Trademark confusion: a sociological analysis of the influence of consumer involvement and competency factors

The study on the basis of an empirical research examines the impact of consumer involvement in the category of goods or services, as well as consumer competence on the perception of trademarks similarity. The sample of the study was randomly divided into a control group and an experimental group. In the control group, respondents were presented with pairs of obviously dissimilar trademarks, and in the experimental group - pairs of obviously similar ones. The method of data analysis was correlation analysis, the results of which indicate that the overall influence of factors of involvement and competence, which was found in the study, is very small. The results of the study on the whole allow to state the limited influence of factors of consumer involvement and competence on the probability of trademarks confusion - both directly and through the identification of producers. However, at the same time, the very weak influence of involvement and the lack of competence influence on the confusion probability found in the study do not mean that these factors do not actually have a strong influence on the confusion of trademarks in the minds of consumers. The absence of a statistical relationship may be an impetus for further refining the methodology and rechecking of the hypothesis in subsequent empirical studies.