Guerilla Marketing

There are many ways to market your products or your company. You can use newspapers, social media, bus stops, or transportation. But what if you abused that power and made your advertisements pop up everywhere. This is called Guerrilla Marketing. The term guerrilla marketing was first used by an academic marketing expert named Conrad Levinson in 1984. A good definition of this type of marketing is the use of unconventional marketing tactics designed extract the maximum exposure, attention and results of minimum use of resources. In this paper im going to be talking about why this works, why this doesn't, and how it relates to consumer marketing.

There are many ways to use guerrilla marketing. Some older methods would be things like stickers and badges, tree posters, and sidewalk chalk. A good example of sidewalk chalk is what they did in Broward County Florida. They are letting company used stenciling in areas where thousands of people come through every day to show their advertisements like parking garages, elevators, garage pathways, building entrances and exits, and sidewalks. By doing this people who ride the trains will see these advertisements every single day and will have the image of the drawing and the company in their head forever. In today's world you see more of these tactics on the internet. A good example is the pop ups you see all over the internet. The advertisements that you see all over your screen when you click on something are perfect examples if guerrilla marketing. They stick the ad right in your face and you see it repeatedly.

When you see these ads, they are very brief ads. In Fact, sometimes they don't tell what the product does, but they advertise your ideal results of the product. For example, if a company is trying to advertise for a car, they are not just showing off the car. They are selling the lifestyle that comes with owning one of their cars as if once you buy this car your whole lifestyle will change. Same as with performance enhancement diets or workouts. They are not trying to sell the workouts, they are showing you pictures of ultimate results and the results you want to buy their product. They are selling to you buy selling the emotional aspect of it. There are certain reasons why this style of marketing works, one is the surprise aspect. The feeling of “wow!” of seeing what you were looking for no matter the brand at a lower price could take someone's eye. The way they briefly describe the product and giving you that now feeling no matter the brand can persuade a customer to buy a product. Another aspect of an ad is humor. Humor is a huge part in the creativity of the ad. By seeing a funny quote on an ad could catch a potential customers eye. By giving an ad a catchy quote could make the consumer feel good and gives a positive feeling towards the product and gives them a higher chance of buying the product.

With humor and the element of surprise added to the ad brings in the emotion ties to the ad. The motion of the ad is what sells it. Research shows that ads that have a good message are more likely to sell than ad that give a negative vibe. When you put all these aspects together it you could see results of more people buying your product because of the way it makes them feel. Guerilla marketing is not just for large corporations, but for small businesses too. The good thing about this tactic is that it doesn't have to break the bank to do it. Small companies no longer have to spend money on tv time or posters on the highway. As much as those can help your company grow, they can start costing a lot of money. These tactics could be things like free sample where you can meet a customer one on one and have them try your product. If you never had that person giving free samples, that customer may have never known your product existed and they really enjoy your product and start buying it. What also gives small companies they are able to blend in with the bigger companies as well. Small companies also steal a lot of the same ideas as the big companies, so it helps them blend in with the bigger companies while people are seeing this mayhem of pop up ads on their computer.

A good example of a small company getting big because of guerilla marketing is Red Bull. In a world where Pepsi and Coke dominated the industry, Red Bull found its way to the top. What they did was start sponsoring small sporting events. Extreme sports like squad driving. These sporting events would be broadcasted by small networks. They also would give out free red bulls and what they got in return was air time that would never be able to afford before. As people started talking about red bull they were able to sponsor bigger events like surfing, skateboarding and other extreme sports. Now, Red Bull dominates their market and are a very big company. This is a perfect example of a company using guerrilla marketing getting more exposure and using less money.

Word of mouth is another tool of guerilla marketing. Word of mouth is an old tactic that is between two people that the consumer trust what the person is telling them and encourages them to buy the product. Like a third party. It works the same in guerilla marketing. For example, one person sees an ad that attracts them. They found the ad to be either helpful, humorous, or advertises a product they have never seen but are interested in or maybe bought it. Then that person tells another person about the add and they look it up and it continues. For this to work you must have some credibility. What this means is that you have to say something to a customer and they believe it to be true, so they trust your judgement and buy your product and tell other people about the product. By people saying what they are selling has some truth, then there is positive feedback and people are more likely to buy your product. If you go around saying things that are not true about your product, then word will get around and no one is going to buy your product because it does not do what they advertised it would do and you lose credibility in your company and it is very hard to get that back.

There some guerilla style techniques that may not work out. For example, Cartoon network had an advertisement for a tv show on their network. They set off blinking lights in the city of Boston. But what they didn’t realize is that in Boston, this indicates a bomb threat and forced them to shut down roads and other forms of transportation around the city. This is an example of bad advertising. It cost the network millions of dollars in fines. Another thing that is good about this approach to advertising is that it is very flexible. Since these are sweet and simple ads, it is very easy to for them to adapt them. Due to certain things that could happen to a company throughout a year, things may chance like a new look for a company or advertising a new product. This makes easy to change ads looks and what they are selling because they are simple ads. Doing things like changing a logo or improving a product could get customers intrigued and they may buy your product. Guerrilla marketing can also be an advantage because there are no limits to what you can do. Some bigger named companies will hire famous actors. For some people seeing someone that they look up to use the product will persuade someone to buy the product. An example of this could be used with something as small as guitar strings. If I am a guitar player and I see that Slash uses Ernie Ball strings, that is going to persuaded be to buy the product because if it is good enough for Slash than it is good enough for me. All it takes is for someone to take a picture with the product.

Researchers have been doing some research on Generation Y. The reason for this is the way they are reacting to guerrilla marketing. Some of the reasons are right now they are huge group of people that are buying right now, they are young enough to have grown up with and have familiarity with technology, and as they get older will have a huge factor of how we advertise products. Also, this generation is very responsive to humorous ads. Ever since they started doing research on this, they realized that maybe guerilla marketing was the next phase of advertising. In this generation, it shows that they don't watch as much tv and listen to radio as much as they used to. So, the only advertisements they see are the pop ups online. Guerilla Marketing is a very aggressive way to advertise. You see it everywhere and you are constantly reminded of their products that you have interest in buying. They have advertisements everywhere from busses to sidewalks to highways and they are all over your phone. Since technology has advanced rapidly over the last couple of years, could guerrilla marketing become the only source of advertisement? Is a world where we want everything right now and can get our hands on any information we want in a matter of seconds, why wouldn’t marketers see that as an opportunity for them to advertise their product every time we open our phones.