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Article history:
Received 19 March 2014
Received in revised form
16 September 2014
Accepted 21 September 2014
We investigate the concept of the heritage store, that is, the locations that lies at the heart of a brand's
identity and history. Based on store observations and interviews with managers and sales personnel in
the luxury industry, we analyze the characteristics of heritage stores and their role in the management of
heritage brands. We show how managers sacralize a store's heritage to nurture the value proposition of
the brand. Our analysis yields new insights into retailing, introducing the concept of the heritage store
and emphasizing its sacralizalization. We outline the implications for retail marketing in developing and
maintaining the sacralization of heritage stores.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Heritage brand
Heritage store
Luxury
Sacralization
Myth
Ritual
Our empirical setting is the luxury industry. Drawing on interviews with professionals and observations conducted online and in
stores, we analyze the characteristics of heritage stores and their
role in the management of heritage brands. We show how managers sacralize store heritage to nurture the value proposition of the
brand. Similarly to sacralization in a religious context, the sacralization of heritage brands is institutionalized through a set of mythical
narratives, ritual practices, and symbolic boundaries (Wunenburger,
1981). This study contributes to the literature on heritage brands by
introducing the concept of the heritage store and analyzing how
companies sacralize these stores to nurture their heritage. We also
outline the implications for retail marketing in developing and
maintaining the sacralization of heritage stores.
1. Theoretical background
To begin to study the management of heritage stores, we
present our understanding of key constructs, e.g. heritage brand
and sacralization.
1.1. Heritage brands
Aaker (1996) mentioned heritage as a component of brand equity
but the concept has been developed more recently and now
constitutes a distinct conceptual category (Hudson, 2013). Heritage
brands make their heritage part of a brand's value proposition and
identity (Clais, 2002; Dion and de Boissieu, 2013; Urde et al., 2007).
Their heritage holds value for the customer and other stakeholders,
distinguishes the brand, is difcult for competitors to imitate, and
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2. Methodology
We focus on the luxury industry to understand the management of heritage brands (Clais, 2002; Kapferer and Bastien, 2008)
because it is an extreme case (Eisenhardt, 1989). Heritage is
crucial for many luxury brands, as it brings an element of
authenticity and uniqueness (Clais, 2002; Fionda and Moore,
2009). These brands emphasize their history as a key component
of their brand identity (Kapferer and Bastien, 2008; Lipovetsky and
Roux, 2003).
To analyze heritage stores, we adopted an inductive approach,
an emergent and interactive research process rooted in ongoing
engagement with the eld of retail action (Glaser and Strauss,
1967; Hudson and Ozanne, 1988). Our analysis is built on continuous comparisons between the data collected through eld
observations and interviews with experts, inductive analysis of
data, and the scrutiny of these data through a number of
conceptual lenses (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). Since we do not
study consumers' experiences and perceptions but the way rms
identify the way these four heritage stores are staged on websites.
We downloaded web pages where these four locations were mentioned. We also collected the annual reports of the three main
conglomerates in the luxury industry (LVMH, Kiering, and Richmond).
We observed the way companies refer to their heritage stores in these
ofcial documents. We analyzed the documents collected using the
interpretative frames provided by our informants (Schroeder, 2002)
and our theoretical lens. We tried to identify elements that were
consistent and inconsistent and those that we could not understand
from our rst analysis (Dion et al., 2014).
We ended the data collection by visiting 37 luxury stores in
Shanghai, located in the city's most important luxury shopping
centers (Hong Kong Plaza and Plaza 66). Our goal was to identify
connections with heritage stores. We wanted to see how heritage
stores are staged in other stores. This new round of data collection,
combined with a fresh literature review, allowed us to propose a
rened theoretical analysis.
3. Results
First, we highlight the characteristics of heritage stores and
their role in the management of heritage brand. Then, we analyze
the sacralization of heritage stores.
