The End

Over the course of a semester I kept a blog on the topic of Guerilla Marketing. I had a lot of fun with this assignment because it allowed me the discretion to take the blog in whatever direction I wanted to. I’ve never kept a blog before because cataloguing my personal life just never appealed to me. However I never considered the idea of becoming an expert in a particular field and commenting on the subject on a weekly basis. I was cool to imagine what people may stumble upon my blog and how they would use its content. Working in this consumer empowered blogsphere has made me appreciate the impact it is having on the industry.

In the process of becoming a credible writer on the topic of guerilla marketing I did a lot of research and case studies. I examined what other companies tried and if their initiatives were successful or failed miserably. I am glad to have this understanding because I know unconventional marketing tactics are becoming the norm in the industry and now I am ready to embrace it and can even offer insight on the matter.

In review of what I learned through this process, Guerilla marketing is an inexpensive and unconventional way to reach conventional goals. In laymen’s terms, guerilla means that it’s new, original, and found outside the realm of traditional mediums such as TV and newspapers. These tactics exude creativity and originality. It tends to appeal to a younger demographic who appreciate a marketer who can get their attention in the media saturated world they grew up in.

Sometimes guerilla campaigns can be ridiculously effective, achieving results and surpassing marketing objectives with only a small budget. However some campaigns can be offensive or even illegal and may constitute as vandalism. Throughout my blog I list examples of both.

I will use a story about Sony to emphasize how careful guerillas must be when trying to level with their audience. Sony created a graffiti campaign that rubbed their target exactly the wrong way. After paying graffiti artists to paint images of little kids playing with their products in inner city neighborhoods, they received a lot of negative feedback for debasing neighborhood walls “in order to move units”. In San Franscico, someone decided to let Sony know how they felt about the campaign by changing the word Sony to “Fony” and discoloring the images. This is not exactly the consumer-generated feedback Sony had in mind. But it demonstrated the point I am making. While Sony thought they were being cool and hip, they were in fact making a lot of people angry.



A lot of big corporations with seemingly unlimited budgets use guerilla marketing to achieve marketing objectives such as Nike and Verizon. However guerilla happens to be a favorite domain for non-profit organizations that advertise to achieve social change. World Water Day is such an example. They began the campaign by placing king sized straws on sewers across Spain with the message “Would you drink from this water? Thousands of people haven’t got another choice”. In Belgium a similar guerilla campaign went on but instead of straws in sewers it featured stickers of a little boy’s face stuck in the sinks of movie theatres, pubs, and public toilets. These are very powerful messages that would not have been heard without these unconventional methods of marketing.

Guerilla marketing is awesome because like this blog gave me the discretion to do whatever I wanted, guerilla marketing gives the company the freedom to create whatever they can possibly think of as methods to promote. From chalking sidewalks to painting foreheads. from bathrooms to blimps, there is nowhere you can hide from guerilla. It’s going to get ya!

Bah Bah Black Sheep

I have come across some bizarre things since I began keeping a blog but I have yet to see something like this, the branding of sheep. No I am not referring to placing a piece of scalding hot metal against an animal's skin to leave a permanant burn. What I am referring to is far worse and more psycologically damaging (well maybe not, but it's pretty low and abusive if you ask me). If you were driving down a highway in the Netherlands you may come across one of these poor creatures. These walking, woolly flocks of bleating advertisements were put on display by a Dutch online reservations company, hotels.nl.
I have heard of similiar tactics used in the advertising industry, people having messages written on their foreheads or wearing shirts with company's name or logo. But these people are consenting to being used as commercial subjects and they are probably getting paid too. Although, it costs about $1.23 a day per sheep it is not really clear who gets this money. Yet, I highly doubt its the sheep wearing a change purse around their belly so they can retire comfortably. These sheep were not asked for their permission before having waterproof, insulated, branded, washed in cintronella to repel insects blanket strapped onto them.
This has promtped a reaction however not from the environmentalist, animal-rights advocates as would be expected. Instead its Bert Kuiper, the town's mayor who raised concerns that advertising on livestock violates the town's ban on advertising along highways.
They are being fined 100 eros a day but Hotels.nl is not yielding. Despite the criticisms, sales at Hotels.nl have been up 15 percent since the campaign began. They are beginning to look into locations with frequent traffic jams to place more flocks. There goal is 25,000 branded sheep within the Netherlands. They hope to expand to cows and horses in the future.

