The Brand Relationship of Cult-Like Following: Developing Scales of Measurement in Apple and Catholic Devotees

Abstract

The purpose of this research aims to fill in the gap in the religion-brand relationship, and explores what constitutes a cult-like allegiance to a brand, by examining subjects’ relationship to the Apple brand, comparing survey response by subjects who were “devotees” versus “indifferents” to Catholicism and to Apple. This paper uses Ninian Smart’s (1989) “Seven Dimensions of Religion” as a theoretical framework to develop scales of measurement among Apple and Catholic devotees. The contribution of this research is the development of Catholic and Apple scales. The Catholic scale extracted three factors and the Apple scale generated four factors in CFA.