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Perceived brand longevity and brand heritage

Authors:

Abstract

This research aims to clarify how individuals interpret brand longevity. The result shows that it incorporates four dimensions related to brand heritage and to its components.
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PERCEIVED BRAND LONGEVITY AND BRAND HERITAGE
Nada Maaninou*
Assistant Professor of Marketing
EM Strasbourg Business School, Humanis
61 Avenue de la Forêt Noire, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France
Phone: +33 03 68 85 80 00
Email: nada.maaninou@em-strasbourg.eu
Richard Huaman-Ramirez
Assistant Professor of Marketing
EM Strasbourg Business School, Humanis
61 Avenue de la Forêt Noire, 67085 Strasbourg Cedex, France
Phone: +33 03 68 85 80 00
Email: richard.huaman@em-strasbourg.eu
*Corresponding author
Overview: This research aims to clarify how individuals interpret brand longevity. The result
shows that it incorporates four dimensions related to brand heritage and to its components.
Showcasing the longevity of brands has been a common communication strategy in recent
years used by companies to influence consumers’ behaviour. For instance, in 2011, Nivea
indicated in its “100 years” campaign the number of years that it took skincare of consumers:
“100 years skincare for life”. In the same way, Lindt communicates its longevity through its
founding date in the brand’s logo: “Lindt, Master Chocolatier Since 1845”. Both brands used
their longevity to show their level of expertise to consumers. These examples allow us to
justify the importance of studying brand longevity. In theoretical terms, brand longevity
refers to the number of years that a brand has been operating. It is a component of brand
heritage which is in turn a dimension of brand identity (Urde, Greyser and Balmer, 2007). In
this sense, brand longevity helps in the brand differentiation. Empirical studies showed that
brand longevity has an influence on the perceived risk and consumer preference (Desai, Kalra
and Murthi, 2008). However, the notion of longevity has only been conceptualized from a
chronological perspective. Unlike this literature and past research, our study focuses instead
on brand longevity from a perceptual perspective. We argue that the perception of longevity
depends on what consumers know about brands and how they use brand associations to infer
longevity. In the current research, a qualitative study is pursued in order to understand the
consumer perception of brand longevity. Four dimensions are settled: brand expertise, brand
globalness, brand pioneering and brand authenticity.
In our methodology, a list of 151 brands1 was submitted to ten participants (50% female, age
between 14 and 64 years) who were asked to estimate and rank each brand longevity on a
likert scale (1 [Very young] ; 7 [Very old]) with the following question : Based on your
personal opinion, how old is this brand ?”. Then, in-depth interviews were conducted to
discuss their answers.
1Top 100 global brands from « BrandZ 2014 » + A selection of leading brands on the French in 2014 (Sources:
http://www.millwardbrown.com/ ; http://www.lsa-conso.fr/).
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The thematic content analysis shows that brand longevity perceptions can be classified into
four categories. First, the brand expertise. Participants believe that brands with expertise,
production performance, good sales records and a strong market position must be old
established brands (e.g. Nivea is old because to me it is related to its expertise, good market
position and high sales”;Gap manufactures very good outfits, so they must know what they
do, they are experts in their field Gaëlle, 27 years). Second, the brand globalness.
Participants consider that global, well known and broadly implemented brands are therefore
the oldest (e.g. “Santander (bank) is quite old for me,.... wherever you go in the world you
will find this bank… and I believe that they needed time to be all over the world” Mathieu, 25
years). Third, the brand pioneering. For many participants, a brand that has been the first to
develop or create a specific concept is as a consequence the oldest one (e.g. “For me,
McDonald's is a pioneer in the fast-food category, they were the first to start this, so it must
be a very old brand” Gaëlle, 27 years). Fourth, the brand authenticity. Participants view
brands that show symbols of authenticity (e.g. respect of traditions, natural components, local
products) as being the oldest (e.g. “Palmolive is old because it does contain natural stuff,
such as olive oil, etc.” Marie, 27 years).
Perceived brand longevity signals a broad set of positive dimensions. These dimensions
converge with the “Innate Heritage” components as introduced by Hudson and Balmer (2013)
and based on Mead’s (1929) theory of time past. Perceived brand longevity relates to both
“structural heritage” including brand leadership (i.e. pioneering) and authenticity and
“implied heritage” with the brand expertise and, to some extent, reliability. This study gives
an empirical support to the theoretical link between brand heritage and its alleged
components. Furthermore, it introduces brand globalness as a new component. In fact, the
brand’s ability to expand into global markets can induce a substantial longevity that is
required to achieve such a performance (i.e. implied heritage). Hence, as global brands can
infer longevity, they may also infer brand heritage.
The current research reveals how perceived brand longevity can be relevant to brand heritage.
From a managerial perspective, this work presents key brand aspects able to infer longevity.
Managers should highlight or improve these aspects in order to increase their brand’s
perceived longevity and thus enhance their brand heritage.
KEY REFERENCES
- Desai, P.S., Kalra, A. and Murthi, B.P.S. (2008), When old is gold: the role of business
longevity in risky situations, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 72, No. 1, pp. 95-107.
- Hudson, B.T. and Balmer J.M. (2013), Corporate heritage brands: Mead’s theory of the
past, Corporate Communications: An International Journal, Vol. 18, Issue 3, pp. 347-361.
- Mead, G.H. (1929), “The nature of the past”, in Coss, J. (Ed.), Essays in Honor of John
Dewey: On the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, New York, NY, pp. 235-242.
- Urde, M., Greyser, S.A. and Balmer, J.M. (2007), Corporate brands with a heritage,
Journal of Brand Management, 15(1), pp 4-19.
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