3.1. Heritage stores
All our informants spontaneously evoked the importance of
heritage in the luxury industry and all talked about the brands'
historic stores, which we call heritage stores. They explained that
these locations have a specic aura:
The store on Avenue Montaigne is really an integral part of the
Dior myth because Christian Dior was there. The rst fashion
shows were there; everything came from there. You can see the
entire collection there, even the most extravagant pieces. It's a
mythical place It is as if you were at M. Dior's tomb. So these
stores keep the traces of something that has gone, but more
than that they embody the brand, since you see the full
commercial range there. So I think these shops have a super
special status for sure. (Claude, marketing)
Claude describes Dior's heritage store as a mythical location.
She stresses the legendary dimension of the place and the way it
embeds the history and the identity of the brand. The historic
dimension of the store creates a special aura. Similarly, many
brands present their heritage store as a legendary or a mythic
location (online observations).
In Paris, many heritage stores combine history and savoir-faire
which are part of the brand heritage because most are linked to
haute-couture or haute-joaillerie (high-jewelry) workshops. This
proximity with the workshops reinforces the aura of heritage
stores. For instance, the Chanel store on Rue Cambon is located
above the haute-couture workshops directed by Karl Lagerfeld and
Coco Chanel's apartment, so it is at the heart of both the history
and the know-how of the brand. This close relationship is
symbolized in many different ways in the store. At one end, an
imposing staircase allows access to the haute-couture workshops
and Coco Chanel's apartment where she used to sit to observe
what was going on in the store. This emblematic staircase is used
in many commercials and videos. Coco Chanel's portrait hangs at
the end of the hall (eld notes). Thus, heritage stores in Paris have
a double dimension that situates them at the heart of the history
and identity of the brand.
The aura of heritage stores is so strong that informants qualify
them as legendary, mythic, and even sacred. For instance, describing Louboutin's heritage store, a Vogue journalist talked about the
79
80
Fig. 1. Memories of the founder: the Dior heritage store on Avenue Montaigne (left) and the Cartier heritage store on the Rue de la Paix (right).
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Fig. 2. Iconic features of Dior's Avenue Montaigne heritage store reproduced at Plaza 66 in Shanghai.
Fig. 3. Iconic features of the Chanel heritage store reproduced at the Paris fashion shows in 2009 (left) and 2010 (right).
3.2.3. Prohibitions
In heritage stores, some areas are not freely accessible to the
public. Customers cannot penetrate the heart of the sacred place, that
is, the haute-couture or high-jewelry workshops. At Chanel, this
prohibition is reinforced by the presence of a guard who monitors
access to the workshops and Coco Chanel's apartment upstairs (eld
notes). No doubt there are practical and strategic reasons for this but
more fundamentally this prohibition has a very important symbolic
signicance: we cannot have access to sacred places and objects.
Etymologically, sacred means separated, isolated (Laburthe-Tolra and
Warnier, 2003). Durkheim (1915) notes that sacred things are
protected and isolated by several prohibitions. Similarly, in a Catholic
church, we cannot have access to the tabernacle: it is a place reserved
for the servants of God. Prohibitions preserve the magic that
surrounds sacred places (Wunenburger, 1981).
However, some brands open these sacred places under certain
conditions and organize visits. For example, Chanel VIP buyers are
sometimes invited to visit Coco Chanel's apartment. These visits
are part of a ritual staging of the holiness of a place. For instance,
here is an account by Alix in her blog The Cherry blossom girl of her
visit to Coco Chanel's apartment after the release of the Coco
Cocoon collection:7
Coco Chanel's apartment at 31 Rue Cambon may be very well
guarded but I was granted the amazing privilege of passing
through the front door. This awe-inspiring home is lled with
trinkets, Chinese art, various vintage furniture, a lot of gold, and
even camel statuettes! The atmosphere was so warm and cozy
that I really felt as if I was in my own home, and could almost
envision myself settling down on the couch (all which did not
happen, of course That would have been sacrilegious!)
7
http://www.thecherryblossomgirl.com/chez-coco-chanel/10671/ (accessed
13.02.14.).
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Table 1
The sacralization of heritage locations.
