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.