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The purpose of this paper is to further understanding of the roles that time and context play in consumers’ evolving brand image construction processes over time.

This exploratory, qualitative research is based on the analysis and interpretation of 164 online consumer narratives pertaining to the consumers’ most memorable coffee moments.

Consumers build images of a brand through both fleeting moments over time linked to special occasions and everyday moments in their lives over time. Understanding image construction processes thus must go beyond just physical (location) and psychological (social) circumstances. Activity processes (“When I am doing […]”) also are central to this understanding.

Time and context emerge as key determinants of consumers’ brand image processes and should hence be explicitly recognised in branding research. This study focuses only on brand admirers; because the study context refers to a business-to-consumer product, the focus is the product brand.

Considering the key role of memorable past moments (time and context) in consumers’ brand image construction processes, branding strategies should reflect systematic efforts to identify these moments. Such an approach can provide opportunities for companies to deepen their consumer understanding and achieve a favourable presence in consumer contexts during which brand images get constructed.

This study identifies key dimensions of time and context and thus furthers understanding of these dimensions in relation to brand images.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a tool for mapping how consumers' past experiences influence the consumer's present corporate brand image.

A qualitative approach was used for analysing in‐depth conversational interviews collected on three IKEA markets (Sweden, Finland, and Germany).

The study shows that the tool gives an understanding of how past and present brand experiences are inter‐dependent.

The paper gives management an insight into consumers' perspectives of their corporate brand.

The value of the paper is that it offers a practical tool for mapping the roots of companies' current corporate brand images.

The aim of this paper is to discuss how corporate brand images evolve in consumers' everyday life and its implications for the company's branding strategies.

A conceptual discussion and a framework are presented that maps four alternative views on corporate brand images and market dynamics in relation to corporate branding.

Corporate brand evolution is suggested as a way of including consumers' everyday brand image constructions and re‐constructions in a company's branding strategy. Corporate brand evolution is based on two new concepts: image heritage and image‐in‐use. A model for understanding evolving strategic corporate branding is proposed.

The proposed view on evolving corporate brands is deliberately developed for understanding open source brand dynamics in ever‐changing markets. This paper is limited to make a conceptual contribution. Therefore, research implications are to develop empirically the understanding of image‐in‐use and image heritage in various business contexts.

An understanding on how brands evolve over time has two major practical implications for companies. First, companies need to develop new approaches and methods to understanding how brands evolve over time. For example, by investigating the consumer' image heritage of the company. This may enhance considerably possibilities for open branding strategies that meet consumer reality to be developed.

The two new concepts, image heritage and image‐in‐use, and the novel approach of evolving corporate brand images are important as they are based on a new consumer understanding, recognizing that consumers' corporate image constructions are dynamic ever‐changing processes and not static end‐states.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss and identify consumer-brand relationships in a luxury brand context. The focus is on consumer-brand relationship forms emerging in relation to step-down line extensions of luxury brands. The study is positioned within fashion industry.

A qualitative research approach is adopted analyzing data from 13 open consumer interviews. Photo collages of luxury brands and their step-down line extension logos were used as inspiration for informants in the interviews.

Findings show that consumer-brand relationships mostly follow earlier identified consumer-brand relationships. However, five new relationship types (status, inspirational, impulse, rewarding and turncoat) are identified. All but status relationships can be generalized also to other contexts than the luxury brand context.

The study advances the understanding of luxury products and their step-down line extensions from a consumer perspective. However, due to the exploratory nature of the study the data are limited.

This study showed that step-down line extensions are not perceived as that important that they could not be replaced with another brand in the same product category. Informants often preferred step-down line extensions to parent brands due to their more suitable design, even when the informant was hypothetically asked if the opinion would change if economic issues were not a restraint. Managers are encouraged to analyze their brands based on a brand-relationship approach.

The study uses the concept consumer-brand relationship as a new way to understand how consumers relate to line extensions in a luxury brand context. The approach is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to explore ethical consumers' brand avoidance. The study contributes to brand-avoidance research by exploring what role consumers' ethical concerns play in their brand avoidance.

A qualitative approach is adopted by interviewing 15 active members of organizations that represent ethical concerns for the well-being of animals, the environment and humans.

The study indicates that consumers with a strong value-based perspective on consumption (such as ethical consumers) may reject brands in two different but interrelated ways. In essence, the study reveals characteristics of brand avoidance that have not been discussed in earlier research, in terms of two dimensions: persistency (persistent vs temporary) and explicitness (explicit vs latent).

The study shows the importance of considering the phenomenon of brand avoidance, as it may reveal fundamental challenges in the market. These challenges may relate to consumer values that have not been regarded as important or that have been thought of as relating only to a specific group of consumers.

