Religion and marketing/branding

The research approach of economics of religion has in recent years successfully established the premise that religions need to be financed and so implement strategies to win and keep hold of paying users. Following this, research in economics of religion has, on one hand, delivered an abundance of pioneering findings, for example about the cost of religions and the competitive environment of religions on the market. On the other hand, this approach assumes that religious and secular offers can be differentiated.

By contrast, the approach labelled "religion and marketing/branding" investigates to what extent the narratives, practices and aesthetics of advertising, as part of a medialised and omnipresent popular culture, themselves take on traits analogous to religion. Also, which role semantics, which are seen as religious, play in advertising and how they transform fields understood to be secular.