A new ad by Amazon filmed in the UK sees two old friends meet for a cup of tea and discover they share a problem.
USA Today reports that the “most surprising thing about Amazon’s latest ad for its Prime service is that it appears to be the first time a Muslim cleric has been featured in a television ad shown in the United States.”
Amazon claims that is wasn’t making “any kind of political statement and the subject had nothing to do with the recently concluded U.S. presidential election,” according to USA Today. They also report that the advertisement was already in the works in June according to Amazon’s European Union director of advertising, Simon Morris.
Brian Grim, President of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation, notes that “Business is at the crossroads of culture, commerce and creativity. This means businesses have the resources to make the world more peaceful as well as the incentive to do so.”
Grim goes on to say “such ads indeed show that business is good for interfaith understanding, religious freedom and peace.”
Companies can make positive contributions to peace in society by mobilizing advertising campaigns that bring people of various faiths and backgrounds together, not only seen in the new Amazon commercial filmed in the UK, but also in a recent Coca-Cola commercial filmed in Pakistan and India.
The attention major corporations give to religion, while surprising, is understandable given that religion and believers contribute substantially to economies, as shown in a recent global study produced for a World Economic Forum GAC. And just this weekend, Fox Business News reported on the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation’s recent study documenting the $1.2 trillion faith economy of the United States.