At present, organizations are suffering greatly in their promotional campaigns from copy-paste and stereotypical styles, as they spend a lot of money for marketing efforts. According to the calculations of measuring the return profit, this means that the promotional process is facing some failures and has lost part of its gloss and element of attraction. Therefore, for the purpose of promoting brands, it was required to develop fresh, original, and imaginative ideas through using guerilla marketing methods or techniques that are characterized by low cost, creativity and surprise in order to attract customers to their advertisements better than competing organizations. The current research includes several axes: the first axis is related to the research methodology, whereas the second axis is related to the theoretical framework (guerilla marketing and brand loyalty). As for the third axis, it includes testing the research hypotheses, and finally the fourth axis included conclusions and suggestions.

The Research Methodology

The research problem: Based upon the current advertising blockade that accompanies the customer wherever he goes, he has become confused in understanding the advertising messages and has begun to feel tired and bored from the frequent targeting of traditional advertisements, despite the exorbitant costs that the organization spends on the boring conventional advertising means. Hence, the need for change arose. The concept of guerilla marketing, which attempts to attract the customer’s attention with creative ideas and in unexpected places, appeared to make ads more interesting in addition to making the advertising message to become easier and more widespread. This affects enhancing customer’s brand awareness.

Accordingly, the problem of the current research was identified by the following questions:

• Is there a significant correlation between guerilla marketing and brand awareness
• Is there a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness

The research objectives

The current research attempts to achieve the following:

• To identify the extent to which the customers of the organization under study are aware of the guerilla marketing and brand awareness variables

• To diagnose the nature of the relationship and the impact between the two research variables

• To arrive at a set of conclusions and suggestions

The research importance 

• There are numerous studies dealt with the two research variables represented by guerilla marketing, which has been one of the modern topics, and brand awareness. According to the researcher's knowledge, he dealt with these studies separately or with other variables. Therefore, the current research gained its significance in terms of attempting to collect these studies in one research framework to know the nature of the correlation and the effect between them

• The current research contributed to researching and learning more about the two research variables (guerilla marketing and brand awareness) and working to bridge the knowledge gap of these two variables

• This study is a good contribution to supplementing the Iraqi library to increase the accumulation of knowledge in the field of variables

• The research derives its importance by being applied to an important sector related to economic activity, which is the wireless communications sector

The hypothetical research scheme

Based on the data of the theoretical and practical axis of the research, it was framed to express the effect correlation among the variables (Figure 1).

The research hypotheses

In order to be in line with the research questions in the research problem, the hypotheses are:

• There is a significant correlation between guerilla marketing and brand awareness, where several sub-hypotheses stemmed from

• There is a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness, where several sub-hypotheses stemmed from

The research limits

• Spatial limits: The spatial limits of the research were represented by the customers of Asiacell Company for Mobile Communications in the city of Mosul

• Human limits: A sample of (150) customers of Asiacell Communications Company in the city of Mosul

• Temporal limits: The research was completed from 1/4/2023 to 1/7/2023

The methods of data collection 

• Theoretical side: In order to cover the theoretical side of the research, the researcher adopted the researchers’ contributions through books, scientific research and dissertations available on the Internet

• The practical aspect: the questionnaire was adopted as it is an important and essential tool in collecting data from the respondents

   

The Theoretical framework

First: Guerilla marketing

The concept of guerilla marketing: The term ‘guerilla’ originated in the 1960s, when the leader of the Cuban revolution, Guevara, described the gorilla tactic in his famous book ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ as a method of warfare based on raids and ambushes. The term ‘guerilla’ originated from the army and is a diminutive of the Spanish word Guerra, which means war.

