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For all businesses that want to advertise, but also do not want to overburden their budget at the same time, it is time to talk about what guerrilla marketing is.
More or less all business owners used to be in such a position. You are starting a business and you do not have a particularly enviable budget, but you still want to advertise your offer.
The good news is that one does not exclude the other. And that is exactly why we decided to introduce you to guerrilla marketing. This marketing strategy is becoming increasingly popular thanks to the fact that it falls out of the pattern of classic advertising.
It is time to unleash your creative abilities and throw yourself into creating a unique advertisement for your brand – which, of course, is firstly presented with a website built in various ways of which two ways of its creation are most widespread and used – because creativity is the primary idea on which guerrilla marketing rests. For guerrilla marketing, ideas are what matters…
Guerrilla Marketing Definition
If you look up the word “guerrilla” in the dictionary, you will see that it refers to the way of warfare, with small detachments behind the enemy. So what does that have to do with marketing then? And more importantly, what does that have to do with your ad?
In short, the word guerrilla is used today to describe all activities that are conducted outside the already set patterns and rules. In the world of marketing, it covers all advertising strategies that deviate from the traditional principles of creating a single advertisement.
If you are wondering what guerrilla marketing means, here is the answer: It is a way of promotion that counts on a small budget and which is primarily based on one basic principle – attracting attention. And not only that. In order for your advertisement to be effective, i.e. in order to attract a potential buyer or client, it must also connect with them.
This means that guerrilla marketing relies on advertisements that are easy to remember and with which the audience can make a personal connection. It is important, therefore, that the advertisement reaches the customer in a way that will tell him/her that it is addressed to him/her.
Now, memorability and a narrow target audience are not necessarily new to the world of marketing. However, the way these ads are placed is. As guerrilla marketing does not have a large budget, the visibility of the advertisement is conditioned, which means that it must go beyond the space in which the advertisements are expected. It implies that you should not expect television as the main medium for advertising.
That is why the importance of creativity and originality of advertising is stressed because it needs to be conspicuous enough for customers to notice it even where they do not expect it. And the very element of surprise (for the advertisement to appear where it does not belong) only further contributes to such an impression.
Guerrilla Marketing Development
At first, guerrilla marketing broke up with traditional marketing principles by going beyond television, radio, and newspapers. Advertisements began to appear in places such as streets, supermarkets, shopping malls, and even parks and beaches.
When the term originated in the late 1980s, the Internet was still not the force it is today. That is why guerrilla marketing has further changed with the strengthening of the Internet and social networks and their roles in everyday life. However, the main principle remained the same: To make a good advertisement, it is not necessary to just invest money. It is more important to invest effort, energy, creativity, and a sense of innovation.
Guerrilla Marketing Principles
If you want to have guerrilla advertising, the guiding idea of your marketing campaign is to surprise your potential consumer and leave a splendid impression of your brand. On that first impression rests the popular hype or popularity and presence that accompany a brand, person, or product.
In order for your brand to become popular, it is important that the advertisement you place is memorable and impressive enough for the audience to connect with the brand and the services it offers. From the moment the connection with the consumer is established, guerrilla marketing relies on the interconnectedness among consumers.
In other words, advertising is further spread by word of mouth. And for anyone to tell their friends about you and your business, it is important that the first impression is particularly strong and specific.
Because it is such an unconventional strategy, guerrilla marketing is neither easy to define nor implement. The fact that it is almost impossible to follow it through statistics will not help you either, but your brand can certainly benefit from it through the profit that it can undoubtedly bring you.
Maybe it is not so great that guerrilla marketing relies heavily on the subconscious of the audience, that is, it takes into account the message that consumers could consciously pick up from your ad. This branch is popularly called neuromarketing. It sounds like consumer manipulation, but it does not have to have a negative context.
For this kind of impact on the audience, it is crucial to repeat the ad of your brand. In the ideal scenario, guerrilla marketing predicts that this step happens when your ad gains momentum, that is when it begins to be transmitted among friends. That way, each potential customer is individually exposed to your ad over and over again.
Types of Guerrilla Marketing
Although it is not strictly about the types of marketing but more about strategies, we will tell you here about the variants in which guerrilla marketing manifests itself. Each of them has the same essence, and that is to establish a direct connection with potential clients.
For successful guerrilla marketing, there must be a brand-consumer interaction. This interaction should provoke a personal (emotional) reaction in the audience, thanks to which consumers remember a brand. Thanks to guerrilla marketing, people today think about brands and remember them differently than in the past.
What is also common to all guerrilla marketing strategies is that the time and place when you advertise and where you do it are often crucial to the success of your advertisement. These two things are also important to prevent yourself from getting into unwanted legal entanglements.
But, let’s go back to what kinds of guerrilla marketing there are. The popular opinion is that there are 5 main subtypes, and these are:
- Ambient marketing
- Ambush marketing
- Invisible (secret) marketing
- Viral marketing
- Street marketing
Ambient marketing
This strategy consists of using elements from the environment in which the advertisement is placed in order to convey the message and promote the brand. Experts often distinguish between internal and external guerrilla marketing, and the difference is literally in whether the advertisement is placed outdoor or indoor.
