Prof. Jonathan A.J. Wilson: Beats, Brands, and Belief - Lessons from Music & Islamic Marketing

A History of Marketing / Episode 28

There are nearly two billion Muslims in the world, members of a faith with more than a thousand years of history, commerce, and culture. Global brands are increasingly vying for their attention and disposable income. So what exactly is Islamic marketing, and how does it differ from simply putting a "Halal" label on a product?

To answer that question, there’s no better guide than my guest this week, Professor Jonathan A.J. Wilson. As the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Islamic Marketing and author of the book Halal Branding, he is one of the world's leading voices on this topic.

Wilson’s journey is anything but conventional. Before becoming an Islamic Marketing expert, he cut his teeth in a high-pressure advertising sales environment that Wilson likens to Glengarry Glen Ross. He also side-hustled as a musician and appeared in the video game Grand Theft Auto under the rap pseudonym “Robert De Negro.”

Listen to the podcast: Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube Podcasts

In this episode, you’ll learn:

* What Islamic Marketing Really Is: A deep dive into the ethics, history, and modern practice of faith-based marketing.

* Global Case Studies: How brands like KFC and Nike succeed (and fail) at connecting with Muslim consumers.

* A Lesson in Trust: What a story about buying a rug in Iran with no money reveals about a different way of doing business.

* The Musician as Marketer: Why designing band flyers and getting people to a show can teach us about branding.

This conversation explores how culture, faith, and personal history intersect to create a modern understanding of marketing.

Now here’s my conversation with Professor Jonathan A.J. Wilson.

Transcript Note: A special thank you to Xiaoying Feng, a Marketing Ph.D. Candidate at Syracuse, who volunteers to review and edit transcripts for accuracy and clarity.

Andrew Mitrak: Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson, welcome to a history of marketing.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Thank you very much for having me.

Andrew Mitrak: So excited to have you here. I want to start off with your background. You've had an unconventional journey. You studied chemistry, you've been a musician, you were an athlete, and your personal history is pretty diverse as well. So after all this, what eventually set you on the path of marketing and branding?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: It's interesting because I think when you talk to people, at least back in the days who came into marketing, we all just fell into marketing.

The first time that I studied marketing was at a postgraduate level when I was doing an MBA. But prior to that, I didn't know what marketing was. We had the traditional subjects like chemistry and history and stuff like that. And so, as a graduate, when I finished my MBA, I knew that there were two areas that I was interested in, which were human resource management and marketing, and they're both people-centered. And then I got a job in marketing, right? My first job was advertising sales. And I think it's that situation where someone shows an interest in you and offers to pay you money, and then suddenly you're like, "Wow, marketing's great, isn't it?" Wow, I can talk about adverts and magazines and stuff. So the first job set me off. If I didn't get a job in that, then I probably could have ended up in pharmaceuticals or something else.

The Nuances of Marketing, Branding, and PR

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: It's one of those things where we as marketers, we know what we do, but it's still one of those things where when you're with your friends in the pub or you're having a coffee and they go, "What do you do?" And you go, "I work in marketing." And they go, "Oh, okay then." And they hear sales, right? So you sell people stuff that they don't want. And you go, "Well, it's not quite like that." Or they go, "Oh, so you're just about manipulation and mind control, making people want things that they don't want." And you go, "Well, it's not quite like that."

And then, I guess, and some people might call me out on this, but then some marketing people will think marketing becomes a dirty word like sales is a bit. So they think of a sexier term and go, "Actually, I work in branding." And you go, "Oh, okay. Wow, branding sounds cool."

And I'm joking about these things, but the thing that I've been interested in is whether that's in academia or in industry, there's a massive overlap between these terms. What is marketing? What is branding? What is PR? And I've enjoyed putting people on the spot and saying, "Okay, well, what is the difference between marketing as opposed to branding? Or how do you define these things?"

And also, we know, for example, that if you look in a business school, branding sits within a marketing faculty, or a lot of branding academic papers are published in marketing journals. But if you look in industry, actually marketing departments and branding departments can be quite distant. And the career pathways, there are a lot of people that come into branding that perhaps don't have a business background, are creatives, or even are accountants because they're used to valuing things. And so, it's kept me busy, I would say that, over the years, just asking these playful and simple questions and then just seeing how people respond, and also seeing how businesses are structured.

Andrew Mitrak: Yeah. It's interesting because the ambiguity can create some confusion, but I think it also creates a lot of opportunity, even selfishly for a podcast like this, it means I get to explore a whole wide range of topics.

A Glimpse into 1990s Advertising Sales

Andrew Mitrak: I want to go back to your first role in advertising sales. I'm just wondering, could you paint a picture of what that was like? What exactly were you selling? What was that atmosphere?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Okay. If you haven't watched the movie, anyone who's listening, I'd recommend you do. It was a bit like Glengarry Glen Ross with Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, and a bunch of other people.

When I started in advertising, I didn't have a computer on my desk. I had a telephone and that thing that you call the Rolodex, right? We still use that term, but I don't think people know what a Rolodex looks like. Actually, I had a card box. And so you had, you'd inherit a client base from someone who moved on or left the company, and you just prayed that they had legible handwriting. And so you had in handwriting someone's name, a contact number, not even an email address, right? You had a fax number and an address, and then you would phone this person up, and then you'd make notes as to whether you got through and what they said.