Toilets, Sex, and Women..oh my!

Guerilla's have no shame. Not only do they place their messages where no advertiser has gone before, but their messages tend to go where no one has gone before. They dabble in the profane and inappropriate hoping to spark the interest of their target audience.



This is a guerilla campaign for Bild, a popular newspaper in Germany. They decided to do a small guerilla stint at the German Arts Director's Club Awards show in Berlin in March 2006. They decorated the men's toilets with a special mirror. While relieving themselves, men would look into the mirror and read the tag line, "Nothing's harder than the truth".

Another campaign that dances on the thin line of being inappropriate was a campaign developed by Daniel Wolfe of Wolfe/Doyle Advertising in San Francisco. He wanted to reach the bar crowd, he did so with coasters reading, on one side, "Strike out tonight?" and, on the other side, "Then go home and play with yourself." I appears that bars and sexual innuendos go hand in hand. Another campaign occured in San Franscisco in 2001 during by Ammo Marketing. They hired 40 beautiful women to enter bars, pant "save me" into men's ears, drop business cards into their pockets and promptly disappear. Just as desired, most of the men called the phone number on the business cards. But instead of seductive women answering the phone, they got pitches for a new online game from Electronics Arts called Majestic. This campaign did not go over very well with the men involved. Most people do not like being tricked or teased.

Recently a lot of guerilla marketing is getting slack for being tiresome. As it makes its way into the norm of advertising, companies need to be more authentic and original. Although guerilla marketing is a form of bold, grassroots advertising, it has become quite institutionalized and a commonplace that many companies have become reluctant to use.

Can You Hear Me Now?

There is one company who I depend on with my life, yet despise as having the worst customer service that has ever existed...Verizon. The name reminds me of a piece of glass slicing into my foot as I accidentially walk upon it. I know I am being really harsh, but my past experiences with the company have been very negative for me. I guess this is truly demonstrative of what people mean by fostering good customer relations, because if you don't, blogs like this will appear and forever mare the names of companies that stink. So you are probably wondering what this has to do with Guerilla Marketing. Just now I came upon an instance where the oh-great-and monopoly holding phone company tried out some guerilla strategies only to be met with fines. However what appears to be consequential actually seems like a pretty good deal.

In 2001, the company tried to raise awareness about the yellowpages.com that consisted of stenciling orange-red chalk ads on sidewalks in Washington, D.C. Since they never sought a permit from the mayor, the company was fined $150 for is each of the seven ads city officials found. However, after further reading into the matter, it appears that 135 ads had been sprayed in total but only seven were left as the other ads had worn away or were washed off before D.C. crews could clean them.
That means the company pretty much got away scotch free, thats only $1,050, less than the price of airing a commercial on prime time or buying an ad in a newspaper. Its a phenomenal. At $150 a pop, it's pretty much a bargain, don't you think? Can you imagine what the CPM is on that?

I suppose I am a little bitter that Verizon got away with its illegal guerilla actions. However I do not think in turn I would demand tighter controls on guerilla marketing. I love seeing the new ideas companies come up with in order to break through the clutter. But perhaps stenciling on sidewalks is getting a little cliche.
I believe I already wrote a post about it earlier this year. So maybe instead of asking their age old question, "Can you hear me now" they should be asking "Can I help you now". We all know they exist and have service in every crevice of the country. Perhaps now they can work on that customer service factor.

Guerilla Elections

Guerilla marketing has raised up from the depths of obscurity as an easily overlooked marketing tool to being in the forefront of a lot of campaigns. It is very effective at creating a lasting impression in an industry where retention is highly valued. This is why when I created my own campaign, Guerilla marketing was an essential component in my marketing mix.

I am currently running a campaign for Senior Class '07 called ClassRoots. The entire process has been an execution of everything I learned while studying in the Integrated Makreting Communications major. Basically I have a message and I am trying to deliver it to as many of my classmates as possible. Putting together this campaign has been very challenging as well as enlightening. A politcal campaign is equivelant to a product in terms of selling and therefore I applied the same tactics. I drafted my message, made a logo, a tag line, poster ideas, execution, distribution, got information to the right outlets, located my influencers, and ran a full-out marketing campaign for the ClassRoots '07. In retrospect, I can not believe how much querilla marketing played into my campaign and how effective it really is.

