Guerrilla marketing

Overview

Guerrilla marketing is an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service. It is a type of publicity. The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson's 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing. Guerrilla marketing uses multiple techniques and practices to establish direct contact with potential customers. One of the goals of this interaction is to cause an emotional reaction in the clients, and the ultimate goal of marketing is to induce people to remember products or brands in a different way than they might have been accustomed to. As traditional advertising media channels—such as print, radio, television, and direct mail—lose popularity, marketers and advertisers have felt compelled to find new strategies to convey their commercial messages to the consumer. Guerrilla marketing focuses on taking the consumer by surprise to make a dramatic impression about the product or brand. This in turn creates buzz about the product being marketed. It is a way of advertising that increases consumers' engagement with the product or service, and is designed to create a memorable experience. By creating a memorable experience, it also increases the likelihood that a consumer, or someone who interacted with the campaign, will tell their friends about the product. Thus, via word of mouth, the product or service being advertised reaches more people than initially anticipated. Guerrilla marketing is relatively inexpensive, and focuses more on reach rather than frequency. For guerrilla campaigns to be successful, companies generally do not need to spend large amounts of money, but they need to have imagination, energy and time. Therefore, guerrilla marketing has the potential to be effective for small businesses, especially if they are competing against bigger companies. The message to consumers is often designed to be clear and concise. This type of marketing also works on the unconscious mind, because purchasing decisions are often made by the unconscious mind. To keep the product or service in the unconscious mind requires repetition, so if a buzz is created around a product, and if it is shared amongst friends, then this mechanism enables repetition.

Etymology and origin

The term "guerrilla marketing" is traced to guerrilla warfare, which employs atypical tactics to achieve an objective. In 1984, the term guerrilla marketing was introduced by Leo Burnett's creative director Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term itself was from the inspiration of guerrilla warfare which was unconventional warfare using different techniques from usual and small tactic strategies used by armed civilians. Because the key goal is to manipulate consumers into talking about the product or brand via social media platforms, significant imagination and energy is required in order to capture the attention of sufficient numbers of people. This is especially the case when one considers that, with other firms competing for people's attention, there can be significant "clutter" in the environment that the consumer is forced to deal with daily. Guerrilla marketing is popular for small or medium-sized businesses who have tight budgets. But the same tactics have also been used by large companies trying to differentiate themselves from competitors via social media campaigns. Similar marketing tactics have also been used by individuals seeking employment. Guerrilla marketing has also evolved to include street marketing, which itself has evolved to encompass activities beyond the everyday realm of urban streets and thus now includes newer promotional methodologies. Examples include mass-printed flyers and animated digital signage.

Ambient marketing

Ambient communication is advertising presented on elements of the environment, including nearly every available physical surface. It is a compilation of intelligence, flexibility, and effective use of the atmosphere. These kinds of ads can be found anywhere and everywhere from hand dryers in public bathrooms and petrol pumps through to bus hand straps and golf-hole cups.

Ambush marketing

Ambush marketing is a form of associative marketing, used by an organization to capitalize upon the awareness, attention, goodwill, and other benefits, generated by having an association with an event or property, without that organization having an official or direct connection to that event or property. This form of marketing is typically seen at major events where rivals of official sponsors attempt to build an association with the event and increase awareness for their brands, sometimes covertly. For example, during the 2012 London Olympics, footwear maker Nike created 'find your Greatness' spots where they featured athletes from several locations called London (but without showing the real London or referring to the Olympic games). This was intended to build a strong association between the London Olympics and Nike.

Stealth marketing

Stealth marketing is a type of surreptitious advertising in which a product or service is promoted in a way that is intended to draw attention without appearing to be promotional. This often involves a popular social media account seemingly unaffiliated with the advertiser such as an influencer or news account, appearing to post about it organically in their own style but with the subject being exclusively the company or marketing campaign being promoted and only talking about the subject positively, without explicitly disclosing the post as an advertisement. The account does not disclose that they accept advertising nor offer advertising services publicly. This is intended to increase revenue by displaying apparent authenticity, thus aiming to eliminate consumer friction or refusals found when presenting disclosed advertising, by aiming to use the same trust as consumer-to-consumer Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM) but differs from it by being under direct control of the advertiser as a planned, one-time advertising post on an account, without relying on consumer loyalty and bypassing social media platforms' advertising platforms, potentially leading to lower upfront investment and wider reach. In some countries, these practices are widespread among locally popular social media accounts and may be combined with Astroturfing campaigns and this type of advertising post can also be ordered repeatedly by the same advertiser. This type of advertising can constitute a significant fraction of an account's revenue.

Viral marketing

Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others (often via online social-media platforms), creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Off the Internet, viral marketing can be referred to as "word-of-mouth".

Buzz marketing

Similar to viral marketing, buzz marketing uses high-profile media to encourage the public to discuss the brand or product. Buzz marketing works best when consumer's responses to a product or service and subsequent endorsements are genuine, without the company paying them. Buzz generated from buzz marketing campaigns is referred to as "amplified WOM" (word-of-mouth), and "organic WOM" is when buzz occurs naturally by the consumer.