It's crazy, right? That's about 1998 that you've got no computer in your desk. People can smoke in the office, and you're phoning up, and you pretty much know that by 5:30, no one else is going to pick up your phone because people will just leave their desk. And it was all about the power of communication over the phone and convincing people to consider placing their advertising campaigns with you in your chosen media, stuff like that. And if you were lucky, having one of those client meetings or client lunches, but a lot of people were too busy, but just filling up your diary and making maybe a hundred calls a day or something like that and trying to convert those into advertising campaigns and grow your client base.

And then I remember leaving in 1999 to join another company, and one of the reasons were that they were more technologically advanced and they paid me more money, right? It's a bit of a grind as a graduate starting in London. So for a few thousand pounds more, you jump. And this company said, "You can have your own computer." So, in the previous company, if I wanted to write a letter and fax it out, I'd have to handwrite something, give it to a secretary who served about 30 of us at the end of the office, and then she would type up a draft, you'd say okay, and then you could fax it. But in this new company, I could write my own letters. I had an email address. I did not have internet access though. That was not allowed on our computers. You had to ask permission and go to the end of the office.

And I stayed there for about a year, and then in 2000, I was like full-fat advertising where I had full internet access and all of the trimmings and farts. And I worked through a number of roles, working up to being a key account manager, and then I got head-hunted and I went client-side, so I ended up doing planning and buying. And yeah, it was interesting doing the full suite of things and a bit of PR and events as well.

But there was a lot of investment in training. So I remember also in my first job, we spent two weeks training how to behave on the telephone, as in they would record our phone calls, we'd have dummy phone calls. Do you say, "um"? Do you use words like, "obviously," because it may not be obvious. But we had those things drilled into us and all of those things like AIDA—attention, interest, desire, action. I had to go through those step-by-step. Sell me a cup of water. We even went on NLP courses, transactional analysis, anything that could give you an edge on the phone to be able to communicate with somebody. So all of the psychology or the psychological techniques, we used all of those things.

And it served me really well in terms of, I think in the workplace today, I do wonder whether we spend enough time learning how to communicate and how to negotiate in real time over the phone or face-to-face. And that's why I like the movie Glengarry Glen Ross because it gives you that insight into just the stress and the pressure of dialing somebody, and people could hang up on you. And often what happened was, if you've been chasing someone and they're like, "Oh, it's you again," boof, and then they've hung up. And my boss would be looking at me going, "Get back on the phone." And you'd have to call them back and go, "Hey, I think we got cut off. So what I was saying is," boof, hang up again. And I'd be doing that. So you developed a thick skin and your boss is shouting at you and dropping F-bombs, and you've got these targets. So anyone that was still around after 6, 12 months in various roles, it was known that you had what it takes to work in advertising. A lot of people did move on and it's London and they went out of the profession. and I stuck around.

Branding Lessons from Life as a Musician

Andrew Mitrak: So while you're doing all this, you are also a musician. Were you traveling? Were you in bands doing shows? Did that teach you at all about marketing as well?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Yeah, it taught me a lot. Yeah, I was in various bands when I was at uni and then when I left and I moved to London, I got spotted in one band, which led to me writing music for Grand Theft Auto, the first three games. I did some of the voices, the characters.

Andrew Mitrak: I definitely played Grand Theft Auto 3 as a young teenager when that one came out. I've definitely heard your music. That was the breakthrough game, so that's awesome that you're in that.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: If you check the credits, you have to look. I went under a pseudonym because I was also on the hip-hop rap station. So the game's credits that you'll find me listed as are under the name Robert De Negro.

Andrew Mitrak: Oh, that's so good.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I thought, "What's the most gangster name that I can come up with?" Robert De Negro. That's a rap name for you.

Andrew Mitrak: That is great. Did you trademark that? I wonder if that existed.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I didn't, but I've noticed on like Twitter and X that there are quite a few. If you search, there are loads of Robert De Negros, but I was the Robert De Negro.

Andrew Mitrak: Oh my God.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I wasn't sure. I wasn't even sure back in the days how to do that. I just thought that through using it, through familiarity, that would be it. No one would dare call themselves Robert De Negro other than me.

Andrew Mitrak: That's a good first foray into personal branding, which became a topic that you've covered.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Yeah, and I got it tattooed on my arm as well.

Andrew Mitrak: Oh my God. That's awesome. So I think I interrupted you. So you were telling me about how being a musician sort of taught you a little bit about marketing as well.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Yeah, because you have to get people to go to your show. You have to get record labels to pay attention. There's no one else that can do those things for you. We have to do it in a 360 holistic approach where it's like, you write the songs, and then you have to get people to be interested in them. I had to design the flyers. You design t-shirts. You're doing posters at the venue. You're actually, I didn't realize at the time, but you're doing a ton of marketing.

And in fact, one of the examples that I give when I'm lecturing branding at uni is Metallica. And so one of the things that I said, I was like, "How much money do you think it cost Metallica to design their logo?" And like, how many rebrands have they had, and what agency did they use? And you realize that when you're musicians, you design your own logos. I mean, even, I remember Wu-Tang Clan, I saw The RZA talk about his album launch, went to see him, he came to London, and he was talking about how, I mean, I think the Wu-Tang Clan's logo is amazing. And he's like, "Oh, we got DJ Mathematics to design it for $400."

