One of my favorite marketing websites, Entrepreneur.com, has an article called:How to Pull Off a Guerrilla Marketing Campaign. The article states that this is a something that works really well with the small business model. It also says “They can also be an awesome way to get you noticed, set you apart from your competition and earn you a reputation for being fun and different–all tailored to whatever budget you have available.”
Guerrilla marketing is typically aggressive marketing but it can also just be unique, unexpected or unconventional. One quote even says that it can be “disruptive”.
With that in mind, not every small business needs to try this marketing tactic. And if a business does go to this tactic, it needs to be done carefully and well, so that the community isn’t turned off by the business. Newsworthy doesn’t have to be a negative.
The article goes on to share tips like:what’s the core message that can be distilled into a 5-second exchange or in a clever installation?
Start “by setting clear objectives followed quickly by doing your homework, really thinking through your category, brand and consumer.” You have to have a goal in mind and you also need to understand who your customer is and what would intrigue and appeal to them.
The article goes on to list a couple of successful campaigns (The Blair Witch Project) and some failed ones (Aqua Teen Hunger Force accidental bomb scare).
Entrepreneur.com has a handful of articles, some dating back quite a few years, showing that this tactic isn’t new at all.
What is Guerrilla Marketing? was published December 22, 2006 and shares that “The term “guerrilla marketing” was first used by Jay Conrad Levinson in his popular 1984 book, Guerrilla Marketing” This author even goes on to use the term “stealth marketing”.
Here are some more examples too good not to share –
Here are some guerrilla marketing examples that you might have noticed, or maybe noticed but didn’t realize they were marketing of the guerrilla type:
- Chipotle’s offer of a free burrito to anyone dressed up like one of their football-size burritos on Halloween
- A business owner associating himself current event as an expert so he can get quoted in the media
- An entrepreneur nominating herself for an award and promoting her nomination and receipt of the award (if she gets it)
- Sonic DriveIn Restaurant’s magnetic cups that adhere to the trunk of a car as it drives off, making it appear as if the driver forgot to remove his drink from its temporary resting place. This marketing stunt really got talked about, and word-of-mouth marketing took over and helped spread the word about this restaurant.
The award nomination and win sounds funny but I feel like that humor could get lost by a lot of people and they would just get upset by this. If enough people saw it, that is.