Guerrilla Marketing on Social Media

Abstract

Nowadays the market is saturated by never ending messages issued through the media which makes attracting customers a difficult task for the brands. Guerrilla marketing emerges as a solution to this communication problem by offering an innovator method given the content and the transmission paths of a message to the public. This resource allies creativity to social networks allowing catching customers’ eyes and strengthen the relationship with them while having a reduced investment.

This study seeks to understand the impact guerrilla marketing on social net- works, in this case Facebook, has on the relationship of the customer with a brand, namely the factors that lead the customers to interact with guerrilla con- tents and the impact those contents have on the brand's image.

A mixed method research was adopted, using first focus groups and then a questionnaire.

The results suggest that the interaction between customer and brand presents a strong relation with the characteristics of the content published on Facebook. It was found that funny guerrilla marketing contents appealing to humor enhance the relationship with customers, increasing the interaction. Opposing to this, contents considered offensive generate adverse reactions on customers as well as reduced interaction levels. The research also shows the user profile relates to the interaction level. Frequent Facebook users show a greater predisposition to interact with guerrilla marketing contents. Furthermore, the characteristics of the guerrilla marketing content present a strong association with the brand's image. Funny guerrilla content affects positively the brand's image while offensive ones tend to affect it negatively.