He did it in an evening. That's the reality. And I think that's the reality check where sometimes we problematize and we overcomplicate things which can actually be quite simple. And that's not saying that the things that we do in branding are unimportant, but it is a reminder that we have to be able to justify what it is that we're doing. And so as a musician, things are a lot more fluid and you just roll up your sleeves and do it. And I've taken that into academia, and I've also taken that into my writing and my consulting.

So, I think the older that I get, the more that I actually draw from music. I think I underestimated what a powerful effect. I mean, even if you think about someone like Louis Vuitton, I think the creative director now is Pharrell Williams. So here's another example of somebody who is a tastemaker who over the years has made hit records and demonstrated that he can connect with people and they respond in a positive way. So logically, it makes perfect sense to have this person handling your brand. So I actually think, and I remember Nile Rodgers talking about branding a couple of years ago, Nile Rodgers from Chic and everything. And yeah, I realized that as musicians, we're actually pretty good at branding.

Andrew Mitrak: There's a lot to that. I mean, from the flyers, coming up with a band name or a personal name itself, is actually a marketing activity, communicating across multiple forms of media. It's not just about the music, which is a big challenge to do well in itself, but also appearing on video, performing, engaging a crowd live, getting people to show up to that crowd, getting your song on the radio. There are so many, to be a successful musician, you have to really just play on such a wide surface area, which does tie into a lot of what marketing, what professional marketers have to do as well. So how did you go from, you talked about your career in advertising sales or your first jobs in advertising sales, being a musician, and then you pursue academia? What was the jump into the academic side of marketing?

The Leap from Industry to Academia

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Well, I had a lot going on in my life. So I decided to pause doing music, and I wanted a fresh challenge from advertising because I felt like a lot of my job involved being persuasive in terms of being a great communicator and a great negotiator and just connecting with people. But I didn't find that intellectually stimulating enough, I think if I'm to be honest. I didn't think that it felt strategic, and I was up for a new challenge. And so, one role came to an end, and I thought, "Okay, the easiest thing in the world would be to go back and work for another advertising company." But I thought, "Let me try something different."

I was lucky enough to pick up my first marketing consulting contract, which was a steep learning curve, not for the work that I was doing, but all of the back-end stuff, like when people talk about a consultant. Actually in this scenario, I went for an interview for a marketing role, and the person interviewing me said, "I don't think that you're right for this role. You've got great skills." And I was like, "Here we go. Here's another rejection." And you're going, "Okay, okay." He goes, "But I'd like you to do something else for us." And I was like, "What?" He goes, "Yeah, I'd like you to come on as a consultant." And I was like, "What is one of, how does that work? What do you do?" And he said, "Come back to me with your hourly rate and your day rate." And I was like, "How much do I charge?" I'm calling my mates and going, "How much do you charge?" And, "How do you do that? How do you invoice? And what do you have to do?" And so I had to learn all of those things whilst giving the impression that I knew all about those things. But that was a great learning curve because now there's no one else. When you work for a big company, they have invoicing templates, they have documents. But back then, it was a bit like being in a band and I had to do those things.

And when I'd done my consulting or when I'd done audits and things, I had to prepare my own reports. And then I would think, "Okay, I need a template." And I was very sensitive to the fact that I was like, "Okay, I'm charging this money, which is great, which is more money that I'm used to being paid because an hourly rate consultant gets much more than pro rata your full-time job." But when I was sending in documents, I wanted them to feel like that document was heavy enough that it was worth the several thousand pounds that they were paying me. And so I was thinking about the design, the template, the end notes, the references. So I was designing these templates as well that I felt communicated value for money. So I had that contract for, I think it was about half a year.

But at the same time, I was applying for anything that moved. I wanted a new challenge. I got an academic role, and it was for a visiting lecturer post. It was like five hours a week. I'd never done that stuff before. I had a love-hate relationship with university, if I'm to be frank as well. And because I remember one of my friends saying, "Okay, you're good at talking. Have you ever thought about being a lecturer?" And me quite flippant and rudely replied, "Well, isn't that for like failed practitioners? Isn't that for people that can't actually do marketing? How could you talk about it and not do it?" I was being a little bit cheeky, but anyway, I got the interview, and I did the lecturing, and it was so much fun.

Within a few months, they offered me a full-time role, and I took it up. And then you do that teaching, and you get better at teaching. And then someone said, "If you want to stick around, you better do a PhD, and you better think about writing journal papers." So there were aspects where I taught myself academia because I came in a less conventional route. I wasn't like PhD, postdoc, and you're under somebody's mentorship. I was doing a PhD part-time on the side whilst being a lecturer, and I remember the first, my first lecturing, it was quite daunting because this was before social media as well. It must have been 2005. I remember getting a hard-bound A4 book because when it sinks in that you're going to lecture this module for five hours a week. I was like, "What am I going to talk about for five hours a week for the next 12 weeks?" And I started writing things in the book that I was going to say.

