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Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the emergence of a global luxury brand industry and discusses previous conceptualisations of luxury brands. In this endeavour, the study illustrates the unique context of luxury consumption, to highlight several developments in extant literature, and to advocate for the advancement of the consumer-centric paradigm of luxury branding.Design/methodology/approach– The study reviews the emergence of a global luxury brand industry, discusses macro-environmental trends that have influenced luxury brand consumption, critically evaluates the existing literature on luxury brands, and offers directions for future research.Findings– The study highlights that luxury brands have emerged as a special form of branding that conveys the unique sociocultural and individual meanings to their adherents. Moreover, it was found that these meanings have been shaped by a number of important cultural, social, and external trends, which call researchers and practitioners to consider the consumer-centric paradigm of luxury branding.Originality/value– The study calls for a shift in the focus from the characteristics of luxury brandsper se, and towards phenomenological experiences and socio-cultural influences, in the pursuits to understand what brand luxury conveys in the broader context of post-modern consumer culture. The study offers two distinct areas for future research to address these developments.

Computer games are now a significant consumption activity in consumer culture. Informed by interdisciplinary studies and drawing on data from in‐depth interviews with players of the Warcraft III computer game, we explore the relationship between play and storytelling during digital play. Understanding that such play is determined by systems of game rules and that computer game characters and settings are capable of conveying cultural meanings to players, we found that the rules of play in computer games can be designed in ways that encourage consumers to co‐create meaningful story plots derived from their knowledge of myth and fiction. In the case of Warcraft, these plots resembled the archetypal plot of the hero's journey. We conclude that computer games immerse consumers in a form of playful consumption that engages them in memorialised, co‐authored storytelling.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.