Consumer Processual State of Confusion: Effects of colour similarity and brand familiarity

Abstract

Trademark litigations alleging identity infringements by global brands have attracted significant media attention, highlighting the need for empirical investigation into the concept of consumer confusion around brand identity. Given the importance of colour to brand and packaging decisions, and the significant revenue spent by global competitors on branding and brand protection, it is surprising that the impact of colour on consumer confusion is not yet fully understood. Colour is often the most visually salient aspect of a product, and thus packaging colours are an invaluable cue for consumers in their product and brand identification processes—particularly with respect to product choice decisions in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) category. This research investigated the effect of consumer confusion in the context of FMCG packaging colours. The objectives of this research were to: (1) explore the nature of consumer confusion in the context of brand choice, (2) understand the cognitive and emotional effects of confusion on consumers, (3) assess the effects of varying degrees of discriminability in packaging colour on consumer confusion,and (4) establish the role of brand familiarity in the relationship between colour and consumer confusion. Nine research hypotheses were proposed and tested to achieve these four objectives. A new definition of confusion is proposed in this research. Confusion is defined as a cognitive state, characterised by a discomforting uncertainty triggered by the perceived mismatch or contradiction between a stimulus and pre-existing schema. This definition overcomes the limitation of extant research that conceptualises consumer confusion only as an outcome, i.e. an incorrect attribution.This research theorises that a consumer processual state of confusion (CP-SoC) arises when multiple brands in the same product category use similar packaging colours, but that the outcomes of CP-SoC are moderated by brand familiarity. Three experimental studies were conducted to investigate the influence of brand familiarity on the relationship between packaging colour similarity and consumer confusion within the FMCG context. The first study explored the effect of the three main colour attributes (hue,saturation, and lightness) of secondary colours (purple, orange, and green) on choice response time. Different degrees of discriminability in terms of hue,saturation, and lightness were found across the colours. The second study involved the development of the CP-SoC scale. This scale, measuring perceptions of confusion, correlated well with an accepted behavioural measure of confusion (response time). This demonstrates convergent validity and indicated that the new scale was an appropriate proxy for confusion. The final study investigated the influence of colour similarity and brand familiarity on confusion (operationalised using the CP-SoC scale) in a 3 (colour:identical, similar, different) ´ 2 (brand: familiar, unfamiliar) ´ 2 (product category: milk chocolate, energy drinks) full factorial repeated-measures design. An interaction effect was found for similar (but not identical or different) colours across familiar and unfamiliar brands and the two product categories. In the milk chocolate category, similarly-coloured packages of a familiar brand produced higher levels of confusion than an unfamiliar brand. However, in the energy drink category, there was a reversal of this effect.These findings indicate that: (1) as expected, similar colours are inherently more confusing than different colours in a brand identification task, and (2) brand familiarity differentially moderates the effect of colour similarity on confusion across product categories. Specifically, the effect of colour similarity on consumer confusion is more pronounced in an FMCG category that is relatively ‘newer’ (energy drinks) than a more established FMCG category that has been in the market for more than a century (milk chocolate). This suggests that the effects of stimulus similarity on consumer confusion are more complex than previously thought and warrant continued in-depth investigation.