When I asked them, I said, "Okay, what's the textbook? Do you have any materials?" They said, "No, Jonathan, it's over to you. Whatever you feel is appropriate. We wouldn't dream of stepping on your toes. You are the expert." So I basically got a blank piece of paper. And straight after that meeting, I went to a bookshop and I looked for what I thought was the best textbook. And I was like, "Okay, so this is going to be the textbook for my course." And I was like, "I guess I better read it then." So then it was like, I thought, "This is probably the first time that I'm reading a textbook from cover to cover." I'm highlighting and going through stuff and making notes. And the night before my first lecture, I didn't go to sleep. I was up all night preparing. I wasn't nervous, but I was preparing.

And then, of course, you do your first lecture, and people come in late, not everyone's paying attention. And then I realized it isn't just about, maybe I mistakenly thought at the time that I was going to have to machine gun knowledge into these people for five hours a week. But actually, you realize, "No, you've got to take people on a journey. You've got to hear about what they have to say." So actually, I'd overprepared. I had so much material. And I had to let some of it go. And then what happens is it spills over into the other modules that you get given. And before you know it, you're in that circuit.

Andrew Mitrak: Everything you're saying resonates with me so much because having a varied background of a lot of experiences, I think just helps prepare you for what you end up landing on in such a great way. I did cold calls for my dad, who's a real estate agent as a kid. And when I was at a startup, I managed an SDR team and did a lot of cold calling then and it prepares you, right? It prepares you to speak later. And I did consulting and getting to figure out how a business works and how do you charge clients and just doing those details. I'm now at a big company, but I feel like I have superpowers compared to folks who have just been purely at a big company their whole life and have had a lot of things done for them. And that when you do these things, even though they may not seem obvious, you wouldn't have necessarily planned it out that way to start, you connect the dots backwards, and they help prepare you to connect with folks. I'm sure that cold calling and facing rejections helps you prepare for when students aren't paying attention to you or whatever. It's like that kind of stuff helps build body armor and it helps build experiences that you can just help relate to and connect to and actually speak with some, to something with some first-hand knowledge of how things work.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: 100%. I agree, and the thing that you have to be careful of, or I have to be careful of, is that it's funny when you get a role like this because you go down memory lane. So some of the things that I warn colleagues about, don't just replicate the sins of your forefathers or the people that taught you because sometimes when you're trying to develop, you end up becoming like the lecturers that you had that maybe you didn't like because you had that inflicted on you, so then you end up inflicting it on somebody else. Or you're just following somebody else's rules. And I think that the unorthodox route at least opened my mind to something else. And being a musician, you're right, definitely did that.

I was having a chat the other day where I said, "It's funny because when you look at lecturers, sometimes they can be quite thin-skinned." You imagine the scenario where you're in the classroom, people aren't paying attention, they're on their phones, people are coming in late, they're leaving. You've seen what happens, and people get irate and they say, "I prepared this material, and you'll never get a proper job, and you need to pay attention." And if there's 10 people in the class when there should be 50, then their energy levels go down, and they almost feel like, "Do I even share this stuff with you? Because there were going to be 40 people that didn't hear this. Maybe I hold this back for the next lecture and bark at people and tell them to turn up, otherwise they'll be in trouble."

But if I then cross-reference that with me as a musician, and this is what I was saying to one of my colleagues, I was like, "Look, I'm on stage, and I've rehearsed these 10 songs, whatever it is, and I'm going to play them whether there's 10 people or 10,000 people. And when I'm playing them, some people are going to come in late, some people are going to go to the toilet, someone is looking at a girl and chatting her up, other people are drinking, they're going to the bar, they're not paying attention. Some people even throw bottles of drink." The last show I did, I remember there was a pint pot of beer just bounced off the neck of my guitar. It's what happens. I don't think it was that they didn't like what was happening. I think there was a mosh circle and a drink flew.

But I guess the point that I was trying to make to them was, "Look, I don't stop the show and go, 'Listen, I've rehearsed for hours, or please pay attention. This is the best bit of our set. This is the solo.'" You just are a slave to your craft, and you've come there and you do what you're going to do and you perform because that's what you were built to do. And so I do draw from music again to remind myself that that's how I have to be in the classroom, that there shouldn't be any, I do feel like every lecture should be like a concert in some way, shape, or form. Maybe it's an unplugged, intimate 10-student classroom, but my mindset, I do get hyped up before every lecture. I do have that hype song on my headphones and think, "Okay, right, I'm going to do this now." I might not know what's going to happen, but I try and get pumped in the same way for the lectures as the same way as you do in that cold call, because otherwise you're not going to have the energy levels to get yourself through or that business pitch, but I try to do that for everything, for all of those human interactions.

Andrew Mitrak: Yeah, the kind of entitled feeling of, "You have to listen to me," it doesn't work, right? You could never run an ad campaign that says, "You know how hard our agency worked on this ad? You got to pay attention to us. Don't skip it. Don't use an ad blocker." It just would never work.

Diving Deep into Islamic Marketing and Halal Branding

Andrew Mitrak: So, getting to your research and academic career, I want to talk about Islamic marketing and Halal branding, which is a topic I haven't covered yet on this podcast at all. And so, I'm really excited to speak with you about this as well. So you're the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Islamic Marketing, and you've published several papers related to Islamic marketing and Halal branding. Can you just describe at a high level what Islamic marketing is and how you first encountered this field?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Yeah. So, I've been editor for the journal for nearly 14 years, and the founding editor stayed for about one or two years and then moved on. So I inherited a new fledgling journal. And it was publishing about 3 issues a year, 18 articles a year, and now it's, I think it's 12 issues a year and about 160 papers. So it's been a slog. It shows you that there is demand.