Grassroots marketing

Grassroots campaigns aim to win customers over individually. A successful grassroots campaign is not about the dissemination of the marketing message in the hope that possible consumers are paying attention, but rather highlights a personal connection between the consumer and the brand, and builds a lasting relationship with the brand.

Astroturfing

Astroturfing is among the most controversial guerrilla marketing strategies, and it has a high risk of backfiring for the company marketing the product or service. Astroturfing derives from artificial “turf”, often used in stadiums or tennis courts – also known as fake grass. Hence, fake endorsements, testimonials and recommendations are all products of Astroturfing in the public-relations sector. Astroturfing involves generating an artificial hype around a particular product or company through a review or discussion on online blogs or forums by one or more individuals who are paid to convey a positive view yet who does not reveal their true motivation. Astroturfing may also be done similarly on social media to support a product. This can have a negative and detrimental effect on a company, should the consumer suspect that the review or opinion is inauthentic and manipulative of public opinion. The result is damage to the company's reputation, and possibly litigation. It has also been used to attempt to shift public opinion by posing mining as an ideological stance and thus supporting mining activities by directly or indirectly making relationships between mining and societal issues, even over months and posing a single mine as mining and thus its restart as an ideological or political stance. Astroturfing has also been used in election campaigns.

Street marketing

Street marketing uses unconventional means of advertising or promoting products and brands in public areas. The main goal is to encourage consumers to remember and recall the brand or product marketed. As a division of guerrilla marketing, street marketing is specific to all marketing activities carried out in streets and public areas such as parks, streets, and events. Street marketing also encompasses advertising outdoors, such as on shopping trolleys (shopping carts, in the US), public toilets, sides of cars or public transport, manhole covers, footpaths, rubbish bins, etc. Street marketing is not confined to fixed print-form advertisements. It is common practice for organizations to use brand ambassadors who distribute product samples or discount vouchers, and answer queries about the product while emphasizing the brand. The brand ambassadors may be accompanied by a kiosk containing product samples or demonstration materials, or wearing a "walking billboard". The physical interaction with consumers has a greater influencing power than traditional passive advertising. Street marketing is understood as mobilizing not only the space of the streets but also the imagination of the street: that of street culture and street art. Young urbanites are often put forth as the most susceptible target for these campaigns due to their associations with the culture of the street. According to Marcel Saucet and Bernard Cova, street marketing can be used as a general term encompassing six principal types of activities:

Distribution of flyers or products, this activity is more traditional, and is the most common form of street marketing employed by brands. Product animations, this consists of personalizing a high-traffic space using brand imagery. The idea is to create a micro-universe in order to promote a new product or service. Human animations, the goal of such actions is to create a space in which the brand's message is communicated through human activity. Road shows, this form of mobile presentation is based on the development of means of transport: taxi, bike, Segway, etc. Uncovered actions, these activities involve the customization of street elements. Event actions, these activities take the form of spectacles, such as flash mobs or contests. The idea is to promote a product, service, or brand value through organization of a public event.

Typical procedure

First, corporations identify the public places where the campaign can be developed such as beaches, cultural events, close to schools, sporting events and recreation areas for children. Next, companies have to develop a plan to get close to different media and the target market. In order to attract attention, street marketing events not only involve unusual activities, but use technology as part of the events. The purpose is to increase the value of the campaigns and get potential consumers' attention. Companies develop plans taking into account that the global communication and interaction involved in guerrilla or street marketing is not limited to customers or the media. They are also developed to identify opportunities and collect enough information about products, markets and competitors. For businesses, it is important that customers stay with them, instead of choosing the competitors’ offers. They implement innovative strategies with which they will not lose position in the market, and they consider supplementation with other advertisement through other mediums, such as radio and television, when using street marketing. When a company decides to do a guerrilla marketing campaign which could be anything out of viral, ambient, ambush, street or stealth, the focus for them is to meet the objectives. The main objectives for them are:

To create enough buzz to serve in word-of-mouth, helping the brand to establish well with its products To touch most of the five sensory identities of the customer/consumer, enhancing personal experience with the brand and building a good reputation To reach the target successfully by taking the brand to them in their daily routine Through the experience and the ephemeral feelings shared between the company and the target, advertisers and agencies generate a feeling of intimacy that resonates beyond the encounter. This feeling of nearness becomes all the more lasting as the affected individuals relive this encounter on the internet through social media.

Strategy

The guerrilla marketing promotion strategy was first identified by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing (1984). The book describes hundreds of "guerrilla marketing weapons" in use at the time. Guerrilla marketers need to be creative in devising unconventional methods of promotion to maintain the public's interest in a product or service. Levinson writes that when implementing guerrilla marketing tactics, smaller organizations and entrepreneurs are actually at an advantage. Ultimately, however, guerrilla marketers must "deliver the goods". In The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, the authors write: "...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..."