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Brands are facing key changes and challenges that need to be addressed from both the academic as well as the managerial perspectives. This paper aims to discuss some of them and revises the research agenda of the field of brand management.

Conceptual implications are drawn from the analysis and discussion of the papers of this special issue, as well as from previous literature.

In this global world in which brands are present in many different countries and operate in really diverse business sectors the classical brand management theories and many of their assumptions may need to be revised.

The paper discusses the key challenges that brands are facing and encourages academics to use the rich diversity of methodologies that they have at their disposal and that can be extremely helpful to address the future research agenda of this field.

There has been considerable research into the global phenomenon of luxury brand consumption, but relatively few studies have empirically explored key relationships influencing purchase intention. This research aims to consider the respective roles of social context, individual perception, and vanity, and to set these relationships within a broader theoretical context of the literature on possession and consumer identity.

The empirical study consisted of a large‐scale survey conducted among Chinese luxury brand consumers in Taiwan. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression.

The findings support the influence of the social context on purchase intention for luxury brands. There was weaker support for the role of perception. The experiential and functional aspects of luxury brand purchase were positively correlated with purchase intention, but symbolic value was not. Physical and achievement vanity had a positive impact on purchase intention while only achievement vanity had a moderating effect on perception.

This study offers new empirical support for the proposition that vanity has a role in luxury brand purchase intention and thereby shades both theoretical and managerial understanding of luxury brand consumption. It also suggests that symbolic value, which is highly influential in western conceptualizations of luxury brand meaning, needs to be re‐evaluated in the context of Chinese consumers.

This study offers new empirical findings which contribute to a re‐conceptualization of the antecedents of purchase intention in the area of luxury brand consumption. In particular, the study provides evidence of the roles of social context, perception and vanity in a Chinese consumption context to inform the primarily western models of luxury brand purchase intention.

This paper aims to report on a study into the antecedents of consumer brand preference, in the context of telecommunications service brands in Jordan.

A questionnaire‐based survey was used to gather attitudes towards brand preference and its antecedents in the context of mobile telecommunications service providers in Jordan. The questionnaire was distributed, in Arabic, to university students in Jordan, a group selected as being active users of mobile phone services; 648 completed questionnaires were received. Data were entered into SPSS. Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to identify the antecedents of brand preference. Multiple regression was conducted in order to investigate the relative impact of the identified factors on brand preference.

Factor analysis identified 11 antecedents of brand preference; these can be theoretically clustered into three groups: awareness antecedents (controlled communication (advertising), and uncontrolled communication (publicity, word of mouth)); image antecedents (service value attributes (price, quality), provider attributes (brand personality, country of origin, service (employee + location)), and corporate status (corporate image, corporate reputation)); and, customer attribute antecedents (satisfaction, perceived risk, and reference group). Multiple regression showed the contribution of each of these antecedents to brand preference.

This paper contributes to theorise by proposing and testing one of the first holistic models to integrate consideration of many of the antecedents of brand preference.

Brand heritage is acknowledged as one of the future priorities in branding research. Adopting it in an international context is challenging. In order to maximise its use it is necessary to know how strong it and the target country's cultural heritage are. Accordingly, the aim of the study is to construct a pioneering operationalisation of both brand and cultural heritage.

The study begins with a discussion on the focal concepts. Definitions are proposed and suggestions for operationalisation put forward. Thereafter, the concepts are applied in an analysis of brand heritage in different countries.

It is suggested that brand heritage is a mixture of the history as well as the consistency and continuity of core values, product brands, and visual symbols. A country's cultural heritage could be conceived of as homogeneity and endurance.

The preliminary operationalisation of the concept needs to be further tested. Nevertheless, the clarification and suggestions offered here should open up opportunities for further research.

The exploitation of brand heritage in international markets is likely to be further accentuated. The operationalisations generated are easy for practitioners to apply, enabling companies to better evaluate what brand heritage means for them and to effectively plan its use in an international setting.

To the authors' knowledge, this study is the first to suggest operationalisations of brand heritage and cultural heritage.

This paper aims to answer two questions: According to research carried out in the last decades, what are the factors that influence materialism in children? And, can these factors be classified in a comprehensive conceptual framework?

The paper reviews the most cited articles on the topic published in academic journals during the last 35 years, as well as a selection of articles in specific journals published during the last ten years.

A conceptual framework is provided which classifies the factors in three groups: individual factors, semi-contextual factors (family related) and contextual factors (external influences).

The classification helps to understand how the factors relate to each other, and is intended to be a tool for parents, educators and policy makers willing to understand how to deal effectively with materialism in children.

As far as is known, this paper is the first attempt to classify the factors that influence materialism in children in a conceptual framework.

The aim of this study is to deepen the understanding of luxury consumption by comparing the meanings and the attributes of counterfeit branded products and luxury goods.

This study is an interpretative qualitative research in which the meanings and essence of luxury and counterfeit goods are uncovered by written stories. The photo‐ethnographical method was used to generate the stories.

Consumers regard both luxury goods and counterfeits as being at different levels and of different quality ranging from poor to excellent. Counterfeits possess mainly social meanings, whereas authentic luxury goods may also operate on a personal level. However, consumers do not perceive luxury and counterfeit branded products as counterparts; counterfeits can be regarded as the embodiment of luxury, whereas non‐brand products are rather the opposite. Moreover, the existence of authenticity is perceived to be a vital connective and distinctive factor among luxury and counterfeit branded products.

The research aspires to shed light on the essence of counterfeit and luxury goods by comparing them in an effort to gain better understanding of the luxury phenomenon as a whole.

The present paper seeks to analyse the role of brand images in consumer practices for uncovering brand strength.

By employing a qualitative approach, data are analysed based on three elements that constitute the practices: objects (what tools or resources are required in the practice), images involved, and competences (what competences does the practice require).

The authors suggest practices as an additional unit of analysis for understanding brand strength based on image. Towards this end, the paper identifies and systematically categorises consumer practices and proposes that consumers develop novel and personal practices related to brands. The findings reveal embedded brand strength in mundane, routinised practices.

The paper presents a novel approach for understanding the past (image heritage) and current (image‐in‐use) dimensions of brand images and their embeddedness in consumer practices.

This paper aims to develop and empirically test a conceptual framework explaining the influence of the sales force on brand equity relative to the product and promotion elements of the marketing mix, in the context of business‐to‐business marketing.

Six research hypotheses, relating to the effects of four key drivers of B‐to‐B brand equity identified in a review of the relevant literature, were empirically tested with a sample of 201 respondents in B‐to‐B firms in Germany, using partial least squares analysis.

The results confirm the high relevance of the sales force to the building and maintenance of a strong B‐to‐B brand. The most important driver of brand equity in this environment is the salesperson's behaviour, followed in sequence by his or her personality, product quality and non‐personal marketing communications.

The sample size permits only a general analysis and conclusions. The choice of PLS analysis and formative scales limits the rigorousness of scale and model evaluation. The decision to interview one manager per company may have introduced informant bias.

The study identifies controllable variables that are critical to the effective management of a B‐to‐B brand and offers an alternative approach to the measurement of brand equity in B‐to‐B marketing.

This is the first study to test the widely claimed influence of the sales force on B‐to‐B brand equity empirically, developing a simple but powerful framework to integrate sales management and brand management in this context.