And what I would say is Islamic marketing, because I didn't come up with the term, the term is almost created and I've had to accept and accommodate and then breathe my own personality into it with regards to the journal. So what I have done is I've tried to make it more inclusive. I think in the beginning, there was a sense of, like with a lot of niche areas, or other communities, right? Where you feel like the world doesn't understand you and you're different and distinctive, therefore you need your own platform or your own journal.

And so with Islamic marketing, the argument was that Muslims and Islam and all of these things warrant a separate discipline and understanding. And that's why the journal exists and that's why people are writing these papers and there's been lots of research. Halal is a little bit easier in the sense that it's to do with more lifestyle practices. Predominantly, it's to do with food and eating, but it could also be about how you live, the clothes that you wear, things like that. And it shares in that respect a similarity with perhaps what people are more familiar with, which is kosher with the Jewish community. So it's this thing that it's suitable, think of it as a label suitable for Muslims, right? You're getting something verified and certified.

And so within that discipline, people have been researching all sorts of areas and it's blossomed from starting off with the basics, which are, "Can I eat in this restaurant?" to, "What does a holiday experience look like which is inclusive and recognizes who I am?" And I think what I've tried to encourage is to get people to think from different perspectives what that means because if I go back, why Islamic marketing when the theme started, probably 15 to 20 years ago, right?

I think we have to go further back and think about 9/11. Or September the 11th, but probably even I have to go into more detail because now I realize that we have a generation of adults who were born after September the 11th, and that event doesn't mean as much to them as it does to people who were alive and witnessed what happened.

And so I think what happened after those global events was a feeling from the Muslim community that they were misunderstood, they were misrepresented, and something had to change. And you could look at that from different angles, had to change in the sense that whether that's we need to have more say-so in the boardroom or more seats at the dinner table, or we need better representation, or we need to be thinking about how we create our own business models. But also, how we counter the argument that what we are or what we do or what we say or what we believe is not compatible because there was also this rhetoric which is like Islam versus the West.

And this idea that Islam is not compatible. And so I think we could also see that there were a wave of people, I think very intelligently who thought that we can actually counter some of these negative sentiments by showing people that we have a rich, enjoyable lifestyle without, for want of a better term, selling out. We are catering for ourselves, we are pleasing ourselves, we are doing good things, and you are also welcome too.

“Propaganda” and Its Origins

An interesting word that springs to mind is propaganda. It's an interesting word because I remember Edward Bernays in 1928 had his book called Propaganda. And if you trace back the linguistic roots, it was the Roman Catholic Church—it was an Italian word that was used, and in that context, it was about spreading good news because there were concerns that people were leaving Catholicism. So they needed propaganda in order to invite people back and to keep them within Catholicism.

And of course, we fast forward past Bernays's book and Noam Chomsky being very critical, and quite rightly so, of propaganda and you think about Manufacturing Consent and The Engineering of Consent and these other books where this is what happens if you're too good at spreading good news and persuading people—it goes bad, and you're controlling people.

And so, I'm fascinated by the term propaganda as well because I think that in equal doses from both sides of the fence, there have been people that have also been navigating, "Is this a good thing?" And is the end result... I think there are different camps. There are people that think it's going to make them more money. There are people that think it's the right thing to do. There are people that think that it's going to counter negative perceptions which aren't necessarily linked directly to the products or services that they're marketing, but there's a wider societal value. There are some geopolitical imperatives because there have been initiatives from governments that have encouraged conferences and events.

And perhaps the most visible sense of that is if you think about Islamic finance. Islamic finance came out with these financial products which were considered to be more compatible with the tenets of Islam because of the ways of understanding usury and interest and how you can develop these financial products. So logically, if you have Islamic finance, then someone says, "Well, you have to know how to market these products." So that's where Islamic marketing comes in, and then you've got food.

I guess the thing for me is, and this has been particular to my work, there's a thread which goes back to the same way that I ask questions of marketing and branding. I ask very simple questions, and it's fascinating how difficult it is at times for people to answer those questions. I've written a lot of conceptual papers where I've playfully asked, "What is the difference between Islamic marketing and Muslim marketing? And is it different than, for example, ethnocentric marketing or ethnic marketing or international marketing?" And in asking those questions, I've also come up with hierarchies of trying to understand and define because I think to put everything into one bucket does some things a disservice.

So, for example, if you were to think about something which was loud and proud Islamic marketing, 100% to Muslims, by Muslims, for Muslims, it would be Hajj or pilgrimage. If you were offering pilgrimage packages to go to Mecca, then that to me is a classic example of Islamic marketing. But then if you were to put in the same category fast food burgers... I don't know. Or to infuse Islamic religious, spiritual values into a burger—that seems a stretch and you could argue becomes a little bit political as well.

