GUERRILLA MARKETING

Marketing Addict
Apr 1, 2021
4 min read

“Mitsubishi spent $25 million to showcase its cars in Universal’s 2 Fast 2 Furious.” Jay Conrad Levinson Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla marketing is a marketing strategy where marketers use creative, imaginative, and unconventional marketing tactics in order to promote a product or service it often relies on personal interaction, has a smaller budget, and focuses on smaller groups of promoters.

Guerrilla Marketing is about taking the consumer by surprise, make an indelible impression and create copious amounts of social buzz.

The original term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’ Guerrilla marketing can be very cost-effective for small businesses, especially so if they manage to create a viral marketing phenomenon.

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Features of Guerrilla Marketing

Pocket-Friendly Campaigns
These methods are often low- or no-cost and involve the widespread use of more personal interactions or through viral social media messaging.
Targeted Reach
Focuses on smaller groups of promoters that are responsible for getting the word out in a particular location rather than through widespread media campaigns.
Minimalism
Fewer resources, big message. That’s what guerrilla marketing is all about.
Channels
Guerrilla marketing rely on promotions to be spread through viral marketing, or word-of-mouth thus reaching a broader audience for free.

Guerrilla Marketing Types

There are several kinds of guerrilla marketing. Some examples include:

Viral or buzz marketing
Stealth
Ambient
Ambush
Projection advertising
Astroturfing
Grassroots
Wild posting
Street
Pop-up retail

Guerrilla Marketing Strategies

Be in Your Customer’s Shoes
Be Creative use art to market your business
Stick with Your Brand Identity
Don’t Tell Them Everything leave a message which makes them come back to you for more
Sponsor a local charity event or sports event
Distribute gifts in form of GIVEAWAYS just like ADIDAS did.
Be Responsive to the questions & queries of consumers
Use visuals rather than text
Trigger Engagement get viral online

ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES of GUERRILLA MARKETING

CASE STUDIES

Guerrilla strategy of Nike brand
Nike uses unique Guerrilla strategies to promote its brand and its ideology. For example, during one of their marketing strategies, they placed benches in parks with the brand sign on it but without a sitting space. The idea behind this strategy is to encourage people to run and walk more and not to rest. Similarly, they blocked the escalators on the metro station with a ribbon showing the brand logo of Nike, which conveys the message that rather than taking elevators, take stairs to stay fit.
Guerrilla advertisement by UNICEF
UNICEF used an innovative guerrilla marketing technique by displaying the picture of dirty water in a bottle and selling dirty water to raise funds to provide clean drinking water. They said if you can’t drink dirty water, then no one else can drink it too.
Guerrilla marketing strategy of Coca Cola’s Happiness Machine
As a part of their Happiness Machine Campaign (which included installing happiness machines, which pass out free drinks and other coca cola merchandises, to various crowded destinations like colleges, malls), installed a love machine in a mall of Istanbul. This machine gave free coca cola cans to any couple who proved their love.
Guerrilla marketing strategy of Adidas
Looks like giving products for free isn’t that bad. Adidas added a bit of creativity in implementing this idea though. A big Adidas Shoe Box was placed in a crowded area of Melbourne where the passer-by were given only one shoe of the pair. They were asked to visit the store to get the pair.
Guerrilla marketing strategy of Mini Cooper
To end their 99-Euro a month campaign, Mini Cooper wanted to do something out of the box. Hence, they and their creative team came up with an idea of placing empty cardboard boxes over the leftover Christmas Garbage in the city. This campaign cost them less than €5,000 and created a buzz around the city. It was a clever idea of showing how small and affordable mini is. This was a great step towards creating a favourable brand positioning.
Guerrilla marketing strategy of Fat tire beer brand
Fat tire pasted the stickers of beer mugs, having their name on them around the handles of the door. Which gives the impression that people are holding beer mugs when they are holding handles of the doors.
Guerrilla marketing campaign for saving trees
In these marketing strategies, the NGO placed a fake dead animal on the pole to bring the attention of people to save trees for wild animals, or they will be seen hanging around the living area.
Guerrilla marketing campaign of Mars bar chocolate
Mars pasted a large sticker with the picture of mars chocolate, stating truck size chocolate on large trucks to grab the attention of people.