University of Puget Sound Sound Ideas Summer Research 2013 Not Just Sex That Sells: Religious Rhetoric and References in Contemporary Beer Branding Julie Kappelman
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research Part of the Advertising and Promotion Management Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Rhetoric Commons Recommended Citation Kappelman, Julie, "Not Just Sex That Sells: Religious Rhetoric and References in Contemporary Beer Branding" (2013). Summer Research. Paper 203. http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/summer_research/203 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Sound Ideas. It has been accepted for inclusion in Summer Research by an authorized administrator of Sound Ideas. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Abstract: Although explicit references to religion are rare in the marketplace, pictorial representations and rhetoric evocative of religious figures and concepts manifest a unique strategy in contemporary American beer branding. By reflecting societal views, prejudices, and preferences, advertising provides an enclosed narrative of how people think and in turn illustrates the way in which society is structured . This phenomenon discredits the assumption of a strict separation between the secular and the sacred. Beers with religious connotations do not monopolize the market but they do constitute a significant phenomenon in the modern beer industry. Religious references in beer branding often participate in the commodified authentic and cultivate an image of a nostalgic past through idyllic portrayals of monastic brewing. Alternately, beer branding via religion may employ irreverent, blasphemous, or offensive representations. Both the idealized and the indicting representations acknowledge a disparity between the real and the ideal in society.