The Limits of Brand Heritage in Luxury Advertising

Brand heritage is a valuable dimension for luxury brands' identities. Luxury brands are competing in creativity to develop strong storytelling communication campaigns aimed at disclosing rich imagery around their brand heritage. Literature has shown multiple positive results of such practices. This current paper is, however, identifying situations where the focus on brand heritage may not have the positive expected effects. In three experimental studies, we show that focusing the storytelling on brand heritage when advertising products perceived to be more connected to self (such as perfumes) can backfire and lead to less positive attitudes toward the communication campaign and lower intentions to purchase the product. Our results indicate that storytelling should focus on character when the product is perceived to be closer to the self. The focus on brand heritage however is efficient for products that are perceived to be less connected to the self (such as bags).