Adams defined a confusopoly as "a group of companies with similar products who intentionally confuse customers instead of competing on price".
[1] For example, similar items like mobile phones are advertised at various price plans according to different combinations of available minutes, text messaging capabilities and other services, thus making these offers practically incomparable when it could be easy to price similar units of usage to allow informed comparisons.
The term confusopoly also applies because confusion within the targeted consumer group is purposefully maintained, so choices are based on emotional factors.
That is, various price propositions are on offer with different combinations of free minutes, texts, and other services, whilst in reality the same level of usage would result in roughly the same cost, leaving the user so confused that they simply choose the product with the name they like the most—a fact most notably recognised by the operator Orange with their animal-themed tariffs, such as Dolphin and Raccoon, and by LG who give their phone’s names such as Chocolate and Shine.
Indeed, there has been a recent trend to take this a step further with co-branding of phones such as LG’s Prada, and Samsung’s Armani offerings.