Guerrilla marketing: effective ads in the age of ad­vert­ising

In this era of modern ad­vert­ising, companies are con­stantly trying to figure out the best way to get the attention of the maximum amount of customers. The basics are clear: in order to increase turnover, you must, with the help of effective marketing, convince customers to buy certain products or services. In order to make your ad­vert­ise­ment effective it has to be no­tice­able. And while this sounds so simple – we live in an era where we are over-exposed to excessive amounts of un­ima­gin­at­ive, sometimes even dis­turb­ing, adverts – whether online, on tele­vi­sion, or in print. This means that it’s getting harder for marketers to bring an ads with a positive message to the masses, while still remaining con­vin­cing. This exact dilemma led to the emergence of guerrilla marketing over thirty years ago.

The word ‘guerrilla’ (from the Spanish word ‘la guerra’ meaning war) refers to a type of ambush or un­der­ground warfare, which attempts to defeat its opponent with the use of sur­pris­ing, un­der­ground fighting methods. ‘Guerrilla marketing’ as a term was ori­gin­ally coined in 1984 by the American creative director and business con­sult­ant Jay Conrad Levison in his book of the same title. Through­out this best­seller, Levison discusses marketing strategies that would es­pe­cially help small and medium-sized busi­nesses attract attention through the use ad­vert­ising tech­niques that are cheap, simple, and easy to implement. In short, he wanted to show companies that it was possible to achieve maximum marketing impact without huge expense. Since then it seems guerrilla ad­vert­ising has primarily become an effective marketing tactic for bigger companies and cor­por­a­tions looking to sell their products, services, and brands. Nowadays the cre­ativ­ity, as well as the budget, of ad­vert­isers appears to be almost limitless – as long as the ratio of expense to outcome remains positive. The goal is fairly simple: create a lot of ‘buzz’ for the product/service across all media platforms. So just how does guerilla marketing work in the digital age?

As consumers, we are con­fron­ted on a daily basis with thousands of ad­vert­ise­ments across a variety of channels. Par­tic­u­larly online there seems to be no way of getting away from pop-ups, banners, and news­let­ters. This leads to us viewing many ads as dis­rupt­ive or annoying, and as a result, no longer even taking notice of them. An es­pe­cially original and en­ter­tain­ing advert has the potential to distract us from our everyday routine, even for a few brief moments, while also directing our attention onto these products or services. In this current era of mul­ti­me­dia, mobile internet, and social networks, guerilla ad­vert­ising has become the ultimate dis­cip­line; a precise, one-off ‘hit and run’ action that should provoke sustained awareness, while also avoiding the time and financial re­straints of a large-scale campaign. Ul­ti­mately the end goal is that companies bring both them­selves and their product/s into the spotlight. However, there are also some other notable char­ac­ter­ist­ics and aims of guerilla marketing:

• Stand out from the mass of con­ven­tion­al ads with ex­cep­tion­al cre­ativ­ity
• Surprise audiences through the use of unusual present­a­tion
• Remain in people’s memory with ori­gin­al­ity and cre­ativ­ity
• Create a general ‘buzz‘ to initiate dis­cus­sion and verbal pro­pa­ganda
• Spread virally through­out internet platforms
• Strengthen the company and brand image through positive as­so­ci­ation
• Heightened publicity and coverage leading to increased sales

Central to good quality guerilla ad­vert­ising is the creative placement and visu­al­isa­tion of a concept. This is most effective as an original, almost dis­rupt­ive eye-catching advert, located in public places, on internet platforms, or on social networks – places where people might expect to be con­fron­ted by content. However, the idea is that people will be so surprised and/or amused by the content that they won’t be able to help but look twice, and then sub­sequently also feel compelled to tell others about it. This is par­tic­u­larly important online, where unique marketing texts, pictures, and videos are reported on, discussed, liked, and shared. This occurs across all social media platforms, blogs and online magazines. Thus viral marketing on websites like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram becomes a central component of the execution of guerilla ad­vert­ising. Campaigns therefore need to be in­ter­est­ing enough to make sure that they are shared and dis­trib­uted across as many channels as possible. One un­beat­able advantage of viral guerilla adverts is the ease at which they can be spread across the internet – as internet users them­selves take over the re­spons­ib­il­ity of sharing the ads. This type of online ‘mouth-to-mouth‘ pro­pa­ganda ensures that ads remain part of the col­lect­ive ‘digital‘ memory. The­or­et­ic­ally this means that they can still be gen­er­at­ing millions of views and fans in the years that follow. This also has an impact on SEO: more traffic and coverage for company websites, more online turnover, as well more links to a business’ products and offers. Guerilla marketing also works as a central component of content marketing. Among the most popular forms of guerilla marketing are internet videos, artistic in­stall­a­tions, flash mobs, and eye-catching outdoor ad­vert­ise­ments. These often involve audience in­ter­ac­tion. Humorous, en­ter­tain­ing, con­tro­ver­sial, and dramatic content with unique character is re­cog­nised as being key to viral success. The ability for it to spread via news, social networks, blogs, and video sites adds further to the marketing ploy. Ul­ti­mately, it is ir­rel­ev­ant whether the ad is online or in physical form – so long as it is a unique, memorable, and shareable ex­per­i­ence.

There is no set standard or method when it comes to guerilla marketing and no limit to the varieties thereof either – what’s most important is making an impact. A popular option is the placing and in­teg­rat­ing of ad-related objects in public, urban spaces where they can be seen by a multitude of people. This so-called ambient ad­vert­ising is very useful, as it reaches potential customers in their everyday sur­round­ings without the use of ad­di­tion­al media. Mosquito marketing is when smaller firms exploit the weak­nesses of com­pet­it­ors’ offers and cleverly dif­fer­en­ti­ate them­selves from these com­pet­it­ors. Another example is the ac­cur­ately named ambush marketing, which is the practice of using public or current events to relay an in­di­vidu­al marketing message. Depending on how spec­tac­u­lar or scan­dal­ous an in­di­vidu­al marketing action is, it may even be referred to as sen­sa­tion­al marketing.

Over the last few years there have been several different examples of unusual, guerilla-style ad­vert­ising tech­niques, the quality of which has ranged from brilliant to dis­astrous:

In 2012 the TV channel TNT was looking to attract attention to its en­ter­tain­ment programme schedule in Belgium and decided to adopt the guerilla marketing tactic of ambient ad­vert­ising. This par­tic­u­lar marketing ploy saw unknowing ped­es­tri­ans become involved in a real town square spectacle. By pressing an ominous-looking red button they initiated a spectacle which offered nearly all the action and drama ima­gin­able. The result was a com­pletely flab­ber­gas­ted mass of spec­tat­ors looking on speech­lessly, as an action-packed film scene unfolded before their eyes. This allowed TNT to create a video that up until now has been viewed over 54 million times on YouTube. And all this just to ‘add a bit of drama to everyday life’:

Paddy Power have become well-known for their social media activity, but over the years they have also been known to dabble in their fair share of guerilla ad­vert­ising ploys. In 2005 they were forced to withdraw billboard adverts which depicted a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper,’ wherein Jesus and his Apostles were seen playing poker. Then at the 2012 European Football Cham­pi­on­ships, they paid Danish foot­baller Nicklas Bendtner to celebrate a goal by lifting up his shirt to reveal the Paddy Power logo em­blazoned across his underwear. While Bendtner received a €100,000 fine, the betting company gained huge publicity globally. Today, the video of the cel­eb­ra­tion has nearly 40,000 views on YouTube:

Charities have also been known to get involved in guerilla marketing. Summer 2016 saw AACD, a Brazilian charity for disabled children, launch a highly-emotional video campaign with the aim of in­creas­ing donations. Passersby on the street were invited to sit in a ‘Problem Saving Machine,’ basically a photo booth, and watch a short video. They would then see numerous AACD assisted children giving deeply-moving, but also very simple, tips on how to forget your problems and be happier all round. On YouTube alone the video has up to now been watched over 94,500 times and is a superb example of an authentic video campaign achieving viral status:

Two major drinks companies have succeeded in coming up with par­tic­u­larly original guerilla campaigns on social media. In Brazil, Heineken managed to generate one million likes on their Facebook page with their simple and humorous campaign ‘1 Like, 1 Balloon,’ wherein for every like they got they would inflate a balloon in their office. During the live video stream of the event, the original ‘like’ target of 10,000 was greatly exceeded, while at the same time the Heineken offices quickly filled with green balloons:

While Heineken used Facebook, Coca-Cola used Twitter to launch its guerilla ad­vert­ising campaign ‘Pa­per­twee­tos’. During the 2011 Copa America, the company called on Ar­gen­tini­an fans to tweet best wishes to the national team. In total, around two million tweets were sent and these were sub­sequently printed out and used as confetti in the stadium:

