The effectiveness of using religious content in advertising products in the Maltese market

Abstract

Advertising has become more difficult as it is harder for companies to stand out from the vast amounts of advertisements. Therefore, marketers might opt for shock advertising in order to grab the attention of the consumer. One such form of advertising is that of using religious content in the advertising of products. This has already been attempted in Malta by New York’s Best, a food retailer, a few years back with its effects ranging across the different audiences. This study aimed at looking at the effectiveness of using this form of advertising to promote products in the Maltese market. A survey was rolled out and distributed over all the Maltese regions. A total of 536 valid responses were collected. The research concluded that this sort of advertising can have a negative impact on the brand which will subsequently reflect on the sales of the product, referred to as the purchase intention in this study. Despite this, this research also showed that this form of advertising can be effective on a selected audience, therefore, its effectiveness may be dependent on the consumer that is being targeted. Finally, this research also highlighted that the use of religious content in the advertising of products might be more effective in the future as the current majority of the Maltese consumers are not open to such advertising. All in all, this study should give us an insight into the perception of the Maltese consumers towards such advertisement as well as its effectiveness in selling products. Further qualitative studies in this field could reveal into more detail the reasons behind such patterns and attitude towards such advertisement.