Mara Einstein
Associate Professor
mara_einstein@hotmail.com
www.brandsoffaith.com
Mara Einstein is the author of Brands of Faith: Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age
(Routledge, 2008), a critique of promoting religion in today's
consumer-oriented culture. Because of this work, Einstein is
now recognized as the authority on marketing religion and spirituality,
and has been quoted in numerous publications from the New York Times to the Los Angeles Times to the Atlanta Journal Constitution among many others.
Einstein has been working in or
writing about the media industry for the past 20 years. She has enjoyed
stints as an executive at NBC, MTV Networks, and at major advertising
agencies working on such accounts as Miller Lite, Uncle Ben's, and Dole
Foods. Her first book, Media Diversity: Economics, Ownership and the FCC (Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 2004), was the cause for much debate when research
from this work was used by the FCC to redefine the media ownership
rules. In addition to being an Associate Professor at Queens College,
she is also an adjunct associate professor at the Stern School of
Business at New York University, as well as being an independent marketing consultant.
Her current research is a continuation of her work in consumer culture and the impact of marketing on society. Building on Brands of Faith,
Einstein has published a number of articles and book chapters about
marketing religion including an examination of the United Methodist
Church and Scientology, Spirituality and Consumption and an examination
of global televangelism. Her new book Price of Compassion: How corporate America co-opts caring (University
of California Press) will be out in 2011. This work is an examination
of the rise of cause marketing and corporate social responsibility and
its impact on corporations, causes and consumers