T-Mobile combined a flash mob and the singing of some classic songs in their 2010 advert ‘Welcome Home.’ The video showed people entering the arrivals hall in Heathrow airport to be greeted by singers, dancers, and musicians, who proceeded to give them a spec­tac­u­lar welcome. The mix of great music, humorous antics, and fantastic reactions meant the video instantly went viral and today has amassed over 15 million views on YouTube:

In 2015 pas­sen­gers on the Stockholm un­der­ground were given the op­por­tun­ity to have fun with in­ter­act­ive bill­boards from the IKEA. Finger touch tech­no­logy enabled passersby to set a domino sequence in motion, which would then be displayed across multiple ad­vert­ising displays along the platform. This was es­pe­cially enjoyable for children, at whom the campaign was mostly directed, given that it promoted the new range of toys LATTJO. The campaign advert would go on to be watched over 23,500 times on YouTube:

It must, however, also be re­membered that bad guerilla ad­vert­ising can go viral just as quickly. For all the numerous examples of suc­cess­ful marketing campaigns out there, there are also some that have gone dread­fully wrong. The extent to which a guerilla marketing tactic can backfire is seen in the example of the 2007 campaign by the American broad­caster Adult Swim to promote their new cartoon series ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’. Adult Swim decided to place specially-made LED indicator lights around Boston’s streets. However, these were then falsely in­ter­preted as being explosive devices and sub­sequently removed by local police. Not only this, but the artists re­spons­ible were arrested and the media cor­por­a­tion Turner was forced to pay two million dollars as com­pens­a­tion for having causing a city-wide bomb scare. Although the campaign can maybe be deemed a PR success, fin­an­cially it was a disaster. Something similar also happened the previous year during the promo campaign for the film ‘Mission Possible III’. Around Cali­for­nia, devices were placed in 4,500 newspaper boxes, which upon opening, were intended to play the movie’s theme song. Un­for­tu­nately, many of the devices failed to work, and once again, bomb disposal teams were called in to deal with the sus­pi­cious-looking objects. In 2005, the juice company Snapple also attracted negative publicity with its attempt at guerilla marketing in New York. What started as an ad­vert­ising ploy at­tempt­ing to break the world record for the largest popsicle, in the summer heat, turned into a large molten pool of straw­berry and kiwi sludge. The city cleaning de­part­ment had to be called in, and instead of a world record, the company achieved nothing more than making a fool of itself.

If it is the case that a guerilla marketing tactic is original, unique, and sur­pris­ing enough to remain in people’s memory, then this will increase not just the interest of certain target audiences, but also the appeal and pop­ular­ity of a brand, too. If it manages to acquire event-like status, i.e. by in­cor­por­at­ing passersby, it can quickly become a viral hit. As the above examples have demon­strated, a longer life on the internet and on social media can mean reaching an audience of millions. The biggest advantage of suc­cess­ful guerilla marketing, then, is a potential for a high return on in­vest­ment (ROI) with re­l­at­ively low overheads. This is difficult to achieve via print, TV, and outdoor ad­vert­ising. Con­sequently, anyone who through limited means and guerilla ad­vert­ising succeeds in reaching a large audience has the ability to bring their company forward leaps and bounds. But bear in mind that these examples also demon­strate that not every radical ad­vert­ising idea is destined to be a success – and in some cases can even cause con­sid­er­able damage. Given that viral activity cannot be con­trolled, concepts and measures must be well planned and im­ple­men­ted. The expense and effort involved must be worth it, re­gard­less if it is a short or long campaign. And if it is the case that the guerilla marketing does backfire, e.g. by angering or confusing customers, or causing the police to be called, then there is the danger of damage to the company and brand image, as well as expensive com­pens­a­tion or amendment costs. One other possible peril is that the guerilla action may cause the actual product and ac­com­pa­ny­ing advert to be mis­in­ter­preted or possibly even forgotten. This is of course quite dis­astrous, and also con­tra­dict­ory to the whole aim of the campaign. Nev­er­the­less, an as­sess­ment of the potential risks still shows that guerilla marketing is an exciting and demanding challenge, requiring unusual and creative ideas alongside great courage. And the like­li­hood that you do succeed in making your product un­for­get­table is still quite high. The photos from some of the best campaigns speak for them­selves; here you will find a com­pil­a­tion of 100 creative and enjoyable guerilla ad­vert­ising campaigns.