Guerilla Marketing is a marketing strategy that’s used by marketers to create virality of their products and gain attention amongst users. This tactic is especially very commonplace amongst digital marketers nowadays as creating campaigns that are highlighted and shared by an audience on the internet can create more word-of-mouth influence than ever before.
This, proves to be an essential part of why Guerilla marketing is sort after by many marketers and has also been efficient at delivering the right results to marketing experts.
What is Guerilla Marketing?
The term guerilla marketing was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, in his book Guerilla Marketing to highlight the important of unconventional thinking and idea’s that generate attention based on critical subjects rather than brand awareness alone.
Guerilla marketing focuses on taking consumers by surprise to make a big impression. The message is delivered in a subtle, fun and unexpected way that will make you smile. Guerilla marketing can be a huge success.
When it comes to marketing, we have to remember that it is not only about what we do. It is also about what we tell others to do. There are many ways to market your business, and guerilla marketing has got to be a huge part of it.
Grabbing Attention
Guerilla Marketing is similar to the concept of Guerilla Warfare, where in war you use any tactic possible to achieve victory. So should you when marketing your product. Except for not killing people and committing war crimes, of course xD.
But, the concept of warfare is to be strategic, from the time of Alexander the great until the modern day U.S Army, every empire has used a strong strategy to counter its competition in an unexpected behavior and take over its customers.
The internet has made it possible for you to advertise yourself to a large number of potential customers, and this has become the go-to tool for anyone looking to get a business off the ground.
In this day and age, it is so much easier to advertise to people who are searching for information on the internet. If you do not have the time to advertise in a traditional way, then you should consider getting creative with your campaigns.
Types of Guerilla Marketing
There are some sub-categories of guerilla marketing according to ALT-TERRAIN.
- Street Guerilla Marketing - In street guerrilla marketing, activation’s take place in public places (like sidewalks, bus stops, transit stations, and etc) to build brand awareness through creative, often short-lived, brand marketing signs, performances and installations.
- Indoor Guerilla Marketing - Indoor Guerilla Marketing is when you do marketing activities in places that are public but also private, like transit stations, college campuses, and stores. But, Indoor guerilla marketing can be hard to do because private places usually have security that notices when people do things that aren’t normal.
- Ambush Guerilla Marketing - Ambush Guerilla Marketing can be done inside or outside of big events like sports areas, festivals, and trade show conventions without getting permission. The goal is to link a brand to an event or connect with people who go to a certain event without paying traditional sponsorship fees.
- Experiential Guerilla Marketing - Experiential Guerilla Marketing can be done either indoor, outdoors or even as an ambush strategy. But the contribution of the public and their engagement is measured to classify a tactic as a experiential marketing campaign.
Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Done Right
Frontline
Frontline is a Dog Flea Treatment company that prevents dogs from gettings fleas. So when they wanted to gain the attention of the public in a public venue. They decided to use this sneaky tactic of posting picture of a dog scratching itself in the floor of the a public mall. This created the impression that the people walking around in the mall are fleas running around the furry animal, and gained a lot of Social Media Attention.
McDonalds
McDonalds used the “chips crossing” advertisement campaign to create attention for their appetizer, the McFries. Given that a road crossing has the same colors as the chips, the marketers at McDonalds decided to go with the pattern and embed their logo adjacent to it to match the artistic look of their McFries. This alone has become a legendary stunt in the Guerilla Advertising track record and is admired by many advertisers.
Nike
Nike is a brand known for athleticism, so it’s only likely that they should target an audience that is looking to increase their metabolism and become healthier. A typical location for those to be lazy, even when the environment is suitable for a sprint or jog is the park. And the best place to advertise this concept is a bench, that people typically chose to eat their snacks, breakfasts and perform many other non-athletic activities at. So, Nike decided to go with this genius advertising stunt that gained popularity for promoting good health and personal care.
Conclusion
Guerilla Marketing can be very attractive to use, identifying the best opportunities to perform an act and deploy it is exciting.
But remember, guerilla marketing is tough and there’s no guarantee on the R.O.I that an advertising stunt can have, in fact, many businesses ruin their reputation after using guerilla advertising campaigns in a non-exciting manner.
So remember to always review your work and plan out the entire picture of how the campaign is going to turn out before you deploy your project.