Deliberately Causing Brand Confusion: State of the (Unfair) Art

Abstract

Brand Confusion is a time-worn yet highly relevant topic for marketers, researchers, and regulatory agencies because colossal and ever-increasing number of legal cases on brand confusion have kept them interested in it. This study aims to provide a commentary on worldwide scientific literature on brand confusion highlighting the evolution, advances, trends, and inter-connections. For this purpose, 200 documents on brand confusion published between 1985 and 2019 have been systematically reviewed using Bibliometrix, a software based on R Studio. This study contributes by presenting a snapshot of the extant research on brand confusion and by providing useful insights for practitioners and researchers in terms of managerial implications and directions for further research. This is the first study to explore a wide range of global interdisciplinary scholarly work on brand confusion and its causes.