Use of Brand Heroes in Strategic Reputation Management: The Case of Bacardi, Adidas, and Daimler

Abstract

The last decade witnessed a renewal of historical approaches towards business management that emphasize the malleability of the past in order to serve the present. This chapter studies the use of heroes when organizations pursue strategic change, which the authors term hero-molding. The aim is to incorporate a postmodern approach towards the analysis of the representation of heroes within organizations. To explore the use of heroes, a framework of ways in which hero-molding could be established is developed and tested by the use of a longitudinal document analysis. Data showed that hero-molding is a practiced phenomena and is used to showcase continuity, despite of strategic change. Hero-molding could be achieved through the editing of the composition and/or the meaning of labels and by help of highlighting labels attached to the hero. This chapter contributes to the enrichment of the newly developed “uses of the past” approach by showing the malleability of the interpretation of prominent members of an organization in the wake of strategic change.