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.