and brands are seen to contradict or challenge the tenets of their religion (Islam) and culture.

The authors investigate Egyptian Muslim Millennials’ perceptions post 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring revolution qualitatively – through a series of iterative focus groups, diaries, and laddered coding procedures.

In contrast to the way in which media stories regularly highlight this phenomenon locally, internationally, and inside and outside of the Muslim world, we find that the landscape is more cultural, contextual, dynamic, politicised, and subtle. In addition, religiosity may not in fact be the determining factor and its presence is much more nuanced. The socially mobile, educated, and digitally connected Egyptian Muslim millennial demographic, that grabbed headlines during the Arab Spring for their influence, were found in this study to describe offence as being annoying or provocative advertisements where the message, theme or execution disregards their intelligence. Furthermore, parents, access to basic utilities, and having a stable living environment command a greater influence than religiosity for them. Finally, an environmental paradox exists, where restricted living conditions juxtaposed in parallel with escapism offered by social-media consumption, leads millennials towards being more accepting of advertising that could be classified as offensive.

This study is of value for researchers, educators, and professionals in the fields of advertising, marketing communications, consumer behaviour, and sociology.

The observations raise questions concerning how the media reports stories, or advertisers conduct their campaigns – as to whether they are representative, motivated by sociopolitics or propaganda, an intended tactic, highlight unintended poor execution, ambivalence, or part of a wider phenomenon.

The authors present a new dual-process personality/religiosity conceptual model – designed to explain the stepwise process of Muslim opinion-forming, behaviour, and consumption of advertisements. Furthermore, we illustrate this with a supporting allegory the authors call a “Narnia paradigm”, drawing from C.S. Lewis’s fictional story “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”.

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.

This paper aims to equip professionals and researchers in the fields of advertising, branding, public relations, marketing communications, social media analytics and marketing with a simple, effective and dynamic means of evaluating consumer behavioural sentiments and engagement through Arabic language and script, in vivo.

Using quantitative and qualitative situational linguistic analyses of Classical Arabic, found in Quranic and religious texts scripts; Modern Standard Arabic, which is commonly used in formal Arabic channels; and dialectical Arabic, which varies hugely from one Arabic country to another: this study analyses rich marketing and consumer messages (tweets) – as a basis for developing an Arabic language social media methodological tool.

Despite the popularity of Arabic language communication on social media platforms across geographies, currently, comprehensive language processing toolkits for analysing Arabic social media conversations have limitations and require further development. Furthermore, due to its unique morphology, developing text understanding capabilities specific to the Arabic language poses challenges.

This study demonstrates the application and effectiveness of the proposed methodology on a random sample of Twitter data from Arabic-speaking regions. Furthermore, as Arabic is the language of Islam, the study is of particular importance to Islamic and Muslim geographies, markets and marketing.

The findings suggest that the proposed methodology has a wider potential beyond the data set and health-care sector analysed, and therefore, can be applied to further markets, social media platforms and consumer segments.

To remedy these gaps, this study presents a new methodology and analytical approach to investigating Arabic language social media conversations, which brings together a multidisciplinary knowledge of technology, data science and marketing communications.

The purpose of this paper is to review current literature and practices concerning the usage and consumption of Halal, within marketing and branding. Following this, the paper is to both stimulate discussions and encourage further thinking within this field.

The paper uses inductive reasoning and syllogisms, as a basis for conceptual metaphor theory and critical discourse analysis. Evidence gathered from structured and systematic literature reviews – supported by existing empirical data, anecdotal evidence, personal observations and experience is also used.

In business, the doctrine of what is Halal, has culminated in the creation of ingredient brands and in some cases forms of co‐branding. However, the Halal's full potential has yet to be harnessed and there remain areas of dissonance and misunderstanding. Reasons offered by the authors are that current applications of brand theory unnecessarily restrict the term Halal and presuppose that there is one interpretation of its meaning. Also, instead of current trends which focus on rate determining steps within functional marketing approaches per se, Halal's competitive advantage is of more significance when delivered via the tacit elements of strategy and management.

As a conceptual paper, research is limited at times by a lack of empirical data and attempts necessitating the exploration of wide‐ranging cross‐disciplinary sources and stakeholder engagements.