Case Studies: From Fast Food to Fashion

Andrew Mitrak: Do you have any favorite case studies of Western consumer brands that are attempting to appeal to or using some form of Islamic marketing, whether it's trying to target Muslim consumers who are in a predominantly Western market or trying to break into a market that's predominantly Muslim? Are there any examples of that happening that come to mind?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I would say the fast-food brands are probably the best at doing it, and it's easy for them to do because they can get the dietary requirements correct, and then they can package it, they can change the spices. You can wish people Eid Mubarak or whatever it is, whatever festivals, it becomes really simple.

For example, you pick a brand like KFC. It's chicken. Chicken they can scale across the world, but then if you look at a KFC restaurant in Jakarta, the staff, as part of their uniform, have, if they want them, headscarves. The chicken is extra spicy and you're talking in a different language. So, I think it's easy for them to demonstrate those things.

I have actually done some work with KFC in the UK. What's interesting is that there are Halal-certified restaurants where the chicken is suitable for Muslims, and there are a number of them in the UK. At the time that I was working, I think the profits were something at least 20% greater than the non-Muslim friendly or Sharia-compliant or Halal restaurants. So logically, that might make you think that you should just make them all Halal, especially because KFC does that—they're all Halal in, say, Indonesia or Malaysia, places like that. But also you've got to think about the implications, and I think that there are lots of companies that are very sensitive.

It's easy to show Islamic marketing and being friendly to Muslims and liking them in Muslim-majority countries. The challenge that some brands face is when or how they're able to do that in Muslim-minority countries. How does that work? Because they're sensitive to what the implications are, that there's a vocal minority of people from the far right or whoever that are going to say, "Oh, this is terrible. We're losing our country." So it's challenging.

But then also if I think about other brands, some of the sports companies, Adidas and Nike, have been really good. You see now that there are more visibly Muslim females using athletic wear, so they've got headscarves and they've got different cuts of clothing. So they've found what I'd say is a clever way to address certain issues to show people that they belong and that they're welcome in a frictionless way. So whether that's that you just go to, for example, an Adidas store in Central London, and for those of you that haven't been to London in the summer, we have a lot of tourism from the Gulf region as well. The simplest thing you can do is dress a mannequin and make them look like a Muslim. And then people go, "Oh, okay, then you like Muslims and you're Muslim-friendly."

There are good and there are bad things about that. Bad is probably the wrong word, but I don't want to gloss over the other things that employers have to do in terms of representation within your organization, the people that you employ, and whether there are global events happening that you wish to comment on or remain silent upon. I think those things have to be considered as well.

Common Pitfalls in Cross-Cultural Marketing

Andrew Mitrak: Are there ones where things that might work in traditional marketing promotion might not translate to a Muslim audience? I imagine some forms of humor or sensuality that might be in consumer marketing ads might not translate to a Muslim target audience. Are there pitfalls that you've seen companies run into where they get it wrong by just either not being attuned to some of the cultural practices properly or just kind of missing some of the bigger picture zeitgeist and macro events that are happening?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: In that regard, it's a bit like international business case examples, that if you get it wrong... probably the things that are catastrophic: contamination. You market it, and then you find out that the food is contaminated with whatever, pork or something. Then that just undoes all of your hard work because people think that you've just been trying to exploit a lucrative market. Which is why, for example, when I worked with KFC, they were very strict about not sharing supplies between the various restaurants, and they had certain protocols. So one of the things I was involved in was creating signage for workers, so even the workers were not allowed, even in their own private lunches, to bring pork into the restaurant, things like that. So, not taking those things seriously, the risk of contamination.

I think saying that you care about people and then just withdrawing or you-turning—so if you get a backlash, if you get complaints from the far right and then you just pull up the drawbridge, that's also very damaging. So we know that there are lots of things going on in the world, and if you don't comment on those things, even silence is a bad thing.

Other things that are, I think the obvious, you can't say the words correctly. You don't get the right voiceover artist, you just get someone that struggles through those certain words, so you make obvious mistakes like that. I think proximity is also maybe another way to understand it. If there are things that you know could be considered to be inconsiderate, insensitive, insulting, unattractive, whatever it is, keep them as far away as possible from that community.

So, on a really simple level, if you're a supermarket and you have this Halal food, don't put it in the same aisle, in the same chill cabinet as the pork. Even if it's wrapped. When I've done studies, psychologically it's not a good look.

But the advice that I give to people is, think of it like this: Forget that we're doing marketing and think about if you wanted to make friends with somebody on a human-to-human level, how sensitive should you be and how do you communicate that? And you will find that there are some general rules, but there are also some nuances. People aren't monolithic and stupid.

So there are some brands that get away with stuff because people like them because they know where their heart is at and stuff like that. And I think that sometimes companies forget that. They want a very prescriptive list of, "Okay, this is how to talk to Muslims, and then I can tick that box and then we'll be safe."

And if you think about how bizarre that is, if you think about other, like in UK employment legislation, we talk about protected characteristics. If you were to say, "Okay, how do I talk to disabled people and make them happy? How do I talk to women? Is there a book on how I can talk to women and they will feel included and welcome?" We're kind of at that stage of development, to be honest.

