Religion and consumerism not so far apart

New research published in the Journal of Marketing Management has shown that religious people will give in to materialistic desires if the advertising is right.

It was conducted by Dr Ekant Veer from the University of Canterbury and Dr Avi Shankar from the University of Bath.

Half the 400 UK residents surveyed in the research identified themselves as religious and thought that materialism was wrong.  The survey found that religious consumers frowned upon advertisements for luxury watches that extolled showiness or desirability. 

However, when shown advertisements for the same watch that focused on durability and quality, religious consumers were more likely to buy the item.

Dr Veer said the research showed that supposedly core and unshakeable beliefs were not as hard to change as previously thought.  The research uncovered that either beliefs were not deeply rooted or that advertising with regards to consumerism especially is starting to impact core beliefs and change them more easily, he said.

"Nowadays there's a lot more grey area between consumerism and religion and we've shown in our study that there's a lot of religious consumers especially who are just willing to forego what are meant to be core beliefs in order to adopt a more modern life style as such, so it's kind of a change in consumer lifestyles, especially religious consumers in that way as well."

He said religious consumers would be aware they were buying an expensive item but would not be aware they were buying a materialistic item.  He said it was possible to take a materialistic item, such as the luxury watch, and convince people who felt they were not materialistic to purchase it.

"The underlying theory here is that we all have prejudices and a belief structures that underlies a lot of our decisions, and we can bypass those prejudices or we can overturn them, if we give enough justification or we suppress some aspect of their prejudice."  He said this psychology could be used to change people's perspective by suppressing materialistic claims.

While the results showed that non-religious consumers did not prefer one ad over another, religious consumers were 25% more likely to buy the watch if they saw the ad which did not portray it as a materialistic item.

Dr Veer said the research was “eye opening.”  He said it was useful for allowing consumers to understand how easily they could be “duped” and for allowing advertisers to understand their target market better.  He said marketing an item to the wrong group could have a detrimental effect to the brand.

“The religious consumers who saw the ad that was portrayed in an envious way really didn’t like the brand as well, they really had negative connotations about that brand.”

He said while New Zealand had a huge religious market, the research was applicable in many areas, particularly in the economic climate and the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake.  Dr Veer said many people saw wasting money as a bad money when funds were needed in Christchurch, but marketing in a different way might convince consumers to buy away from religious or personal beliefs.

Dr Veer said while advertising historically has changed since the 1980s and 1990s image-focused advertising, this focus on consumerism is still a factor.  But being more subtle, and knowing the target audience could help drive sales for advertisers and marketers.

“Thinking more about who your customers are and how to target them is really the key parts there.”