Marketing Communications

ADVERTISING AND BRAND CONFUSION 105

Advertising and brand confusion

The goal of advertising is to stimulate demand for the brand advertised. However, similar

products and similar advertising appeals may generate brand confusion, which in turn

can lead to an increase in sales of a competitor’s instead of the advertiser’s brand. Therefore,

attention should be devoted to how brand confusion can be avoided by finding out which

factors are most likely to cause it.

Brand confusion refers to the fact that a communication for brand X is regarded by the

consumer as being a communication for a different brand, Y.^128 In other words, the consumer

attributes a wrong brand name to a particular communications stimulus. Besides brand

confusion, product confusion can also occur. Product confusion is the phenomenon of

attributing a stimulus to the wrong product category. A consumer might, for instance, think

that a particular ad is for a bank, while it is in fact for an insurance company. Furthermore,

a distinction has to be made between positive and negative brand confusion.^129 Negative

brand confusion refers to the extent to which a consumer wrongly thinks that your advertis-

ing message is an ad for a competitor’s brand, while positive confusion is about wrongly

assuming that a competitor’s communications campaign is actually a campaign for your

brand. It has to be added, though, that positive confusion is not necessarily positive, since

the confusion with another brand can harm the current or desired positioning or image

of your brand.

A study^130 regarding facial care products and perfumes shows that brand confusion is

a serious problem. Up to 35% of the people who thought they knew which brand was

advertised in an ad in which the brand name was covered, actually confused brands. Another

study^131 investigated correct attribution for print ads. For several of the print ads tested,

correct brand attribution came to less than 10%. Especially for insurance companies, banks

and facial care products, correct brand attribution is low, while for clothing and beer some of

the brands are able to get a correct recognition score of 50%. It has to be added, though, that

the low numbers in the latter study do not completely relate to brand confusion, since the

people who did not have the faintest idea are also included in the analyses. However, the

latter group was excluded in the former study.

A number of factors can cause brand confusion (Figure 3.11). Examples are brand and

product category-related, consumer-related, message and campaign-related factors. As for

brand and product category-related factors, brand name similarity, reduced inter-brand

Figure 3.11 Factors affecting brand confusion

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