Whether it is outdoors or indoors, you can use any physical surface (poles, billboards, bus station walls, public buildings, etc.) to convey your advertisement. Keep in mind that for ambient marketing, it is important that your ad appears where it is not expected and in a way that is not expected. In this way, your ad also relies on the atmosphere that prevails the environment, i.e. the ambiance (hence the name of this strategy).
For example, you can leave stickers with your brand logo or any signature and message in places where advertisements are not normally placed: for example, a hand dryer in public toilets or handles and rods in public transport. Ideally, the place of your ad should contribute to the brand and make consumers try to understand why the message is left right there.
Ambush marketing
Although an important rule for this strategy is that the advertisement appears where potential buyers do not expect it, too, ambush marketing bases its success on the connection with the event at which it is placed. Your brand and organization do not have to (and should not) be in a direct and concrete connection behind a specific event, but some deeper connection must associate consumers with both things at the same time.
What exactly does that mean? This means that you will have to go to a public event (the bigger the better) in order to reveal to the visitors that your brand even exists. Of course, to avoid confusion, this should be an event to which you are not necessarily invited. Think about which event might have something to do with your brand. Whether it is a music festival, a sporting event, an exhibition, or a promotion – the list is open to all niches.
If you need an example, you can look at how big brands have done it. For example, at the 1996 and 2012 Olympics, General Motors and Nike performed guerrilla marketing flawlessly. Although they were not sponsors of the event and did not have official cooperation as advertisers, they managed to steal the show.
General Motors promised a car to every gold medal winner (the car brand was Golden Holden – you figure out the connection, right?), while Nike organized improvised stands in several places in London where it promoted athletes from the Olympics.
Invisible/secret marketing
This is already about acting like a real little guerrilla. Secret marketing relies precisely on secret action, which means that surface marketing should not act as marketing.
The goal of your advertising campaign is for potential consumers to come into contact with the products or services you offer, without realizing that the goal of the interaction is actually to advertise yourself. In other words, introduce them to the live ad, but do not tell them it is an ad.
Of course, you should take into account that consumers should never understand that the whole thing is really just an advertising campaign because in that case everything could be ruined, and your advertising could have negative consequences.
There was a famous campaign from 2002 for one model of Sony Ericsson phone when the company planted fake tourists (the company hired actors) who asked ordinary people to take pictures of them somewhere with a new phone model of this company.
Viral marketing
For this strategy, we could repeat what we have already mentioned when we talked about guerrilla marketing in general.
Viral marketing relies on the popularity that your ad evokes among your audience. It is also called ‘murmur’ marketing, which refers to exactly how much your audience is talking about your brand. And that murmur must be fast, instantaneous, and spread among as many people as possible. Moreover, not only discussion about the brand should take place, but the audience should also get in touch with you.
Viral marketing is actually the most successful on the Internet today (you have probably all heard of viral content before), although its roots are far back in the 1970s.
Street Marketing
Perhaps the most popular guerrilla marketing is street marketing. It is usually the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about this type of marketing. Street marketing is ideal because it combines multiple strategies within itself (such as ambient and ambush marketing) and provides the best chance to get in direct contact with potential consumers.
Street marketing includes any advertising that takes place on the street or in public places such as parks, squares, public transportation, or some outdoor events. At the same time, street marketing is not only related to physical advertisements such as posters, billboards, or some banners. Much more often, it is about people.
These are promoters who offer samples, flyers, coupons, or just conduct surveys among passers-by. Promoters are often dressed up in sandwiches, hot dogs, animals, or bottles. Experts include 7 basic activities in street marketing:
- sharing flyers or samples
- arranging the space on the street so that it is tied to the brand
- setting up animators to promote the brand on the street
- using transport for advertising (taxi, bicycle, motorcycle, etc.)
- personalization of street elements (graffiti, for example)
- organization of spontaneous events on the street (some small competition)
- strengthening street presence (placing physical advertisements, product images, people using the product, etc.)
Online Guerrilla Marketing
Today, the world of marketing has moved to the Internet, there is no doubt about that. Believe it or not, the Internet is full of guerrilla marketing examples. Technically, every time your ad appears and you have not paid for it (or have not paid too much), it counts in online guerrilla marketing.
For example, if a banner with your ad appears on a search engine before uploading any content, it is guerrilla marketing. The same goes for social networks, maybe even more so today.
Advertising on Facebook is extremely popular today and can partly fall into guerrilla marketing. However, the right guerrilla effect depends on the interaction that your advertisement on social networks has among users. Only when people start sharing it en masse, only then do you consider yourself a real guerrilla guy.
Also, video content and interactive elements (for example, Google games instead of logos – for each important date, Google places games instead of its logo on the first page of the search engine; games can carry some information, but their main goal is to interact with users) can be good examples of guerrilla marketing. In addition, advertising among influencers can be extremely lucrative for guerrilla marketing, especially when done as a contest or as a gift.
And, for the end… What is the best online guerrilla marketing? That is when you put up a really great ad on the street, you have funny promoters or shows, and people take pictures of it by themselves and post it on their social networks. Bullseye!