Guerilla marketing is a strategy used in advertising that yields maximum results by using unconventional tactics in marketing that centralizes on low costs. The term guerrilla marketing was made-up by marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson from the guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare encompasses the small tactical strategies employed by armed civilians in irregular combat. The tactics include the element of surprise, sabotage, ambushes and raids. Just like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing makes use of such tactics in the marketing industry.
This advertising style relies on imagination, high energy and unconventional strategies in marketing. Guerrilla marketing is all about surprising the consumer and creating a social noise. This in turn creates a permanent impression on the customers’ minds. It has been researched and found out that this type of marketing instills more value to consumers in comparison to the other traditional forms of marketing and advertising. The idea of guerrilla marketing is for the reason of building a memorable bond with the customer at a personal level (Levinson, 2001, p.29).
Guerrilla marketing can be used by both small businesses and big companies. For the small businesses it is used to reach out to a larger customer base without financially straining the business. Big companies use it with the assistance of grass-root campaigns. This helps in the complimenting of progressive campaigns to the mass media. Companies that use guerrilla marketing rely on its personalized promotions that spread through word of mouth, thus reaching a broader customer base for free. This tactic is not meant for all products and is used for contemporary products. The target market for such products is young consumers who are more responsive to change and new products. Influential personalities such as politicians and artists use this form of marketing to popularize their tours and work (Levinson, 1984).
Guerrilla marketing has, however, been criticized as an unethical, sometimes intrusive, technique that fails to respect public space or the privacy of consumers. Guerilla marketing works, but it is not foolproof. It is advertising and is very far from science which answers questions after a lot of calculations and with facts. Advertising has a lot of variables and nothing is guaranteed by doing it. It is usually a gamble of sorts, either it works effectively or it fails.
As with any advertising campaign, guerrilla marketing will not pinpoint what will not work or what will. For this reason obtaining measurable results is not an easy task when using the guerrilla marketing strategy. Guerilla marketing requires greater energy and dedication than traditional advertising. It requires venues that need to spend large amounts of money for labor (Levinson, 1984).
Guerrilla marketing works very slowly and for that it is not a solution for a quick fix like the other unconventional methods of marketing. You will not see overnight or instant results stemming from your efforts are not related to guerrilla marketing. It entails persistence and aggressiveness on the part of the individual or group using it.
Guerilla marketing may at times attract legal action since some laws may be broken without the knowledge of the business or company. This is why it is important to check on local laws before carrying out guerrilla marketing. It also attracts a lot of negativity from the community or society, especially if detractors find the methods used flawed. The following are some of the guerrilla marketing strategies that went wrong because of the above reasons.
Cartoon Network’s Boston Bomb Scare
The guerrilla marketing campaign was meant to promote a film that was to feature the Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Cartoon Network. The advertisement turned into a bomb scare in Boston on January 31st 2007. With the help of guerrilla marketing agency Interference Inc., Turner Broadcasting put battery-powered placards in Massachusetts and Boston. They were put in random locations and unlit till night time. At night the placards lit up showing ‘Mooninite’ character in the cartoon. This appeared like explosive devices and soon the whole city had a bomb scare. The incident made both Interference Inc. and Turner Broadcasting pay $ 2million. The advertisement received a lot of backlash and criticism from the society (Blakeman, 2011).
Snapple world’s largest popsicle
In 2005, the Snapple Company tried to erect the world’s largest popsicle in New York city’s Time square. The stunt which was meant to attract the attention of its customers ended up being a total failure. The idea was great, but the implementation of it was what was not well thought out. The Snapple Company tried to set up a 25 foot tall Popsicle made of Snapple juice that was frozen, weighing 17.5 tons on a day in June with temperatures of up to 80 degrees. The result was that the giant Popsicle began to melt as it was being raised. This led to parts of downtown Manhattan being flooded with Snapple juice (Blakeman, 2011, p. 93).
Mission impossible Bomb scare
Paramount Pictures is a studio that is well known for its work in the production of blockbuster movies such as the mission impossible. In 2006 however, the studio company came up with a guerrilla marketing idea that not only was a failure but caused a bomb scare. In a marketing campaign to promote the then new movie ‘Mission Impossible 3’, Paramount Pictures put small red devices in 4500 Los Angeles Times newspaper boxes. The aim of this was that whenever the boxes were opened the devices would play the movies’ theme song. This, however, did not rub the public the right way. The campaign collapsed when customers became alarmed and thought that the newspaper boxes had a bomb. In one case, the bomb squad was called to check on the allegation (Blakeman, 2011).
Bavaria NV’s ‘Dutchy Dress’
The Dutch brewery giant Bavaria NV used a guerrilla marketing stunt during the world cup which they called the Dutchy Dress. The company arranged for 30 women to show up at the Netherlands versus Denmark match wearing the brand’s signature underneath their clothes. A few minutes into the match the women stripped to show off the unique orange attire. Regrettably, for the company they did not know that Busch Inbev was the official beer of the tournament thus having the exclusive rights to advertise at the world cup. For this reason, the group of women was matched out of the stadium and held for questioning by FIFA officials. Bavaria NV was faced with serious charges of rights violation (Blakeman, 2011)
Smirnoff’s Alco-pop
In 2003 Smirnoff vodka used stencils and steam jets to decorate an underpass in Leeds. Catch phrases and slogans were sprayed on the underpass in the promotion of the Smirnoff Ice (Alco-pop) to the public. All this was done with no permission from relevant authorities. The Government caught wind of the act, charged the company with vandalism, and slapped the company with a cleaning fine, which was estimated, at thousands of pounds (Blakeman, 2011).
