Consumer Brand Confusion: The Prevalence, Cause, and Impact of Misperception of Market Leader and Market Pioneer Brands

Abstract

This study introduces the issue of consumer brand confusion. Consumer brand confusion occurs when consumers misperceive key product category facts. In this study, the focus is on the category elements of market leadership and market pioneership. Both are important, positive brand characteristics. But what if consumers misidentify which brands are the leaders and which are the pioneers? Then the advantages of those attributes would flow to the wrong brands, the ones misidentified as leader or pioneer. The seriousness of this problem depends on the prevalence of such misperception. The first step in the study will be to empirically assess how positive being the market leader or market pioneer is with consumers. The causes of misperception are also studied. Managerial actions to reduce misperception are investigated; specifically, how best to communicate leadership or pioneership in an ad or on a package label.