Growing market interest suggests its significance to both Muslims and non‐Muslims. Furthermore, whilst research reveals studies looking at “meat and money” (Halal meat and Islamic finance) centred on functional attributes and monolithic consumption, few explore Halal's figurative and brand elements amongst diverse audiences.

The purpose of this paper is two‐fold: first, to reflect on the subject discipline of Islamic marketing and connecting activities in the Journal of Islamic Marketing. And, second, to capture key discussions and experiences, with the aim of refining definitions and approaches; in order to set a clear vision for scholarship in the field.

Expert knowledge elicitation from literature, key practitioners and academics, whilst serving on the Editorial Advisory Board; using participant observation methods and the Socratic elenchus. Data were gathered whilst the author presented at conferences and held a series of guest lectures, over a two‐year period in: India, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and UK.

The term “Islamic marketing” is still very new, and reflective of an emergent phenomenon which stretches across the Muslim world and beyond. It draws from established subject disciplines in Business and Management, but also reaches into areas of Islamic studies and other social sciences. Furthermore, its interest and applicability has garnered support from those regardless of any Islamic faith. As such, there are varying perspective and standpoints, which have raised discussions as to how this phenomenon should be defined and understood; and moving forward should be researched and served by practitioners.

This paper gives consideration to a fan of opinions and the challenges faced, as are commonplace with any newly identified phenomenon. In addition, two models are offered as a basis for understanding how research can be undertaken, which has to balance two axes: Islamic studies and marketing; and Heterodoxy and orthodoxy.

The purpose of this paper is to debate what (if anything) is Islamic marketing? And link developments in this field to the wider marketing paradigm.

A phenomenological antipositivist review of key case examples, drawing from 40 years of the authors' collective professional experiences; and field notes investigating approximately 1,000 brand marketing media reports, and 32 in‐depth interviews – as industry active academic practitioners. Supporting this, literature searches covered the fields of marketing, cultural studies, anthropology, contemporary religion, post‐structuralism and natural philosophy.

Marketing is both a concept and lived experience, manifest in the competitive exchange of commoditised thoughts, feelings, actions and objects – between engaged individuals and collectives. For many reasons, Islamic and Brand agendas/imperatives have risen in the consciousness and practises of Muslims and non‐Muslims globally, through social interactions. These have placed Islamic, brand and marketing practises in the spotlight, singularly and collectively. On the surface, many have considered whether Islamic marketing is a truism, a phenomenon, a noumenon, an ideology, or even a paradigm? The paper suggests that it represents a new focal phase “torchbearer”, as a conspicuous and necessary challenger strain towards convention, supporting fit for purpose marketing – just as “green” and “digital” marketing have previously, and continue to do so.

This is a viewpoint piece, which whilst based upon the experiences of two authors, draws from their varied practitioner‐engaged action research, as collaborators and participants. To this end they adopt a standpoint, which argues for marketing being an applied science, rejecting approaches that encourage academic/practitioner divides.

Scholars and practitioners should resist the temptation to study and practice the field with a silo mentality. Marketing is not monolithic, nor is Islamic marketing necessarily a new phenomenon, or discrete sub‐set. Muslims have always engaged in marketing practices – offering symbolic and functional value globally.

The paper presents the following key argument: that Islamic Marketing is (while connected to the Islamic faith, heritage and cultural milieu) most usefully described and analysed as a differentiated wave within marketing activities and consumption, spearheaded currently by Muslims and non‐Muslims alike. And hence that it can be related to other developments in the marketing field, where marketing moves through evolutionary and revolutionary phases of meaning and practice, while grappling with new challenges and channels, in order to maintain its relevance and efficacy.

The purpose of this study is to examine the link between research and practice within the context of Islamic marketing (IM), an issue which is controversial in the literature. It offers reasonable answers that bridge the gap between research and practice, as well as the way to mitigate it.

This study uses a critical approach to analytically review the literature on IM, and relates it to research and practice.

The study finds that the advancement of knowledge on IM necessitates research and practice. There is a gap between research and practice which evolved from decades of objectivity between researchers and practitioners in the field of IM. It is necessary to search for some practicable solutions that can narrow the gap between theory and practice.

The basic limitation of this study is that IM has not yet emerged as a distinct discipline. Hence, there is limited study on IM issues in the context of research and practice.

This study makes essential contributions to the chastisement by research and practice, a theoretically new field of IM subject.