Guerilla Style

Guerilla strategies are a phenomena found in many other arenas outside of marketing. The term can be applied to strategies employed to undercut stronger opponents who already control the market. Today I came across the term while reading a case study about Southwest Airlines. Southwest Airlines is credited as being the only high-frequency, short distance, low air-fare industry. They participated in something called guerilla warefare when it came to competing against USAirways, Continential, Delta and other industry leaders. Rather than competing directly against these airlines, they concentrated their efforts on short trips and certain cities where they could make about ten flights a day. There unconventional approach (no frills, short, cheap flights) was unlike anything else in the market and therefore generated a lot of attention, something trillions of dollars of advertising could not accomplish.
There style can be considered guerilla. They go where no company goes. Rather than focusing on ameneties and luxury, they focus on good humour. Their employees have extremely high satifaction rates which translates directly into increased productivity. They often do unconvential things such as paint pictures onto their planes. These stunts are guerilla....cheap yet remarkable. I think the industry may refer to this occurance as a Purple Cow!