THE ETHICS OF MARKETING

The ethics of marketing in Islamic and Christian communities

Abstract

Purpose - This paper takes advantage of the closeness of two separated communities on the island of Cyprus to study how controversial products and forms of offensive advertising executions can be related to levels of religiousness, time usage and temporality. The resulting observations are then to be offered as insights into the notion of ethics of the two religious groups and how these might influence marketing to multicultural communities Design/methodology/approach - The findings are based on a small-scale survey of 530 students (211 Christians, 302 Muslims and 18 undeclared) who responded to a questionnaire distributed at two privately owned English-speaking institutions, one in the north and one in the south part of Cyprus. Findings - The study indicates a high degree of commonality between Islamic and Christian student Cypriots living in adjoining regimes, even given their ideological and political differences. Research limitations/implications - The relatively small numbers studied and the focus on students could limit the generalisation of these results. Practical implications - The results raise some issues for marketing segmentation and image use. For instance, positive and forward-looking images would stimulate most of the group regardless of their level of faith. Originality/value - This paper identifies commonalities and also ontological differences that ought to inform global marketing campaigns.

The ethics of marketing in Islamic and Christian communities

Chapter I: Introduction

Background

Europe's Muslims are, to a large extent, differentiated by their cultural and ethno-national background and not some assumed idea of a homogeneous unity of Islam based on its singularity (10 per cent being Shiites for instance). The presence of Muslims in Europe is, according to Buijs and Rath (2000), mainly a consequence of the influx of workers from the Middle East and the former colonial territories in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean region. There are also relatively large communities of indigenous Muslims in Europe (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and Bulgaria). This leads the Muslim communities of Europe to exhibit a variety of ethnic, linguistic and cultural characteristics, and to have multiple networks with major other regions of the Islamic world. In this respect the influence of Islam in Europe is growing. The number of Muslims in the European Union is difficult to estimate, since according to the European Commission no such figures are available, so the figure of approximately 15 million Muslims in Europe quoted by Buijs and Rath (2000) and attributed to Maréchal is the closest current estimate.

Cyprus is a micro socio-political system in Europe where two religiously and ethnically different communities are situated on one island in the Eastern Mediterranean with a rich heritage of faiths and ideologies. The communities in the North are Turkish Cypriot and Turkish (mainly Muslim) and those in the South are Greek Cypriots and Greek (mainly Orthodox Christian). Although there are various forms of censorship of the media, for the most part marketing communications transcend them. The context for this study is two English-speaking universities on either side of what has become known as the “Green ...