Innovative Marketing (2024) — surprise guerrilla marketing & customer behavior

Summary:

This academic paper from Layla Alsheikh (Umm Al-Qura University, Saudi Arabia), published in the journal Innovative Marketing (Business Perspectives), looks at surprise-style guerrilla marketing. It tests two forms of it: ambient marketing (unusual ads placed in everyday surroundings, such as odd sizes, colours or locations) and sensation marketing (one-off public stunts, such as flash mobs). The question is whether each one lifts purchase intention and brand attitude.

The data comes from a paper survey of shoppers at three malls in Jeddah: Mall of Arabia, Alyasmin Mall and Red Sea Mall. The author handed out 450 questionnaires (150 per mall), got 370 back and kept 344 valid responses. Fieldwork ran in May 2023. People were picked because they were easy to reach, not at random. The results come from a structural equation model built in SPSS and AMOS.

Key findings:
• Both forms of guerrilla marketing had a significant positive link with both purchase intention and brand attitude.
• Ambient marketing had the strongest link of all, with purchase intention (β = 0.42), compared with 0.38 for brand attitude.
• Sensation marketing worked more on brand attitude (β = 0.33) than on purchase intention (β = 0.21).
• The author’s takeaway: use ambient formats to drive buying intent, and one-off stunts like flash mobs to build how people feel about the brand.

Margin notes:
This is a one-off survey of what shoppers said, not what they bought, so it shows links, not proof that the tactics cause the outcomes. The sample is small, comes from three malls in one Saudi city and was not randomly chosen, so the results may not hold elsewhere. Respondents rated “these ads” without the paper naming which campaigns or brands they saw, and two of the questions used to measure guerrilla marketing already ask about buying intent and brand attitude (“Unconventional methods of advertising increase my purchase intention”, “Out-of-home advertising events modify my attitude toward a brand”), which likely inflates the links. The author also notes the model covers only two forms of guerrilla marketing and two outcomes.