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Introduction
Brand personality was initially designed to be generic (Davies et al., 2018). The construct was applied to all brand contexts (Aaker, 1997). Brand personality has evolved to incorporate several new measurements for different contexts regarding location, culture and product, whether tangible or intangible (George and Anandkumar, 2018). The concept of brand personality cannot be separated from culture (Wilson and Grant, 2013) or religion (Ahmed and Jan, 2015). Several Muslim scholars have criticised Aaker’s (1997) former brand personality dimensions as irrelevant to the context of Muslim culture (Ahmed and Jan, 2015). In the Islamic context, Ahmed and Jan (2015) proposed a halal brand personality (HBP) that consists of several dimensions: sincerity, moderation, competence, simplicity, trustworthiness and moral character. Ahmad (2015) also introduced five other dimensions of HBP: purity, excitement, safety, sophistication and righteousness. Sound methodological approaches supported both studies.
This study uses a halal approach as part of the cultural or religious context of brand personality. Concerning health and hospital services, safety, purity and “sophistication” are essential attributes. Customers in the health-care sector are highly involved, anxious and require detailed information about medication or treatment. These customers significantly care about hospital brand personalities to avoid hospital services' wrong or false judgments. Visitors' perceptions of hospital HBP are influenced by how they evaluate the signals emitted from hospital brands. Similarly, by applying signalling and the stereotype content model (Davies et al., 2018), visitors may judge how universal the value of halal is in the hospital brand personality context. This judgment is significant when visitors are non-Muslims.
It is essential to compare Muslims and non-Muslims to identify the universality of the halal concept, particularly in Islamic hospital settings. Many believe that halal is exclusively intended for Muslim customers. However, Aji et al. (2020a, 2020b, 2020c) explained that the halal concept incorporates inclusiveness or universality. Wilson and Liu (2010) stated that “halal” as a term is more implicit and de facto. Customers still expect halal, regardless of their religious backgrounds. Hence, the concept of halal is not exclusively Islamic. The same assessment applies to halal and Islamic brand personalities. Although both are associated with and derived from Islam as a faith (Aji, 2019; Aji et al., 2020c), both have meaning and implications outside of...