As for ‘guerrilla’, it means a small war in which small and unconventional combat strategies are used, aimed at weakening the opponent in some locations. Marketers then adapted this concept and incorporated it into the business world as an innovative way to achieve vast impacts at low costs. Levinson, who is considered the founder and spiritual father of the term ‘guerilla’, was the first to combine the term guerilla with marketing. This concept has spread widely after he published his book called ‘Guerrilla Marketing’ in 1984 [1]. Guerilla marketing is a relatively recent term in marketing sciences in general, and as a promotional tool in particular. The crowded market situation with organizations, the fierce competition for its leadership, and the distress and boredom of customers from all that is traditional called for the introduction of the guerilla concept into marketing in response to the urgent need in the search for new promotional tools. The mechanisms and tactics of applying guerilla marketing initially received wide attention from small and medium-sized organizations as an effective means to confront competition with low investment volume. However, the success achieved in applying this concept aroused the interest of large organizations. Thus, it has become widely applied among all organizations of all sizes [2].

Guerilla marketing allowed organizations to follow innovative and amazing tactics that enabled them to attract the customer’s attention again after conventional means failed to achieve it. Guerilla marketing has been defined as a deliberate strategic advertising attack at an unexpected moment, or it is an innovative way to generate sympathy and admiration in an unforgettable way, with the aim of launching a broad idea or service at the right time and for the right customers [3].

Gökerik et al., [4] see that guerilla marketing is a set of innovative and attention-grabbing strategies that help spread the advertising message and increase brand awareness, by investing energy, imagination and time instead of money. The researcher believes that it is a sudden advertising campaigns in which creativity and innovation are unexpected, new, low-cost, and remain stuck in the memory.

Principles of guerilla marketing

Guerilla marketing is based on several principles: Abruptness (unexpected action), and creativity and innovation which depends on imagination and creative idea. (Making a Radical Effect) means a strong and long-term effect that is reflected on the reputation of the organization or brand.

Figure 1: The hypothetical research plan

Source: The scheme was prepared by the researcher

Source: Hutter, K. & S. Hoffmann, [5], Guerrilla Marketing the Nature of the Concept and Propositions for Further Research. Asian Journal of Marketing, p42

Figure 2: Principles of guerilla marketing

Figure 3: The pyramid of brand awareness levels

Source: Latif, et.al, [10], Building Brand Awareness in the Modern Marketing Environment: Conceptual Model, International Journal of Business and Techonpreneurship, volume 4, No. February, p.72.

Table 3: Simple Correlations between Guerilla Marketing and Brand Awareness

Source: The table was prepared by the researcher depending on the results of the statistical analysis according to the SPSS VER.24.

Table 4: the results of multiple correlations between each of the dimensions of guerilla marketing and brand awareness

Source: The table was prepared by the researcher depending on the results of the statistical analysis according to the SPSS version.24

Table 5: The effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness

Source: The table was prepared by the researcher depending on the results of the statistical analysis according to the SPSS VER program. 24

(Humor) means reducing the barriers   among  the customer and the brand. (Simplicity)  means    attracting  the customer's attention in a simple and creative way (Uniqueness and originality) means a new style. Advertising campaigns cannot be re-implemented again in the same market sector (low cost compared to traditional advertising means as shown in Figure (2) 

The Dimensions Of Guerilla Marketing

The core of guerilla marketing depends on using unconventional promotional methods, which are the ambient marketing, ambush marketing, and viral marketing that help in making a sudden, strong and widespread impact at relatively low costs.

The researcher will deal with most of these methods practiced by organizations and most dealt with by researchers, which is appropriate for the researched field [6].

Ambient Marketing Means

It is the employment of unconventional advertisements outside home, such as cranes, pizza boxes, postcards in cafes, escalators, and others. This means employing advertising on more exotic media to attract attention, as these exotic media are daily increasing, such as large screens in the subway, shopping cart handles in stores. The American Mark Hughes used a clever idea, which is one of the most profitable ideas, as he used the empty face of the fortune cookie cover that is served in Chinese restaurants in USA. It's a cheap way, he's promoted advertising on this space for various organizations. Hughes successfully marketed that space to restaurants, to the extent that he succeeded in delivering this advertising medium to seven million customers in just one week. It was a lucrative idea for him to seek the target audience in their favorite places, in a fun way, and to reach them individually [7].

