Open Access

The present study deals with the topic how a town can use its cultural heritage or, more precisely, its industrial culture as a means to market itself as an innovative business location and to foster a more pronounced sense of civic cohesion among residents. Economic theory suggests that, nowadays, traditional location factors such as access to resources and a performant infrastructure are less important than in the industrial age. Recently, factors like a city’s potential to generate and retain human and creative capital have emerged. Accordingly, the economic and social role of cities has shifted – from a place where workers lived and manufactured goods towards a deeply interwoven ecosystem of knowledge-intense value creation. The question at the root of the present study is how Heidenheim’s rich industrial cultural heritage can be used as a future-pointing source of power for rebranding the town. This rebranding concept has to be developed according to the town’s role in past, present and future, thus creating actual economic and societal value. Industrial culture bears branding potential and is closely related to various aspects of modern life and work. The study examines possibilities to create awareness for these relations connecting past, present and future. Their relevance shall be emphasized in order to establish both points of orientation and authenticity of place in times when macroeconomic and societal trends are difficult to predict. Ideally, residents shall be given a sort of local identification to hold on to, and potential investors and entrepreneurs shall be encouraged to sustainably experience the innovation-based DNA of Heidenheim. Therefore, the study searches for a value proposition that takes into account the points mentioned above on terms of an innovative theoretic framework. As a result of this thesis, precise suggestions for the implementation of a new branding strategy based on the conceptual guidelines developed in this study will be proposed to the municipality of Heidenheim and, in addition, an interface using principles of virtual and augmented reality will be introduced.