Guerrilla Marketing

It's safe to say that ads are ubiquitous these days. Ads play a role in almost every medium: print (magazines), television, DVDs, internet, online videos, etc. They've wormed their way into spaces that were previously non-commercial and are now so commonplace that we don't even bat an eye. You're sitting on the toilet and the back of the stall door is advertising the nightclub down the street; if you've taken a Ryanair flight, you'll notice ads on the back of the airplane seat. Ads proliferate in subway stations (both on the ground and on the wall) and on the sides of bus stops; they're on your Facebook sidebars. They pop up randomly as you're surfing the web.

Which is why it takes a lot more for us to pay attention. It takes a little shock and awe, a little bit of surprise, which is what guerrilla marketing tries to bring advertising.

What is guerrilla marketing?

It's not so much a formalized mode of working but a concept - a term defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. According to marketingterms.com, guerrilla marketing is "Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources." The website further discusses guerrilla marketing as being more about "matching wits than matching budgets" and "[sniping] away […] marketing resources for maximum impact."

In other words, it means getting creative with advertising campaigns - not necessarily by funneling more money into them, but by getting creative and grabbing people's attention by presenting them with something out of the ordinary or clever or funny or both.

Here are a few examples:

If anything, these advertisements will at least elicit general amusement and perhaps a chuckle. But the idea of advertising as being a guerrilla act is interesting because of its connotations: insurgence, war, civilian, ambush, and sabotage. Is this kind of advertising really any kind of insurgence or ambush? In my opinion, no. It works within a particular marketing system and model, and people are taken aback more by its content or context than its mode. If graffiti is likened to guerrilla art, then I can see how guerrilla advertising shares a few similarities with graffiti: it pops up in unexpected places; it utilizes provocative (or at least evocative) imagery and words, and its wit might make you pause and think, for at least a second. But beyond shaking the norms and conventions of advertising in its placement and imagery, I think guerrilla marketing is most subversive in its promotion of the idea that effective (or at least attention-grabbing) advertising campaigns do not need to be backed by huge financial sums*. Money and power are often directly correlated with advertising, but guerrilla marketing provides an alternative. 

As a very visually-inspired person, I am refreshed and energized by the idea that advertising, which I often view as a deceptive, cunning tactic of corporate greed, can actually be a platform for creativity, art, and imagination. Advertising can indeed be an artistic endeavor. After all, contexts aside, we inscribe artworks in our memory in the same way we inscribe advertising campaigns: the advertising campaigns we remember most are the ones that strike a chord in us, whether they are meaningful, funny, beautiful, disgusting, or flat-out abhorrent.

*According to Jay Conrad Levinson, the principles of guerrilla marketing include:
(taken from Wikipedia)

• Guerrilla Marketing is specifically geared for the small business and entrepreneur.
• It should be based on human psychology rather than experience, judgement, and guesswork.
• Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.
• The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
• The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
• Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.
• Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
• Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
• Guerrilla marketers should use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
• Use current technology as a tool to build your business.
• Messages are aimed at individuals or small groups, the smaller the better.
• Focuses on gaining the consent of the individual to send them more information rather than trying to make the sale.
• Commit to your campaign. Use Effective frequency instead of creating a new message theme for each campaign.