Product or corporate-focused? Emotional or detached storytelling? Corporate heritage communication strategies in long lasting iconic companies.

Heritage marketing is defined as the set of tools firms use to exploit the heritage of a brand, with the main goal of building and maintaining competitive advantage. Corporate heritage communication includes the activities firms implement to communicate heritage – e.g. advertising, sponsorship, webpages, public relations. Although the acknowledgment that communicating the history and core values of the company helps firms in gaining competitive advantage, how companies communicate heritage in their communication marketing activities is still unexplored. By investigating the corporate heritage communication strategies of nine iconic Italian brands - Pastificio Lucio Garofalo S.p.A., Barovier & Toso Vetrerie Artistiche Riunite S.r.l., Barilla Group S.p.A., Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A., Montenegro S.r.l., Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V., Bonomelli S.r.l., Olivetti S.p.A., Illycaffè S.p.A., this study contributes to the field of heritage marketing and corporate communication by analyzing the different ways in which long standing companies communicate heritage. The multiple case study let emerge that heritage marketing communication strategies are not homogenous but differ according to the strategic objective of the communication campaign. Strategies vary also along two dimensions: the level of emotional involvement of the consumer and the focus of the content, i.e. product- or corporate-focused. Authors labelled these strategies as heritage for authenticity, heritage for market leadership, heritage for transparency.