Vodafone ‘Strip campaign’
Vodafone a leading mobile company took guerrilla marketing to the next level. In August of 2002 when they endorsed two men to strip naked at an International rugby game with the company’s logo painted on their backs. The two men were charged with misconduct and the Vodafone company was legally charged.
The goals of guerrilla marketing are grabbing attention, but it is important for businesses and companies beware of protection policies. Know which policies are enforceable and when they are enforced. In the case of Bavaria NV, Vodafone and Smirnoff they did not do their research on this and ended on the wrong side of the law.
Advertising has been used since time in memorial but it was until the 1900s that it really took center stage. It was at this time that advertisement’s main goals were to create awareness of the product’s existence rather than to just engage and entertain them. Advertising then used the print and radio platform to relay its messages (Blakeman, 2011).
Levinson in his Guerrilla Marketing book published in 1984 suggested that campaigns need to be more unique, shocking, clever and outrageous in order to capture the attention of people. According to Levinson (1984, p.39), "in order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. It must build trust and support the customer's needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.” With this in mind small businesses changed their approach to marketing and implemented this concept. There are various methods used in guerrilla marketing they include; viral marketing, ambient marketing, presence marketing, grassroots marketing, wild postings, tissue pack advertising, undercover marketing, astroturfing, alternative marketing and experimental marketing.
Small and big companies have used guerrilla marketing as part of their strategy to penetrate some markets and even gain popularity. The following are examples of successful guerrilla marketing strategies.
Coca Cola’s Happiness Machine
The Coca-Cola Company invented the Happiness Machine video in January 2010 with the help of Definition 6 an interactive marketing agency. The video was about a Coca- Cola vending machine that dispensed more than just a cold canned coke. The video was shot using five hidden cameras at a shop in Queens’ St. John’s University in New York. The student’s reactions after visiting the vending machine were unscripted. Within a matter of weeks, the video was all over the internet, having amassed views on YouTube of 4.5 million. As a result of this Coca Cola company had the highest penetration in Russia, Mexico, Japan and Brazil. The advertisement went ahead to win a Gold Interactive Award at the CLIO ceremony. This made Coca Cola come up with more videos using the same concept of ‘Happiness’ (Levinson, 2011).
Red Bull’s stratus campaign
This campaign was meant to send Felix Baumgartner Austrian extreme athlete, on a skydiving jump of 128,100 feet above sea level. This set the world record for the highest skydiving jump. By so doing Felix broke the speed of sound record of 833.9 mph and the fall lasted for 9 minutes. For this stunt the Red Bull company attracted much needed attention and broke social media records of over 8million views on YouTube. Customers could tune into the LIVE jump using the Red Bull Stratos website and remain engaged with Facebook and stream on Twitter (Levinson, 2011).
The reason why the Red Bull brand was a success is because they set to break records. The team involved in the development of the stunt used the guerrilla marketing characteristics of being outrageous, shocking and unique. The fact that the stunt was outrageous and unique made people around the world stay tuned to watch live as Felix dived from the stratosphere. This made more than 7 million people watch it on the internet through YouTube setting a video record. That on its own is a lot of people who talked about Red Bull’s stunt.
The above examples having shown the positives of guerrilla marketing and how effective it could be in advertising. According to the father of the guerrilla marketing in his Guerrilla Marketing: Secrets for making big profits from your small business, Levinson (2007, p.25)” The basic function of the marketing plan is to ensure that you have the resources to make your product work. In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer base. It must build rapport and trust. It must understand the customer’s needs, and create a product that delivers the promised satisfaction. Guerrilla marketing is needed because it gives small businesses a delightfully unfair advantage: economy in a high-priced world, marketing awareness in a clueless world, certainty in an uncertain world, simplicity in a complicated world. Marketing is every bit of contact your company has with anyone in the outside world. That means a lot of marketing opportunities. It does not mean investing a lot of money.”
References
Blakeman, R. 2011. Nontraditional media in marketing and advertising. Texas: Zion.
Levinson, J. C. 1984. Guerrilla marketing: secrets for making big profits from your small business. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Levinson, J. C. 2001. Bigwig briefs guerrilla marketing : the best of guerrilla marketing. Boston, Mass.: Aspatore Books.
Levinson, J. C., Levinson, J., & Levinson, A. 2007. Guerrilla marketing: easy and inexpensive strategies for making big profits from your small business (4th ed., Completely updated and expanded ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.
Levinson, J. C., Meyerson, M., & Scarborough, M. E. 2008. Guerrilla marketing on the Internet: the definitive guide from the father of guerrilla marketing. Irvine, CA: Entrepreneur Press.
Levinson, J. C., & Levinson, J. 2011. Guerrilla marketing remix: the best of guerrilla marketing. Irvine: Entrepreneur Press.
