Visualization analysis of the research status, hotspots, and trends of legitimacy recognition of comparative advertising (1993–2023)

The legitimacy recognition of comparative advertising is closely related to the production enthusiasm of operators and the protection of the rights and interests of consumers, and thus become an important factor that may affect market competition fairness and social sustainable development. However, few researches have summarized the existing study of comparative advertising, while it is significant to review the changes and explore the future development trend, so as to improve relevant legislation. In this study, to summarize its research status, hotspots, and trends, CiteSpace 6.2.R4 was used to analyze 856 WoS core collection articles and 20 CSSCI articles related to comparative advertising dated 1993–2023, which presents an overview of the study of comparative advertising and relevant legitimacy recognition in China and other countries. Based on the analysis including co-occurrence, co-citation, and reference cluster, this paper looked at the research status and built up the knowledge mapping, which reveals scholars and research teams from universities from eight countries play a more important role in promoting comparative advertising research. It shows scholars mainly studying its concept and characteristics, its impact on different market players, its role on players of different ages, and its coping strategies. The study of its legitimacy recognition has also been included mainly focusing on the fairness of market competition, protection of consumers’ interests, etc., but ignoring the issue of social sustainable development. According to its bibliometric research findings, this study also suggests some topics for future research to provide direction and guidance on related topics.