Brand Narratives: Content And Consequences Among Heritage Brands

This study bridges the gap between the managerial view and the consumer view integrating research on storytelling with consumer perceptions of brand heritage. It identifies key elements of the stories told by managers of heritage product brands and consumer responses to these elements. Adopting a mixed-methods approach, four empirical studies (in-depth interviews with managers, content analysis of brand websites, a survey, and an experiment) provide evidence for relevant story elements, their use by heritage brand managers and their effects on consumers' responses. With several variables included as controls (consumer age, anxiety state, biological sex, brand familiarity, category involvement, category knowledge and verbal processing style), the findings indicate that brand managers' assumptions about the effectiveness of specific narrative elements do not entirely reflect consumer' responses to these elements. Managers (Studies 1 and 2) commonly employ the story elements of the date of foundation, people, technology, omni-temporality, struggle, and the place of foundation. While consumers (Studies 3 and 4) infer heritage from the brand's date of foundation, omni-temporality, and technology, the results are less unanimous for the story elements of people, struggle, and place of foundation.