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Technological innovation has been a highly significant engine of economic growth, and will continue to be a critical factor in the future. It plays a crucial role in maintaining competitiveness in international trade, in finding substitute goods and processes to replace those that are affected by increasing scarcities or are environmentally objectionable, and in ensuring the long‐term viability of firms in dynamic industries such as electronics, aerospace, defence, computers, pharmaceuticals and communications. These are issues of major importance in industrialised nations today.

This paper aims to offer an example of a comprehensive mid-nineteenth century branding strategy in practice.

The paper follows a historical research methodology using archival resources and secondary sources within a conceptual framework of present-day branding theory (Bastos and Levy) and communication theory (Perloff). It interrogates visual and material data to construct a production-led examination of the development of a company brand.

The examination of the material suggests, first, that the company developed a sophisticated, multi-dimensional, multi-functional and materially coherent branding system. Second, it demonstrates that such a system represents an early example of a strategic practice that many scholars have considered to have arisen only in the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. Third, it provides evidence that the origin, if not always the implementation, of the strategy lay with one man, Edward Gibbon Wakefield.

This paper is novel in its use of visual and material culture artifacts to demonstrate the intentions of those who produced them. It also offers an example of practice in an area that is often only explored in theory. It will be of interest to cultural, marketing, visual and material culture historians.

Edward Bellamy’s famous 1888 best‐seller Looking Backward imagined a paradisal world where social and economic problems of poverty, strife, class, and war were eliminated through a Utopian political economy based on socialist principles. What makes Bellamy’s thought compelling for marketing scholars is his emphasis on the consumer, his focus on equality as the vehicle for societal transformation, and his analysis of the role consumer desire, envy, and greed play in generating strife and strain. Thus, his Utopian vision seems to have much in common with the mantra of the modern marketing machine – happiness is material, and your credit card is your ticket to the good life. However, his vision of the good life is largely at odds with the market economy’s version. This paper examines the man behind a uniquely consumer oriented socialist paradise and suggests that his writings have left an inspiring legacy that marketing academics might find insightful.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions presented in this special section on the selfie phenomenon and its significance for marketing practice and scholarship.

The significance of the topic is reviewed and themes related to the selfie phenomenon and marketplace issues are discussed in connection with extant research. The contributions of each paper are briefly highlighted and discussed.

Although the selfie is a relatively new phenomenon, both marketing practice and scholarship have noticed its prominence in consumer lives and potential for generating marketplace insights. Despite its frequently presumed triviality, the selfie is a multifaceted phenomenon of significance to key marketing areas such as branding, consumer behavior or market research. Possible avenues for future research are outlined.

Key issues relating to research into the selfie phenomenon for marketing scholars are illuminated.

In the third of a series of articles on the sacred cows of education Michael Pollard looks at the National Foundation for Educational Research.

Global leadership research published in the form of journal articles, scholarly book chapters, and theses and dissertations from 2015 to 2020 are tabulated to ascertain patterns in the field regarding the quantity of publication in the field, type of research being conducted, authorship patterns, type of theory that is utilized, and linkages of research to related phenomena. We compare our findings to previous research and discuss implications for the future evolution of the global leadership field.

The authors provide an understanding of how the hero identity is culturally constructed and evolving. The authors focus on heroism within an arts marketing framework through an interrogation of Northern Ireland murals. In this paper, the authors elaborate on the links between arts marketing thought and the notion of hero and draw conclusions around what the authors see as a fruitful area for arts marketing theory.

The authors have adopted a narrative approach, incorporating biographical method, visual analysis and ethnography in interpreting cultural murals. The authors assess representative examples in Northern Ireland using a thematic framework.

The murals the authors assessed have evolved from having a specific community focus to increasing numbers which now represent a “shared”, and therefore more modern version of the hero.

The authors identify an emerging, aesthetically balanced portrayal of cultural murals, with a different set of heroic priorities compared to the past, which should encourage further related research elsewhere.

Northern Ireland murals are no longer the preserve of specific communities and are now also shared spaces which appeal to both the local population and cultural tourists.

Although analysis and evaluation of political murals has been carried out in other disciplines, the authors add to the limited insight from an arts marketing perspective.