Publisher's Synopsis
This study attempts to establish, identify, and classify target markets for the purchase of religious iconography based on past purchasing behavior and other consumer social behaviors perceived as religious vices. This study also distinguishes the likelihood of future purchases of religious iconography for the study, "demographics." The CAGS sample consisted of students from California State University, Long Beach (n = 494), and University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (n = 216). The student respondents completed a self-administered questionnaire during the period of September 2004 through June 2006. The study methodology introduces a multidimensional religiosity index as an improvement over past studies, which employed unidimensional religiosity measures. The study reports that the consumer marketing behaviors perceived as religious vices can be used to determine the likelihood of purchases of religious iconography. The implications of this study are that business enterprises can better identify target markets for religious iconography products using the multidimensional religiosity index. This study also allows marketing plans for religious iconography products to leverage the religiosity index data to produce new quantified cross-advertising fields. Additionally, new potential marketing fields can also be developed by church groups, charities, and other non-profit organizations by using this scale in the advertising of religious iconography products and recruitment purposes. The items included in the survey upon which this study is based have been divided into two categories: traditional and non-traditional, and this study makes a distinction between "Traditional Christian Iconography" and "Non-traditional Christian Iconography."