I also want to say that it's reciprocal because then if you go to the other side, if you go to the East or the Muslim world or even the Far East, then I mean, I've grown up, you said about my varied experience, but as a mixed person who's often the outsider or the minority, it's easy for me to spot these kinds of double standards. And so sometimes, the East is equally equipped at being able to stereotype what the West is like. "They don't understand us because, oh, they make these mistakes." And I think one of the things I like to do is to try and bring people together and think, "Okay, well, let's be a bit more honest about what it is that we're good and not so good at."

So yeah, there are some mistakes and sometimes they're amplified, but then also if you look a little bit closer, sometimes it's just news headlines because people are still buying those products. We sometimes get into that LinkedIn loop where someone will say, "Here's a disastrous move," but that company is still around and they're still making money. They could do better, but there is that other side.

Historical Marketing Context and Modern Applications

Andrew Mitrak: Most of the examples we've talked about related to Islamic marketing have been within this century or the last, post-9/11 or so. Islam has existed for more than a thousand years, and presumably Muslims have been purchasing things for more than a thousand years. Do you have any favorite examples, this being a history podcast, of early Muslim brands or early forms of commerce practices or companies, or just things that precede this more recent era that you either discuss in your courses or that you've written about in your research?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I think one of the things that springs to mind is even currency. The idea of, and if you think about a brand, the brand... Islam is very much centered around, in comparison to say Christianity, in some Orthodox Christianity where you had icons and iconography, the Arabic text is central to that. So in writing in Arabic, which is Bismillah hir-Rahman nir-Rahim, which is basically, "In the name of God, the beneficent and the merciful," you are declaring a statement of intent that you are aligning yourself with the values of this belief system.

You have within the Silk Road trading where there are some merchants who realized that carrying gold across different waters and countries was a task and a half. So they developed checks, as in written checks where you could cash this in somewhere else. And in the name of God, this check signifies that I owe you this money and it's of this value. So I think that there are great examples that when you go into history, you see things like that where people understood how to do business. Or even in a marketplace about how you compare like-for-like comparisons.

One of the ones, actually, in terms of trying to get deeper in understanding Islam and business, one interesting one for me was about who is responsible when things go wrong when it comes to business. So, I had a situation, when we started to get into online, think of the classic example: somebody comes to your website, they buy something, you post it to them, and they say that they don't receive it. Whose responsibility is it?

That was one of the things that I was interested in. And, especially because online didn't exist at the time when Islam was going around the world. But my feeling was that it was the responsibility of the business owner until the person receives the item, they are responsible for putting that item into that person's hand. Other people would have different interpretations or different opinions, but I think that for me, that's how... so you can imagine in online, that's a bit more complicated because you're having to package something, courier it, it may or may not arrive, and as a business person, you're thinking, "Yeah, but this person could be lying to me. This person might have received it, or it got lost and I don't have any more stock. How do I do things?" But I think that for me, that sentiment had to remain in there because that comes from a market culture of there is an offer and there is an exchange. Until you have handed over that commodity to that person and they are in ownership of it, it's not theirs. And it's yours and it's your responsibility.

Understanding “a faith-based approach to business”

Andrew Mitrak: And Muslims would have a different perspective on that exchange versus a non-Muslim usually? Because as a consumer, I feel like I'd be owed it, or there'd be, today, of course, you can see, is it the carrier's fault? Was it landed on your porch and was there a photo of it on your porch and it's some theft issue and take it up with your police. Whatever it is. Would a Muslim usually react to this situation in a way differently than a non-Muslim?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I guess it depends on what they believe, right? Because people are people. But I think it does raise those things because we've all been in this scenario of, "Did you check your letterbox? Did you..." because you're trying to see who's to blame here rather than, and I think that the thing about a faith-based approach to business is that you believe that there is a more powerful entity overseeing everything and everybody will get what they deserve. Yeah. Right? And I like to keep that sentiment, and that keeps me a bit more chill. There are terrible things that happen, but everyone gets what they deserve eventually. I don't know when that'll be. It might be a few centuries in the future or... But I think that that's an important one. Just the responsibilities of a business owner. And as we know that consumers have far more right now, but it's kind of more recent.

And we think about those scenarios. I remember there was one, years ago online where a website made a mistake, there was an error in their online cart and so the televisions were super cheap and everyone noticed that and they just ordered them. And then the situation is, "Okay, are they legally obliged to honor the price that they put on the website and they've taken that person's money? Or is it reasonable for them to deny that purchase and to refund the money?" And I think that it's interesting how we explore those things, not just from a legal perspective, but also, yeah, within different cultural traditions or faith traditions and historically how that's happened.

Good haggling and bad haggling in Islamic marketing

Andrew Mitrak: On this topic of exchange, one thing that came to my mind right now is this concept of negotiating or haggling. When I've visited predominantly Muslim countries, there tends to be more of a, you know, the price is negotiable. Whether it's a bottle of water I'm purchasing at a market, a sandwich, an outfit, or a rug or a piece of furniture, everything is negotiable. And that's not always as much the case today in a Western country. Usually, the price you see is the price you pay. How does that influence Islamic marketing, the sort of approach to negotiation and price?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: That's a good question. Because I think we've all been hurt by haggling, right? Yeah. I guess, let's call it good haggling and bad haggling. And I don't mean it as who's the better negotiator, but in the truest sense, if a business person, whether it's a Monday or whatever it is, thinks, "Okay, today I would be happy with this amount of money for this product," and then you agree, that's great. And then another week they might not be so happy because they're like, "I've got more overheads or business has been slow, so I'm going to have to dig in here and say this is how much I want." To me, that's good haggling because there's an understanding.

