- Title
- Marketing the Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe: A critical study of selected churches in Harare
- Creator
- Hove, Charity https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5579-0992
- Subject
- Pentecostalism
- Subject
- Religion and sociology
- Date
- 2021-05
- Type
- Doctoral theses
- Type
- text
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/21167
- Identifier
- vital:47216
- Description
- Pentecostalism has spread rapidly worldwide and continues to do so, thereby generating scholarly interest on how much church growth was attained through marketing. In Zimbabwe, it is evident that marketing communication has become an essential part of church activities to attract the society. In the case of Pentecostal churches, both church and marketing activities are interrelated, as seen through the increased usage of digital communication marketing strategies to attract followers, especially on social media. With effective marketing, people can be attached to a church, in the same way, they would be attached to a brand. In this regard, this study therefore examined whether fundamental marketing principles apply to the marketing of Pentecostal religiosity in Zimbabwe - focusing on how the churches, church services or products, and prophets are marketed. The study also explored how such church marketing attributes to the popularity of these churches and how ultimately the church marketing communication affects society. Theoretically, Pentecostal churches can utilise Porter’s Five Forces, Marketing Communication Mix, and AIDA Model to maintain a favourable marketing standing. With the presence of communication technologies and the media, the applicability of these marketing theories is effortless, hence the marketing of Pentecostal churches has flourished. This study used a qualitative research design and was conducted on three Pentecostal churches namely the Prophetic Healing and Deliverance Ministries, United Family International Church, and Spirit Embassy (The Good News Church) in Harare, Zimbabwe. The data was gathered from the churches’ Facebook pages, websites, and newspaper articles reporting about the churches. In addition, interviews with church marketing personnel from each church, 30 church members and focus group interviews with 30 non-church members residing close to the Pentecostal churches were conducted. The findings reveal that the Pentecostal churches in Zimbabwe are actively involved in church marketing and have various marketing strategies as any business entity would. However, the churches’ image and efforts aimed at fulfilling social mandates are tainted by several marketing strategies which are used, especially on digital media. In addition, church marketing has promoted commercialised religion and the Pentecostal fraternity is certainly morphing into businesses at the expense of spirituality and religiosity, which is simply an epitome of secularising the sacred. Furthermore, it was established that the marketing strategies used are influential to target markets, such as church members, and the effects are adverse. Hence, this study recommends regulation of Pentecostal churches and proposes three models that illustrate regulation at government level, collective level, and individual level through policy regulation, collective action, and self-regulation respectively. This will encourage churches to conduct ethical church marketing and protect religious consumers.
- Description
- Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, 2021
- Format
- computer
- Format
- online resource
- Format
- application/pdf
- Format
- 1 online resource (520 leaves)
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Social Science and Humanities
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
- Rights
- All Rights Reserved
- Rights
- Open Access
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UFH Department of Communication
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | CHARITY HOVE THESIS.pdf | 14 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |