Brands: The Opiate of the Nonreligious Masses?

Are brands the ``new religion''? Practitioners and scholars have been intrigued by the possibility, but strong theory and empirical evidence supporting the existence of a relationship between brands and religion is scarce. In what follows, we argue and demonstrate that religiosity is indeed related to ``brand reliance,'' i.e., the degree to which consumers prefer branded goods over unbranded goods or goods without a well-known national brand.