This special issue of the Journal of Product & Brand Management adds to the ongoing intense academic and practical discussion dedicated to the topic of brands as relationship builders in the consumer market. This issue contains twelve papers, half of them stem from the journal's regular submissions and the other half from work originally presented at the 5th International Consumer Brand Relationships Conference (www.consumerbrandrelationship.com) held at the Porto Business School in Portugal. From the 12 papers of this special issue seven focus on brands as relationship builders at an individual level, while the other five focus on the contribution of brands in the development of relationships at a collective level.The contributions in this particular issue further expand our understanding of consumers' relationships with brands by approaching brands as relationship builders and as relationship facilitators at both the individual and collective levels. The overall aim of this editorial is to discuss the state of the current research on brands as relationship builders, and to update previous research that covered the development of the literature on brand relationships between 1998 and 2010.