Amazon draws a hard line between using a competitor's brand name in visible listing content and using it as a PPC targeting term. A seller may not put another brand's name in their title, bullets, or A+ content — risking trademark complaints and listing suppression — but that same brand name remains legal to target with sponsored ads, since ad targeting doesn't place the term in the seller's own content. Practically: a keyword tool's brand-name matches (surfaced and bulk-removed from listing copy via Data Dive Roots Feature (Bulk Keyword-Group Exclusion & Prioritization)) should be filtered out of the listing-facing Master Keyword List & Listing Scorecard but can be kept in a separate PPC target list. Related to Offensive Competitor-Brand Targeting ("Sniping") and Branded-Search PPC Defense (Conquesting Defense).
A listing can appear in search results for a competitor's brand name purely because Amazon's algorithm associates converting search terms with similar products — sellers can rank for a rival's brand term without ever directly targeting it, as revealed when brand-root terms surface in a Divebox-generated Master Keyword List & Listing Scorecard (see Data Dive Roots Feature (Bulk Keyword-Group Exclusion & Prioritization) for bulk-excluding them).