Abstract

Few studies in marketing and family business literature have examined the influence of the family in building and communicating brand identity of long lasting family firms operating in the wine industry. The present study aims to fill this gap through a multiple case study of four century old family wineries located in the Oltrep. Pavese wine region (North-West of Italy). We illustrate brand identity building and communication of long lasting family wineries along two focal dimensions: a family-based (FB) and a wine heritage-based (Whb). We could map four brand identity building categories and modes of communication − viz. emotion-based, individual-based, family-based and productbased − according to the relative importance of each of the two mentioned dimensions on firm's brand associations.