Brands and religion in the secularized marketplace and workplace: insights from the case of an Italian hospital renamed after a Roman Catholic Pope

Religion is considered a cornerstone of business ethics, yet the values held dear by a religion, when professed by business organizations serving heterogeneous market segments in secularized societies, can generate conflict and resistance. In this paper, we report findings from a study of stakeholder reactions to the renaming of an Italian public hospital. After the construction of new facilities, the hospital was renamed for the recently canonized Roman Catholic Pope John XXIII. Contrary to expectations, we found no evidence of public criticism surrounding the name change. A fine-grained analysis of a sample of 734 respondents belonging to different stakeholder groups revealed that consumers (patients and citizens) predominantly supported the name change, while employees were often critical and concerned about possible religious influences on medical practice and scientific research. Moving beyond our empirical setting, we propose a process model of brand-religion alignment inspired by McCracken’s (J Consum Res 13(1): 71–84, 1986) meaning transfer model, which considers both the alignment process and its reception by relevant audiences. The study also presents managerial implications useful for those brand managers who wish to create effective, respectful links with religion.