From the past to the future - heritage based brand positioning in emerging markets

Abstract

Introduction and background. The symbol for the Holy Roman Empire has its roots in a vision that Constantine, the Roman emperor had of a red cross before the battle of Saxa Rubra in 312 AD. More recently Aaker (1991) talks about “Old Smuggler” whisky capitalising on the quality of illegal bootleggers and their highly desirable distillation process!! “All brands have a history. Some brand have a heritage. And a few have made their heritage a valuable corporate asset.” (Urde, Greyser and Balmer, 2007) Brand heritage is packed with awesome potential power. However, the potential has to be identified, harnessed and managed as expressed by Balmer (2013), “the notion that heritage can meaningfully pertain to extant-to “living –entities” is either not understood or perhaps, is not explored”. In this research we intend to identify ‘heritage’ that resides in selected brands in the emerging Indian market.