Chapter 6: Islamic Branding: Examines the Concept of Religious Branding and How Beliefs Influence Brand Loyalty, Word-of-Mouth and Purchase Intention

This chapter examines religious beliefs as an antecedent to branding and explores the construct of Islamic branding. In addition, this chapter investigates some phycological antecedents to branding such as cultural identity, religiosity or strongly held values. This chapter aims to address the following objectives: (1) To explore the relationship between religious beliefs and branding; (2) To offer a better understanding of Muslim consumer behaviour towards branding; (3) To explore how Sharia sources affect Muslim consumers regarding branding; (4) To propose Islamic branding as a new construct; (5) To offer a new scale for branding based on religious beliefs.

Islamic branding is defined as those brands which are Sharia-compliant (Alserhan, 2010). Similarly, Temporal (2011b) stated that Islamic brands had to consider the five pillars of Islam (Shahada, Salat, Sawm, Zaka and Hajj) in order to attract Muslim consumers. At a deeper level, it is the degree of passionate emotional attachment and positive evaluation (Albert & Merunka, 2013; Batra, Ahuvia, & Bagozzi, 2012; Nguyen, Melewar, & Chen, 2013) that a satisfied Muslim consumer has for a particular trade name matching his/her beliefs (Abdin, 2004; Alserhan, 2010).