Guerrilla marketing – who is it really for?

Even if you are not sure that you fully understand what the term “guerrilla marketing” means, you have certainly been involved in some guerrilla campaign. I, myself, will never forget the boring lecture at the university, when all of a sudden, a leaflet distributor dressed as a mascot jumped into the lecture room, shouted out the name of an online portal he was promoting, distributed a few leaflets to those nearby and quickly ran out of the room. That was an interesting experience and definitely a scene I will remember forever. In that instance, guerrilla marketing achieved its purpose.

At that moment, the professor was not exactly impressed with the whole event. However, the other participants in the lecture room enjoyed quite a laugh and I believe the event remained in everyone’s memory. The move was bold, and sometimes you have to be bold to achieve the results you want.

ABOUT GUERRILLA MARKETING

Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy where the main objective is promoting products, services or brands in unusual and invisible ways. This requires a lot of creativity and planning, as not every campaign may necessarily succeed as it was intended. Location is also an important common denominator of guerrilla campaigns because it must be performed in an area where there are many passers-by and thus a greater effect can be achieved. Examples of good locations for this type of action are shopping malls*, parks, beaches, town squares and busy streets.

* At this point, you must be aware that such activity is prohibited on private property without the owner’s permission. Therefore, such an activity without prior permission from the owner is highly risky.

4 GUERRILLA MARKETING TOOLS

In his 2013 scientific article, Gerd Nufer brilliantly defined guerrilla marketing from the economic point of view. He identified four main categories of tools available, which we shall briefly present below.

1. LOWER PRICE GUERRILLA MARKETING

Guerrilla marketing as such can enable SMEs to focus their communication and activities solely on the target group and present their product in a different light using imaginative and unusual ideas.

2. INFECTIOUS GUERRILLA MARKETING

This one is also called viral marketing, and the idea behind it is that the consumers themselves become the carriers of an advertising message by recommending the product or service to others. This is a consequence of an unusual and interesting experience that inspires consumers to share it with others, even though they personally do not even perceive that as advertising.

3. SURPRISE GUERILLA MARKETING

It may function as a part of our everyday lives or as a part of the environment in which we spend our days. One option is that the products may constantly appear in interesting and flowing locations (e.g. sauce samples in a popular restaurant) or appear as a one-time act, where the sensational effect works best (e.g. “flash mob” on some famous square).

4. AMBUSH GUERRILLA MARKETING

One example of this is the recent Olympic Games, which were subject to a ban on marketing for the purpose of promoting brands that were not among the sponsors of the event. Ambush marketing was used in this case by those who broke the rules, took a chance, and used the games for their own promotion.

And how do we do that?

As mentioned in the last example, in the case of guerrilla marketing, there is a thin line between what is allowed and what is not allowed. Infringing the rights of other companies or individuals’ right to privacy can happen very quickly. Therefore, you must always be cautious, as you may have the opposite or negative effect if you decide on the wrong strategy.

We have considerable experience in this field ourselves. For the promotion of the Casali brand, we even filmed our last guerrilla campaign. We distributed samples to happy passers-by in the centre of Ljubljana and invited them to try the Casali dance.