Bad is when people are basically lying. "This is one of a kind, I guarantee to you," or even there are gray areas where, should a local pay the same price as a tourist who's got far more buying power? And I wrestle with that one because we've all gone to countries on the basis that we know that there are things that are super cheap, and that's why we go on holiday. And if someone was to say, "Nah, but you're in this cafe in Kuala Lumpur," and they're like, "Nah, because you're a foreigner, you're going to have to pay more money because you got more money." I would hate that. But at the same time, there is a logic behind it because I'm going to a cafe where we can all eat for a couple of pounds.

So I think that there should be more conversations about those things, realistically to see how we understand them. And that isn't just a conversation where often when people can't afford to pay things, they think about, "Okay, let's put you on a payment plan. Three payments and here's the interest rate." I don't know, are there alternative ways that we can accommodate people's different demands and lifestyle choices and opportunities? Probably.

Where to start in Islamic marketing?

Andrew Mitrak: So if there are marketing practitioners or students who have enjoyed this conversation and want to learn more about Islamic marketing and Halal branding or just want to think about how this might apply to their business or their company, where would you recommend they start? What questions should they be asking themselves?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: Contact me. Find me on LinkedIn, contact me. I'll put you in the right direction, give you some links. I would say just step one, ask the questions and find people, surround yourself with people who you think can answer those questions or would have some experiences.

And often what I found is, we've spent a lot of time talking about this area about Islamic marketing and Halal, which is an area that I've developed a reputation globally for because it's I suppose, people have thought it's so niche, but at the same time it's so massive because you've got so many people in the world and so many huge countries that it's a bit of a weird one. So I have that under my belt.

But also, I would say whether that's marketing to minorities, ethnic minorities, music, sport, there are other areas that I've written on. I tend to apply the same approach. It's that same Socratic approach of, "Okay, when don't things work? And how do they work? And do they work the same?" And so part of it is just searching for your blind spots and thinking what are your, and what are your competencies in these areas? And that's been part of my personal journey. I've been to about 40 countries over the years.

What purchasing an Iranian rug can tell us about Islamic Marketing.

I'll give you an example that's probably quite topical, but I've been to Iran a couple of times. Iran was not like how most people expect Iran to be, whatever that is. That's probably a whole podcast. But I think the story I'll leave you with is, I was in a hotel and they sell a lot of amazing Iranian carpets and rugs. And I was just waiting to be picked up because it was a work trip.

The owner said, "Would you like to look at my carpets?"

I was like, "No, I'm okay."

He goes, "Why? You're waiting, you've got a few minutes."

And I said, "There's no point."

And he said, "Why?"

I said, "Because I have no money," because I had underestimated the fact that my bank cards do not work in Iran. I didn't have any cash with me, couldn't draw any cash, nothing. Thankfully, I was on a work trip.

I said, "Look, mate, I am not the guy for you because I can't purchase."

And he goes, "Why should that stop you?"

I was like, "Because I have no money."

And so we had this conversation.

And I said, "What, you're telling me that if I like something, you'll let me just take it home?"

He goes, "Yeah. And you can transfer the money when you get home."

I was like, "Really?! Okay. What about that rug there?" It was some silk rug. It was really expensive.

And he goes, "If you like it..."

And then I was looking at it, I was like, "Well..."

So I did. I picked up a rug. He took a photocopy of my passport and my contact details.

And he says, "Okay, I look forward to when you transfer the money. Here are my bank details."

And I thought, "Okay, maybe this is just a one-off."

And I ended up going into another carpet place and I bought another rug to see if he'd do the same. And he did. Wow. And then I came back to London, and I was so overwhelmed by how this is how they have to do business, and the gratitude. It kind of blew my mind. So literally the next day, I went to the bank and I transferred that money to him and the other guy. And thought, "Wow."

And then I got a phone call from the bank: "Why are you sending money to Iran?"

I had to explain, "Oh, no, no, no, no. I was buying some rugs."

And they're like, "Okay, yeah."

After I'd said that, they were like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people do that."

But that was quite an interesting moment and just changing the way that I look at how you can do business and what that means.

Andrew Mitrak: Thanks for sharing that story. I imagine also just the personal connection that's involved there, the level of trust, that I'm sure if you went back to Iran, it's probably pretty likely that you would visit those merchants. Or if you were to purchase another rug, it's like you've established this rapport and kind of by having almost more friction in the process and writing that note back to them and having some mutual trust with each other, that's a powerful thing. It's a beautiful thing.

Learn More About Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson’s Work

Andrew Mitrak: Well, thanks so much for this conversation. You mentioned your LinkedIn. Where else would you recommend listeners find you online?

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: I'm on LinkedIn as Dr. Jon Wilson, Instagram, Facebook, X, @DrJonWilson, and I have a website, drjonwilson.com.

Andrew Mitrak: That's great. We haven't even talked about your work on personal branding because we've covered so much on this podcast already. But I really enjoyed the conversation. I hope we can talk again sometime. Thanks so much.

Professor Jonathan AJ Wilson: No, thanks. That was fun.