Places
Myths
Rituals
4. Discussion
In this analysis, we investigate the concept of the heritage
store. We analyze the characteristics of heritage stores and their
role in the management of heritage brands. We show how
managers sacralize heritage stores to nurture the value proposition of the brand. This analysis of heritage stores gives new
insights into retailing and provides another response to the
legitimacy crisis of luxury goods after the strategic extensions of
luxury brands into mass marketing: the charismatic persona of the
creative director (Dion and Arnould, 2011) and heritage stores are
both specic attributes of luxury goods that can be grown and
managed carefully.
4.1. Heritage stores
We dene heritage stores as locations that lie at the heart of a
brand's identity and history. Our ndings show that heritage
stores are key in the management of heritage brands. Heritage
stores are different from other places where the history of the
brand is staged, such as agship stores (Kozinets, 2002) or brand
museums (Hollenbeck et al., 2008) because they are part of the
heritage of the brand.
Our research shows that luxury brands use sacred codes to
sacralize these locations. Similar to sacralization in a religious context,
the sacred is institutionalized through a set of myths, rituals, and
prohibitions. Through these practices, brands embed their heritage
store at the heart of their brand myths and rituals. Our informants
describe the heritage store as the place from which everything
originates, a message conrmed by the brands themselves in a variety
of ways. As LVMH puts it, heritage stores are the epicenter of a brand.
presentations at the 2009 and 2010 Paris fashion shows. Interpersonal rituals also involve the heritage location. For instance,
salespeople stress the proximity with the creative workshops, and
the emblematic decorative features of the place, etc. In these
heritage stores, they have more opportunities to emphasize the
sale ritual than in other brand outlets.
Finally, it is important to dene accessibility to preserve the
mystery that is part of the sacred aura (Table 1). Brand managers
have to specify areas that are inaccessible to public and manage
conditions of access to them: who will be authorized, on what
conditions, at which times or periods, and according to which
ritual.
4.3. Avenues for future research
Future research could explore practices of sacralization in more
detail. This might include investigating how brands can also build
on a place without any symbolic or historical signicance. One
example is Prada's current strategy. Each store is designed to be an
epicenter (Prada Epicenter is in fact the name of the stores in New
York and Tokyo) and provides the opportunity to develop a unique
store concept. Since the Prada agship store opened in New York
in 2001, each outlet is now conceived as a large-scale architectural
project employing star architects. The race for originality, and the
importance of architectural budgets managed by the brand, allows
the realization of increasingly atypical concepts, which are commercially very attractive and become the brand's new sacred
places. Prada has created a pilgrimage circuit across the planet
with four key places: its stores in Milan, Tokyo, New York, and Los
Angeles. Future research could explore this mode of sacralization
and investigate how brands integrate these locations into their
own myths. It would also be interesting to understand how brands
embed the gure of the architect within their mythology.
Our ndings analyze the management of heritage stores. Future
research could study how consumers experience these places and
the impact of their experience on luxury consumption. This would
allow us to gure out more clearly the state of liminality that
distances the shopping experience from everyday experiences and
how consumers navigate different layers of ambiguity. Further, the
sacralization process requires consumers to behave in a certain
way in heritage stores; this is visible in customers' behavioral
changes (not running, speaking quietly, respecting forbidden
zones, etc.). In this way, luxury brands exert a form of power over
the client (Cervellon, 2013; Kapferer and Bastien, 2008). Therefore,
future research could study how consumers experience these
constraints and forms of domination. Some retail places create
emotional attachment with their consumers in a variety of ways,
including familiarity, authenticity, homeliness, informality,
behind-the-scenes access, condentiality, and activities known
only to a small group (Debenedetti et al., 2014; Visconti, 2008).
In luxury stores, we did not notice any feelings of homeliness or
familiarity. In contrast, we noticed the opposite: behind-thescenes access is denied except for extraordinary events, access to
different areas of the store is controlled, and customers change
their behavior when entering the store. Future research could
explore the specic nature of attachment to these places.
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