This paper is an ethnographic case study of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based chiropractor Daniel Pompas use of Christianity to market his company, Pompa Health Solutions. In addition to interviews and participant observation, this paper employs narrative ethnography to bridge the gap between Pompas rhetoric and the circumstances in which he shares it. This paper explores his use of Christian rhetoric to sell his services, legitimize his practice, and establish a trusting relationship with his patients. Pompa uses biblical references, his own illness/conversion narrative, and an evangelical worldview to promote his company to a Christian audience. In interactions with patients and advertisements, Pompa makes explicit and implicit Christian references in relation to current cultural issues (e.g. swine flu, vaccines, and weight loss) as a means of marketing. Pompa promotes his company by using the existing evangelical brand and adjusts his message to address the concerns of his audience. I argue that he positions himself as a supplement to evangelicalism as a means for his patients to practice their faith, and in doing so effectively attracts and maintains his audience. I conclude that Pompa successfully markets his secular services by using the evangelical brand. While this is a study of only one person, his affiliation with many like-minded evangelical entrepreneurs and his efforts to spread these marketing methods to other entrepreneurs indicates that more scholarship is warranted to determine the implications of this approach on business and evangelicalism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12052010-175148 |
| Date | 27 January 2011 |
| Creators | Meister, Susie |
| Contributors | Dr. Paula Kane, Dr. Adam Shear, Dr. Kathleen Blee |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12052010-175148/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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