Purpose This paper aims to examine the impact of increasing the intensity of religious cues in financial service advertisements on target and non-target groups. Design/methodology/approach To test the proposed hypotheses, a 2 (Religion: Muslims versus Non-Muslims) x 3 (Religious identity primes: Low versus Medium versus High) factorial design was used. Both target and non-target groups were randomly exposed to factitious advertisements of an Islamic bank embedded with low, medium and high intensity of religious cues. Findings The results of this study indicate that within target group the manipulation did result into a more favourable attitudes towards the advertisement (Aad) and attitudes towards the brand (Ab) for the medium intensity advertisement; however, for high intensity advertisement, only Aad was more favourable compared to low intensity advertisement. Relatively strong evidence was found in case of non-target group negative reactions in term of Aad, Ab and purchase intention. The direct comparison between target and non-target groups suggest a general pattern of more positive response from target group as compared to non-target group. Practical implications The findings of this study provide an important insight into the effectiveness of identity salience messages in financial service marketing. The study provide empirical evidence that intensifying the rhetoric beyond a certain point will generate negative results from both target and non-target respondents. Originality/value The authors integrated the research on symbolism, social identity and target and non-target effects to analyse the attitudinal and behavioural differences between and within target and non-target groups of financial service advertisements with different intensity of religious cues.

It has been noted in the literature, service brand is considered to be one of the most discussed in the service industry. Because service is dominated by experience and credence attributes; therefore an extrinsic cue like brand may help to reduce customers' purchase risk and optimize their cognitive processing abilities towards the service. One of the emerging service brand concepts that used extensively by marketing reseachers is service brand equity. However, there is limited interest looking at the broader application of service brand equity concept across different service categories. This is important to provide service marketers with useful and broader managerial insights in order to establish greater brand managerial sophistication in marketing the services. Hence, the aim of this research is to determine the dimensions of a successful branding strategy of services, to note each specific service sectors requirement, and its differences. The survey method is used in this study. The findings showed that different service category such as health service, retail, hotel and banking in Malaysia posited different dimension of service brand equity. This tends to suggest that, although service brand equity concept provides a significant description of how to brand a service; different services require different approach of branding process. Thus, this may help brand managers to prioritize and allocate which brand equity dimensions is suitable for their service. The principal contribution of the study is that it provides evidence for the validity of service brand equity used in various service contexts.