Marketing ambushes

It is a masked marketing method, by lurking for the target customers with a sudden guerilla ambush in a public place. It aims to promote the product of the declared organization, because those organizations are willing to pay a lot of money to promote their products in events that put their competitors in the dark. This comes by drawing the attention of thousands of customers and referring to the creative advertising campaigns carried out by the organization, which whereby exploits an advertising activity for another organization, and benefits from it and diverts the customer’s attention from the brand that carried out the basic advertising activity to its own brand. Most often, the organization make ambush marketing is competing with the organization doing the primary advertising activity. This strategy is considered as one of the successful marketing strategies [8].

Viral Marketing

 The basic idea of viral marketing is to convey the advertising message and its impact to the largest possible number of customers and as quickly as possible. This is achieved by double, sequential, and free scrolling of the advertising message, and the challenge facing marketers is to build the motivation that can motivate customers to publish the advertisement. The success of viral marketing is like a snowball that swells every moment with the increase in the spread of the advertising message.

Second: Brand awareness

The concept of brand awareness: The phrase "brand awareness" has been defined in a variety of ways by academics. It was described as the degree to which target consumers are aware of and familiar with the organization's brand. Simply, every company that is successful in raising brand awareness is also successful in integrating its brand into people's lifestyles and purchasing patterns. so that clients do not have to hesitate about repeatedly using the services of that company [9].

It is also defined as the ability of customers to remember the brand and the ability to retrieve it from memory when giving an idea about the product [10].

The importance of brand awareness

 If an organization has successful brand awareness, it means that its products and services would have a good reputation in the market and are simply accepted. Therefore, the brand awareness plays an important role when purchasing a product or acquiring a service because of its great importance in the development of the product.

• Brand awareness is one of the most important values companies rely on to retain existing customers and attract potential customers, especially in a market crowded with competition

• Brand awareness increases the reliability with the customers, and enhances loyalty to the company

• Brand awareness helps the company to be more distinctive and unique from its competitors in the market

• Customers will not look for other places to buy another product if they have sufficient brand awareness

• Raising brand awareness is very important for business success and achieving comprehensive marketing goals

• Brand awareness establishes positive links between the organization and customers, and builds a community of advocates

• Customer’s awareness of the brand helps increase sales through the spoken word to family and friends

• Building brand awareness is an essential step in promoting a new product or reviving a brand

Levels of brand awareness 

 [9], and [11] indicate that there are levels of brand awareness, which are:

• Lack of brand awareness: At the beginning of the trademark, the customer does not know and understand it

• Brand recognition: At this level, after getting to know the brand, it may be through advertising or testing it from an acquaintance, friend or family

• Remember the brand: At this level, the customer's mental image of the brand is built, possible through an         advertisement     or      experiment

• Brand Awareness: The customer chooses his well-known trademark because of his high awareness of it due to his use of it or repurchase more than once. Thus, organizations seek to build a preference for their brand through many options, including high product quality, extensive and honest advertising, or reasonable price, and others. In the event that an increase in brand awareness is achieved with a specific customer, it will affect his purchasing decision, and he will repeat the purchase. This leads to an increase in the organization sales, expansion of its market share, and an increase in its profits as a final outcome.

Third axis: Practice

First: Testing the research hypotheses: Testing the first main hypothesis (there is a significant correlation between guerilla marketing and brand awareness.

Table 3 illustrates the results of analyzing the simple correlation values between the independent (guerilla marketing) and the dependent (brand awareness) variables. The results at the level of the overall index show that there is a significant positive correlation between them through the correlation coefficient, whose value was 0.80 at a significant level 0.05. This means accepting the main hypothesis that there is a significant correlation between guerilla marketing and brand awareness.

Testing the research sub-hypothesis stemming from the first main hypothesis

To test the sub-hypothesis that includes the results of the analysis of correlations at the micro level for the two research variables, Table 4 indicates that there is a positively significant correlation between each dimension of guerilla marketing and brand awareness. The results of the analysis of multiple correlations showed that there was a positively significant correlation between the ambient marketing dimension and brand awareness, as the multiple correlation coefficient was 0.633*.

