How can Corporate Heritage Brand Management Protect and Renew Brand Heritage?

Abstract

Corporate heritage brands represent a valuable source of insight into brand longevity. The complexity and omnitemporality of these entities present a unique set of managerial challenges. Therefore corporate heritage brands require a specific brand management approach. However, corporate heritage brands and their management are surprisingly under-researched. Moreover, in a corporate branding context the practices that protect and renew corporate brand heritage are unclear. However, the work of a few pioneering academics has been a source of inspiration and a theoretical foundation for this research. These studies include but are not limited to Urde et al (2007), Balmer (2011a, 2011b, 2013), Hakala et al (2011) and Hudson (2011). The context of this research is corporate heritage brands and its positioning is corporate heritage brand management. The research was comprised of two discrete studies. The aim of Study 1 was to examine how luxury organisations manage corporate heritage to recover and enhance the corporate heritage brand. Study 1 presents a longitudinal, retrospective study of two corporate heritage brands, Tiffany & Co. and Burberry that experience structural corporate heritage brand decline followed by recovery. The analyses of the cases identified turning points that delineated three periods, specifically the foundational years; an interval of crisis; and subsequent ascendance. Three brand constructs are significant, they underpin the rise, fall and rise of Tiffany and Burberry; brand vision, brand values and core competencies. The study demonstrates how long-established corporate heritage brands can overcome structural brand crisis, by restoring corporate heritage.