Brand confusion research for the AMCU

During the preparation of a statement to the Anti-Monopoly Committee of Ukraine (AMCU), the client turned to MCG experts for an independent assessment of a disputed situation. The essence of the conflict was that Company A used product photos belonging to Company B in marketplace listings (retaining Company B's watermarks). 

Presumably, such a situation creates confusion in the eyes of the buyer and leads to unfair competition. It was this assumption that needed to be verified through research.

To form an evidence base, two hypotheses were put forward requiring quantitative assessment:

• Brand Confusion: people perceive Company A's ads as ads for the sale of Company B's products due to the presence of the latter's brand marks in the photos.
• Affiliation Effect: based on the ad data, people perceive Company A and Company B as related entities.

To quantitatively test this assumption, an exploratory population survey was conducted.

The most relevant research method was face-to-face interviews in the 5 largest cities of Ukraine: Dnipro, Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv.



A specially developed methodology included demonstrating screenshots from the marketplace and a series of questions about how the visuals are perceived and what conclusions a potential buyer draws. This allowed not only to confirm the ambiguity of the product offers but also to provide an accurate, valid assessment of the level of confusion arising among respondents.

Results

In the course of the study, the hypotheses were verified. Based on the obtained data, an analytical note was compiled, which serves as a source of professionally collected and reliable information.

In fact, MCG analysts conducted an independent expert assessment, which allowed specifying the client's legal claims and strengthening the argumentation of their position in further proceedings.