This indicates that the respondents see that there is a relationship between advertising in unexpected places and increased awareness of the brand. It also indicates that there is a weak positive significant correlation between marketing ambushes and awareness of the brand, as the multiple correlation coefficient reached 0.30*. This indicates a low relationship between this method and brand awareness, and also notes a strong significant correlation between viral marketing and brand awareness, as the multiple correlation value was 0.85*.

This indicates that the respondents see that the double and free scrolling of the advertising message builds the motivation for customers to pass the message through attractive offers to customers, creativity in providing services, organization activity through social media, and interaction with customers. This would enhance brand awareness [11-12].

Testing the second main hypothesis (there is a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness

Table 5 shows the results of the simple regression analysis to show the effect of guerilla marketing (as an independent variable) on brand awareness (as a dependent variable), as follows:

The results of the simple regression analysis indicate that there is a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness, as the calculated F value was 5.00, which was greater than the tabulated value of 3.84 at two degrees of freedom .149 and at a significant level 0.05. The coefficient of determination, R2, was 0.64. By following up coefficients B and testing t for them, it was found that the calculated value of t amounted to 9.811, which was greater than its scheduled value of 1.645 at two degrees of freedom 1,149 and at a significant level 0.05. This proves the hypothesis that “there is a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness.

A- Testing the sub-hypothesis stemming from the second main hypothesis (there is a significant effect of guerilla marketing dimensions on brand awareness at a significance level of 0.05).

We notice from the figures in Table 6 that there is a significant effect of the dimensions of guerilla marketing on brand awareness. It was found that the ambient media has a significant effect on brand awareness, reflected by the calculated f value of 86.66 greater than the tabular f value of 3.84 at a significant level 0.05 and with two degrees of freedom 1,149. The effect of guerilla marketing was in the second rank, reflected by the R2 value of 0.396. Marketing ambushes have a significant effect on brand awareness, as indicated by the calculated F value 86.66, which was greater than the tabular value 3.84 at a significant level 0.05 and with two degrees of freedom 1,149. The effect of marketing ambushes was in the third rank, reflected by the R2 value of 0.09. Viral marketing also significantly affects brand awareness, as indicated by the calculated F value 86.66, which is greater than the tabular value 3.84 at a significant level 0.05 and with two degrees of freedom 1,149. The effect of viral marketing was ranked first, reflected by the R2 value of  0.722 [13-14].

First: Conclusions

• The results of the statistical analysis show that there is a significant positive correlation (very good) at the macro level between guerilla marketing and brand awareness according to the respondents’ viewpoints. This indicates their awareness of the importance of guerilla marketing in brand awareness

• The data of the results of the statistical analysis reflect a significant positive correlation between guerilla marketing and brand awareness at the micro level. Viral marketing came in the first place, then the ambient media, and marketing ambushes was in the third place. According to the opinions of the respondents, this indicates the importance of guerilla marketing dimensions in varying degrees

• The results of the statistical analysis show that there is a significant effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness, with a medium degree at the aggregate level. This indicates that the more the researched organization applied guerilla marketing in its advertising campaigns, there was a greater chance of increasing brand awareness and acquiring new customers from the respondents’ point of view

• The results reveal that there is a significant positive effect of guerilla marketing on brand awareness, where viral marketing is its first sequence, then ambient media, and finally ambush marketing, where it matches the results of correlations

Second: Suggestions

The results of the research indicated the importance of the role of guerilla marketing in enhancing brand awareness. Accordingly, there are a number of suggestions and implementation mechanisms to be presented to the managers of the organization under study:

• The organization under study is required to benefit from the advantages of guerilla marketing that enable the activation of low-cost advertising campaigns

• Mechanism of implementation: This could be made by paying more attention to unconventional promotional campaigns such as ambient media and viral marketing.

• The dates of the important political, artistic and sports events should be known and invested to promote the services of the researched organization

• Mechanism of implementation: an effective marketing strategy with a specific goal to attract customers' attention and change its direction should be developed.

• Training those in charge of marketing activity on guerilla marketing mechanisms

Mechanism of implementation: Interacting and communicating with organizations that adopt guerilla marketing mechanisms, in addition to engaging employees in training courses, workshops, or seminars to acquire skills or learn about the contents of guerilla marketing.

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