Article
Public Awareness and Perception of Guerrilla Marketing: Implications for Small Businesses in Chennai
Guerrilla marketing has attracted growing interest from academics and practitioners as a cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising, especially among SMEs operating in resource-constrained environments. This study examines public awareness and consumer perception of guerrilla marketing strategies and investigates their impact on purchase behaviour among 110 consumers in Chennai. A quantitative descriptive design was used, with primary data collected via a structured Likert-scale questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation analysis, one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD post-hoc comparisons, and multiple regression analysis were employed. Results indicate that both awareness and perception are positively and significantly correlated with purchase intention (r = .558 and r = .466, respectively; p < .001), while the intercorrelation between awareness and perception was negligible and non-significant (r = .050, p = .606). Multiple regression identified both predictors as independently significant: awareness (β = .536, p < .001) was the stronger predictor and perception (β = .439, p < .001) was the secondary predictor. The final two-predictor model accounted for 50.3% of variance in purchase intention (R² = .503, F[2, 107] = 54.218, p < .001). ANOVA tests revealed no significant group differences across age, educational qualification, internet usage, or residential area. Gender produced a significant difference in perception only (F[1, 108] = 4.407, p = .038). Findings indicate that both campaign recognition and perceptual evaluation independently drive purchase intention, with practical implications for guerrilla marketing strategy design.