The ethical consumers' views represent new insights into understanding brand avoidance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore ethical consumers' brand avoidance. The study contributes to brand-avoidance research by exploring what role consumers' ethical concerns play in their brand avoidance.

A qualitative approach is adopted by interviewing 15 active members of organizations that represent ethical concerns for the well-being of animals, the environment and humans.

The study indicates that consumers with a strong value-based perspective on consumption (such as ethical consumers) may reject brands in two different but interrelated ways. In essence, the study reveals characteristics of brand avoidance that have not been discussed in earlier research, in terms of two dimensions: persistency (persistent vs temporary) and explicitness (explicit vs latent).

The study shows the importance of considering the phenomenon of brand avoidance, as it may reveal fundamental challenges in the market. These challenges may relate to consumer values that have not been regarded as important or that have been thought of as relating only to a specific group of consumers.

The ethical consumers' views represent new insights into understanding brand avoidance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of inputs from consumers' past experiences of a company on their current image‐construction processes, in the context of non‐food retailing.

Research data were collected by a multi‐method combination of several different qualitative research methods from individuals selected by the theoretical sampling procedure. Analysis and interpretation conformed to a classic grounded theory approach.

It was found that consumer images generated by relevant past experience are a direct and influential input into real‐time corporate image formation. Two new theoretical concepts were identified, “image heritage” and “image‐in‐use”, respectively, distinguishing consumers' past‐based images from those they construct in real time. Image heritage is moderated by three principal variables: timespan of awareness, content of earlier experiences, and key temporal focus.

This study focused on the corporate image of non‐food retailers. Future research should broaden the context, to enhance understanding of image heritage and image‐in‐use, and yield useful conceptual generalisations.

Given that the consumer's view of the company's past plays an important role in their interpretation of its present corporate brand, branding strategy should be informed by a systematic effort to identify the probable components of that historical perception.

This study is the first to focus on the influence of the past on consumers' current corporate images. The constructs identified and the terminology novel, offering a radically new dimension to corporate image research.

The purpose of this paper is to test the validity and reliability of a META‐RELQUAL construct in Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish business relationships.

A total of 1,500 companies were involved. The Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish sampling frames each consisted of the 500 largest companies based upon revenue across multiple industries. The response rate was 38 percent.

The goodness‐of‐fit measures of the tested measurement model of the META‐RELQUAL construct were all found to be satisfactory within the recommended guidelines. The recommended guidelines for convergent, discriminant and nomological validity, as well as for construct reliability, were all well met. It is concluded that the measurement properties of the META‐RELQUAL construct applied in Finnish, Norwegian and Swedish business relationships indicate acceptable validity and reliability.

The tested META‐RELQUAL construct appears accurate for those Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish business relationships studied, but only further testing and comparisons will verify whether it can be seen as a valid, reliable measurement for other countries and their companies’ business relationships. Suggestions for further research are provided.

This international study is of managerial interest to executives since it provides a framework of constructs to be considered in corporate efforts to maintain satisfactory levels of relationship quality in Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish business relationships. It may also be applicable in other business relationships and in other countries.

This Nordic comparative study of a META‐RELQUAL construct contributes to theory since it outlines a higher‐order construct and measurement instrument benefitting other researchers and practitioners. It appears unique in making an international comparison of a tested measurement model of the META‐RELQUAL construct.

Consumers gift themselves with luxury fashion brands, yet the motives for self-gifting are not well understood. Whereas traditionally, self-gifting is defined as self-orientated in nature, luxury brands are seen as social statements, and self-gifting of luxury fashion brands that combine these two controversial areas is an interesting research topic. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue by exploring the self-gifting behaviour of consumers, in particular focusing on the personal motives of gifting oneself with luxury fashion brands.

The study takes a multi-qualitative approach involving a small (n=19) but rich sample. Data collection and analysis were triangulated to reduce researcher biases.

The study provides key dimensions for understanding consumers’ perceptions of luxury fashion brands and self-gifting motives (self and socially orientated). The findings reveal that reflections from others are part of the self-gifting phenomenon. It appeared that although self-orientated benefits and personally orientated motives trigger the self-gifting act, the act of actually purchasing explicitly luxury brands for oneself as a gift may be triggered by other-orientated benefits and socially orientated motives. The findings also imply that luxury holds a self-orientated aspect; luxury brands are not only purchased for socially orientated reasons but also for reasons related to oneself. In addition, the findings discuss the act of shopping, where the act can be perceived as a luxury experience and overrun the importance of the brand.

The findings provide insights to consumers’ gifting behaviour that may be valuable for retailers and fashion marketers as they plan for marketing activities related to their customers’ self-gifting.

Self-gifting represents a view of gifting that remains under-researched. This study uncovers the motives for gifting oneself with luxury fashion brands, a further sub-area in need for more investigation.