I hung posters, made brochures, tabled for six hours a day for five days, and all those traditional campaigning strategies. Yet,I felt that there needed to be more. A way to reach the people who were not seeking this information, who had no concern about their senior class representatives. I had to think like a guerilla. The first thing we did was set up a facebook group and invited as many people as we could. Soon we had four hundred members that could be instantly messaged with then click of a botton. The creation of the facebook page created a solid base for us where we could post information and even establish a diologue with hundreds of poeple on a very personal basis. It was also important that we created a culture for our campaign, to create associations with our name: ClassRoots. We wanted to show that we are close to our classmates, not detached. We spray painted our logo on shirts (rather than printing) this was for economic and coolness factors. The shirts where then distributed to individuals we thought were influential. They wore the shirts all week long!!! People noticed the shirts and even asked for their own.

Not only did we practice guerilla marketing in our campaign, so did our rivals. Their party is called the Coup (creating understanding, oppurtunties, and parties). They developed a campaign around a fist with the initials COUP on each knuckle. All their supporters then were encouraged to do the same. They also incorporated the fist pound, doing it with every person they talked to. These methods were unconventional and got them attention.

Regardless of who wins the campaign (the vote will take place next week) I think it is interesting that guerilla tactics were intricately woven into both campaigns. Applying and seeing guerilla marketing in action was very exciting because there is an immediate response. Watching people's inquisitive faces as they see the shirt and in turn asking the person wearing it for more information was exhilerating! Guerilla marketing gets my vote.

Outsourcing to Guerillas

By outsourcing to guerillas, I am not referring to transferring business functions over to our primate cousins. I am referring to hiring an outside company to create and execute guerilla style campaigns. This rather new marketing function is not as easily accomplished as scanning radio and television ratings and viewship demographics and then placing advertisments there. Oh no, gurilla marketing involves a whole lot more. It involves street smarts, knowing what hot and whats not, understanding consumer trends, and knowing the ins and outs of the location in which campaign is to be executed. In other words, one should leave guerilla marketing to the experts.

These experts come in many forms. One of the more noterious companies is GoGuerilla. This company offers various services that focus around printing your organizations name on unexpected objects your target consumer may come into contact with while going about their day to day business. These objects are rather random such as condoms, matchbooks, waterbottles, etc. There website is very extensive and even offers media matching services allowing you to consider your exact target and effective methods to reach them. They have other services too such as postcards and poster hangings.

Many other companies exist and do not specialize to such a degree. Go Guerilla Media does a specific function and many businesses require a more personalized list of guerilla services. Outsourcing is still my recommendation. I experienced such outsourcing first hand over the summer of 2005. I interned for MKTG Partners. It is a small marketing firm that specializes in outdoor events. During my internship the shoe company, Nike, was working through us to execute their summer marketing activities. They were seeking new, innovative, unexpected, and fun ways to reach their consumers. We did just that for them. We designed different campaigns for their many many objectives. Nike is constantly in the midst of a million projects from professional sponsorships to hosting local basketball tournamants.

The projects I worked on were guerilla marketing wrapped up with some viral and interactive strategies, essentially they were unconventional as hell. My favorite was when NIKE bought out two billboards in the middle of Times Square to promote their new individually customized shoes. One of the boards had a phone number on it and the other had a shoe. The objective was to call the phone number and if you got through, you used your keypad on your cell phone to change the color of the shoe on the other billboard. Nike gave out 1 pair of shoes a minute for free throughout the five hour event. My job was to organize, dress, and prep a street team to walk up and down Broadway rallying attention to the billboards by pointing and say things like, "Check it out" "Its changing" "Free Shoes". It was so much fun. People would get so excited, standing there for hours calling and calling and then suddenly someone would start screaming, "Oh my Goodness, I got through, I'm changing the shoe!!!".
Another Guerilla marketing event my company did involved mimicking a commercial. When the the Nike Free sneaker came out, Nike had a commercial of people running down the beach in all white wearing the new shoes. Our company in turn outfitted a group of runners in the same gear and they ran all over Manhattan as in the commericial.

