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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 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 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 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 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.

This conceptual paper aims at developing a customer-centric marketing communications approach that takes the starting point in the customer ecosystem.

After a critical analysis of existing marketing communications and integrated marketing communication (IMC) approaches, a customer-driven view of marketing communications is developed using recent developments in relationship communication, customer-dominant logic and the notion of customer value formation as value-in-use.

A customer-integrated marketing communication (CIMC) approach centred on a communication-in-use concept is conceptually developed and introduced. The analysis results in a CIMC model, where a customer in his or her individual ecosystem, based on integration of a set of messages from different sources, makes sense of the many messages he or she is exposed to.

The paper presents a customer-driven perspective on marketing communication and IMC. The analysis is conceptual and should trigger future empirical grounding. It indicates the need for a change in mindset in research.

CIMC requires a turnaround in the mindset that steers how companies and their marketers communicate with customers. The CIMC model provides guidelines for planning marketing communication.

The customer-driven communication-in-use concept and the CIMC model challenge traditional inside-out approaches to planning and implementing marketing communication.

Cause-related marketing (CrM) is one of the effective marketing concepts which draw high public exposure and make the cause and the organization known in the market. Further, it develops a higher inclination of the customers associating themselves with CrM-related campaigns. In this regard, CrM campaigns generally take hedonic products into consideration. The purpose of this paper (comprises two studies) is to: study 1, examine the attributes leading to successful CrM campaign and afterward when the results of Study 1 were found in line with the existing literature; and, Study 2, empirically examine the consumer preference for hedo-utilitarian products type in the CrM context.

A total of 316 respondents participated in the survey. For selecting the appropriate research technique under the CrM study, the systematic review was conducted to arrive at a decision. Finally, conjoint analysis, a decompositional approach, was used for its ability to provide real-world setup to the respondents and keeping the social desirability bias at the minimum while assessing the consumer preference in the context of CrM.

Much literature is available in favor of using hedonic products for successful CrM activities. However, none has conceptualized the hedo-utilitarian products that have an equally fair chance to succeed under CrM strategy. The present study confirmed the relevance of hedo-utilitarian products (utilitarian products having hedonic features) for attracting the consumers having cognitive and affective responses altogether.

The novel concept of hedo-utilitarian product is introduced and empirically examined. The propositions and findings will facilitate the organizations in developing the products and marketing strategies in the context of CrM, giving them the option beyond the two product categories, i.e. hedonic and utilitarian. Accordingly, the companies may also focus and strategize for the “causmers,” i.e. the consumers who pay heed to the cause of the campaign during the purchase.

While several of the dimensions in marketing have been explored, CrM is the least explored area in the Asian region. The attributes that may affect CrM were taken all together as another product feature/attribute under conjoint analysis exploring the attributes affecting CrM most, eventually, leading to higher consumer preference. Further, the concept of hedo-utilitarian products was introduced, empirically examined and recommended to future researchers for bringing it forward.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the knowledge infrastructure of destination food research based on a systematic literature review. This bibliometric analysis involves authors, institutions, countries and co-citation networks and discloses trending developments in the field.

This study is based on 176 articles published in hospitality and tourism journals during the period 2000–2018 and bibliometric data downloaded from the ISI Web of Science. This review applies bibliometric analysis, citation network analysis and content analysis to examine the structure and networks of destination food knowledge so as to provide destination food researchers with a reference guide to the context, methods and focus of previous studies.

The findings demonstrate the development and trends of destination food research. This is the first study to address the limitations of prior systematic literature reviews by applying network analysis to reveal the interrelated structures and properties of the destination food research domain.

Practitioners can also discover trends in the design of development strategies, as well as identify extended themes that may be integrated with research in the field of destination food at present.

As a summary of key characteristics, this report is a useful reference guide to previous studies for researchers. This study presents core content about the destination food field and identifies development trends within destination food research. Based on the results, further research directions are provided.

The purpose of this paper is to argue for the reflective use of visual techniques in qualitative inter-viewing and suggests using visuals not only as projective techniques to elicit answers, but also as facilitation techniques throughout the interview process.

By reflecting on their own research projects in organization and management studies, the authors develop a practical approach to visual interviewing – making use of both projective and facilitation techniques. The paper concludes by discussing the limitations of visualization techniques, and suggesting directions for future research on visually enhanced interviewing.

The integration of projective and facilitation techniques enables the interviewer to build rapport with the respondent(s), and to elicit deeper answers by providing cognitive stimulation. In the course of the interview, such an integrative approach brings along further advantages, most notably focusing attention, maintaining interaction, and fostering the co-construction of knowledge between the interviewer and the interviewee(s).

This paper is reflective of what is currently occurring in the field of qualitative interviewing, and presents a practical approach for the integration of visual projection and facilitation in qualitative interviews.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss how “the visual” might be conceptualised more broadly as a useful development of qualitative methodologies for organizational research. The paper introduces the articles that form the basis of this special issue of QROM, including a review of related studies that discuss the analysis of organizational visuals, as well as extant literature that develops a methodological agenda for visual organizational researchers.

The Guest Editors’ conceptual arguments are advanced through a literature review approach.

The Guest Editors conclude that studying “the visual” holds great potential for qualitative organizational researchers and show how this field is fast developing around a number of interesting image‐based issues in organizational life.

A future research agenda is articulated and the special issue that this paper introduces is intended to serve as a “showcase” and inspiration for qualitative researchers in organizations and management studies.

This issue of QROM is the first collection of visual research articles addressing business and management research. The Guest Editors’ introduction to it seeks to frame its contents in contemporary interdisciplinary debates drawn from the wider social sciences and the arts.