Consumer research Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Consumer research - Essay Example The researcher has found that body knowledge regarding â€Å"Confusion in Marketing† or consumer confusion regarding marketing practices has been developed in the past 30 years or more. At this point, it would be rational to think that researchers from various background and time periods have conducted research on various aspects of the topic in last 30 years. In such background, the researcher has selected two academic articles addressing two different dimensions of the topic â€Å"Confusion in Marketing† and in the next section, the essay will identify, label, compare, analyze and reflect upon methodological choices in the two academic articles in terms of design of the research, data collection method, sampling and data collection, ethical aspects of the research, criteriology issues, problems or complications regarding the research etc. Articles in Discussion In the last 20 years, the world has become more globalized; consumerism has reached its pick, technological integration has revolutionized the concept of marketing promotion, evolution of interactive social media marketing took place and many other divergent occurrences happened. Same argument holds true for the research works of academic scholars regarding the topic â€Å"Confusion in Marketing†. ... In case of Balabanis & Craven’s (1997) academic article titled as â€Å"Consumer Confusion from Own Brand Lookalikes: An Exploratory Investigation†, the research objective was to understand how lookalikes from other brands or products having similar packaging, design and graphics as of leading brands creating confusion among customers. In case of Srivastava’s (2011) academic article titled as â€Å"Understanding brand identity confusion†, research objective was â€Å"to unveil the consumer perception about Cinthol (Indian bathing soap brand) and to understand the importance of brand identity of a product and the factors influencing it† (Srivastava, 2011, p. 340). To define consumer confusion regarding lookalike, Balabanis & Craven (1997) identified five different factors may that may invoke brand confusion among customers. However, previous researchers such as Foxman, Muehling & Berger (1990) and Foxman, Berger & Cote (1992) also identified similar kind of factors that may create confusion among customers regarding marketing practices of different marketers. Namely, five factors that can invoke marketing confusion are reason behind purchase, physical state of customers, physical environs or geographical position of the purchase, previous brand experience and temporal environment or time constraints. The academic article of Balabanis & Craven (1997) also considered the cognitive biasness model of Zaichkowsky (1985) and lack of consumer knowledge Sirdeshmukh & Unnava (1992) while understanding the source of consumer confusion regarding lookalikes. As research findings, academic article of Balabanis & Craven (1997) found that consumer confusion to lookalikes were only limited