Companies Must not be afraid to go places no one has gone before. Its the only way to break through the clutter and get noticed. However one should consult the experts before throwing an entire marketing budget into these kinds of campaigns. There are many risks involved.

It's not over until the Guerilla Sings

Professor Gregson, I am not yet satisfied with the content on my blog. I choose to work on it over the next few weeks. Thank you

This is Guerilla Marketing

Most companies launch advertising campaigns and use guerilla tactics to compliment their other promotional activites. However New York Magazine took a chance, one could say that they threw all their eggs in one basket. In 2005 the magazine relaunched itself with a brand new format and to generate buzz, they created a city wide guerilla campaign. After just one month newsstand sales boosted by double digits and Web traffic shot through the roof. This was rather remarkable considering it was their first campaign in 8 years and their budget was under $1 million (a meager amount compared to the industry's average).

So how did they do it? A month-long "This is New York" guerilla, interactive campaign is the answer. They hung posters all over the city and coupled it with live promotions. The posters were placed in subways and kiosks and were changed daily to promote different events going on around the city using themes that were linked to current events.

Live promotions really gave the campaign that extra bang. Its easy to walk by a poster but its hard to walk by one when there are people standing next to it drawing your attention there. Posters sometimes features crossword puzzles were accompanied by staffers handing out pencils and paper versions of the puzzle to solve. Promotional cards were also incorporated in the marketing blitz which had numbers that if entered on their website could win that person a free month's rent. As if this wasn't enough, the magazine took it to the next level by incorporating children. To coincide with the New York's back-to-school posters, children were given chalk to write "This is New York" (the campaigns tag line) where ever they wanted.

In one month the magazine made a substantial mark on the Big Apple. Their website hits increased by 80% and newstand sales were up 14%. The momentum behind this campaign was tremendous. They related to New Yorkers in a relevant way by being in the subways, offering free rent, and involving the children. New York city is very condensed with thousands of people at your fingertips. If this market is accessed correctly the rewards are numerous, as demonstrated by New York magazine. Their "This is New York" campaign really highlights guerilla marketing and waht it is capable of achieving.

Thinking Outside of the Guerilla Box

As I searched the industry newletters and blogs looking for new and exciting information about Guerilla marketing, I came to the conclusion that I have been rather closed-minded in my pursuits. I have looked to tangible examples of guerilla marketing such as unconventional outdoor, but never stopped to consider the other forms of guerilla marketing. To reiterate what we all probably know, guerilla marketing is using unconventional methods to reach a conventional end...getting client message's to the consumers. Therefore lets consider viral marketing. When word-of-mouth marketing occurs outside of advertisers hands it is consumer generated and no longer catagorized as intentional marketing. However there is another type of viral marketging, and in my opinion it fits snuggly into the guerilla marketing catagory. Viral marketing that is intentionally conducted and paid for by clients is unconvential, minimally expensive, and another way to achieve the ends that I mentioned above.

Besides keeping my blog and being a full-time student, I have a third occupation. I am a buzzagent. Buzzagent is found online and operates as a viral marketing agency. Companies pay buzzagent to spread the word about new products via viral marketing. Buzzagent in turn, has an arsenal of buzzagents who sign up for these campaigns. Once I sign onto a campaign I get a package in the mail that includes free samples and information about the product. I am then given the responsibility of "buzzing" people I interact with on a daily basis. This means that whenever possible I talk about this new product and its many attributes and give these person a sample and ask for some feedback. I am then required to fill out a buzzreport for buzzagent letting them know how people respond. I recieve buzzpoints as a reward for these reports, and with these points I can get cool prices.

Currently I am signed onto a buzzcampaign for Hershey's new candybar, Take5. I find myself in a slightly torn position because I love the candy bar so much and I love talking about how good it is...it had peanut, chocolate covered pretzel, and caramel!! However I am very reluctant to share the candy bars with anyone. This also is demonstrative on how unreliable this service can potentionally be. Some people could act very unethically and make up the buzzreports in order to get the free samples to themselves. In the future I will try not to sign onto campaigns that involve food. Lesson learned.
For more information about this agency visit www.buzzagent.com