Marketing VS Religion: What’s The Difference? Enroll And Find Out!
MEDST 281: Marketing VS Religion: What’s The Difference?
Course#: 54705 – 004
Mondays @ 1:40-4:30 PM - KY 119-B - Spring 2025
Instructor: Prof: Mara Einstein
Is Crossfit a cult?
Is Apple?
Is Barbie?
You might be surprised to learn that the answer is yes.
Built on Prof. Einstein's latest book, Hoodwinked: How marketers use the same tactics as cults, this class will examine how the recruiting processes of cults are not all that different from the work that marketers do. We will supplement that work with Selling the Sacred, an edited text that applies these ideas to multilevel marketing scams (like Amway and Herbalife), religious TikTok influencers, and, yes, Crossfit is a cult.
There’s religion in my marketing! There’s marketing in my religion! Marketing vs Religion: What's the diff? explores how these two seemingly very different cultural institutions impact society in surprisingly similar ways.
Social and technological changes rapidly and continuously reframe religious and marketing landscapes. Crossfit is a “cult.” Influencers are conspiracy theorists because rage games the algorithm. QAnon is a religion and big business.
These are some of the examples highlighted in this course, which will engage with themes related to capitalist narratives, issues related to gender and race, and the intersection of religion, politics, and marketing, among other key issues.
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