Guerilla marketing run-through

Working in marketing is often portrayed as an incredibly fun, dynamic, and intense feat. Madman, the TV show, alone made engineering students daydream about the world of marketing and think about changing their profession. But once the journey starts, it is not so long until you realize marketing is quite in-the-box. All that grandeur is reserved for the movie screens, and more often than not, you are in front of an Excel sheet.

Where’s the creativity then? Well, marketing agencies tend to have their creative corps. The talkative, funny-dressing, really loud or really quiet, glasses-wearing strategists and copywriters, designers and video makers. But, when it comes to making a great ‘boom’ with a creative campaign, it is not their call, the client decides.

That’s business. Every good creative person understands that the target audience of an extremely creative campaign is usually too narrow for the brief at hand, and if they don’t, they should start getting that. The amount of stress when a creative idea is replaced with a generic solution can only be minimized with the realization it is not personal – it’s business.

But there is a silver lining, and it comes in a from a special form of marketing that probably collected more articles and social media posts than any other (because it’s fun): Guerilla marketing.

Guerilla marketing happens in many cases. To name a few: When a small client, which implies the marketing budget is even smaller, wants a campaign. When a big brand wants to attract the attention of an audience that usually ignores them. Or when a brand has an incredibly boring product (e.g., security glass). Nobody knows they exist, but someone from the security glass factory decides it would be good for the wider audience to know about them.

Of course, we can argue when and why to use guerilla marketing for days, but we all know these are the cases when it is mostly used, and let’s not mix the big brands’ guerilla marketing campaigns costing 50k and up, let’s stay in the realm of small and cheap – just for fun!

With everybody trying to think outside of the box, the outside became the inside. To battle that, we decided to rummage through a couple of awesome guerilla campaigns and analyze them for our and your pleasure.

It is always good to refresh your memory or see something new and creative so you can come up with great ideas even though they will probably get rejected, but you never know, and when it goes through magic happens. It becomes viral, people sing praises about it, influencers make posts, and so on and forth. Also, that’s the catch guys. If every marketing campaign was guerilla, it wouldn’t be guerilla anymore and it wouldn’t be as fun as it is now. Anything rare is special, and every creative is happy to have that.

Cabeza Advertising, The 5 Best Guerilla Marketing Campaigns

If you said to the client “yeah we’re going to use a dog that has fleas” you would be a part of that ‘thrown out of the window’ meme by being the guy with the idea. But used in this context, it is smart and funny. It conveys a perfect message. Secondly, it is easy to pitch it to everyone. The client realizes it will go viral, and the mall realizes a lot of people will go up to their floors just to see the full picture. That increases the activity of the shoppers and we have ourselves a win-win.

This campaign got a lot of traction, so it was an easy choice (also, it is one of the first results when you search for great guerilla campaigns).

Flickr, The Sopranos Guerilla Marketing Campaign

Advertising a TV show is a set-in-stone format. But increasing the tension, inducing hype, and making it into the permanent records of advertising greatness with a Halloween prop is something else.

Sopranos did it.

The best thing is, even though it could be described as gruesome, the attire is clearly a mafia one that instantly transports the consumer to Sopranos setting and TV show, making it fictional and fun.

Better Marketing, Tom Stevenson, The $3 Million Bus Stop – How 3M Got 1$ Million in Free Marketing

And that’s how you do great business. Security glass is a special kind of product. There is really no point in paying for a TV ad and advertising it to a wider audience because not everybody wants a security glass, and the cost is just too much to hit couple of people. But with this guerilla campaign that wasn’t so pricey, when you find yourself talking about security glass, you will always mention this manufacturer. Word-of-mouth winners.

Also, the recorded footage was used for later campaigns, genius.

Brogan & Partners, Abigail McGrath, Guerilla Marketing Example #5 : Jeep Outdoor Parking

We all know of Jeep. SUV that started as a wild, off-road army vehicle, but became influencers dream, and that’s awesome, but…

How do you reach the predominately male audience that wants a car that can withstand off-road terrain and is also a city vehicle and not spend a fortune for a series of explanatory TV ads? With this great and simple campaign.

Heavy Metal, Deadpool Is on Tinder – Do You Swipe Left or Right?

And finally, this campaign shows that even when you are planetary popular and when your brand is so strong people get tattoos of it, guerilla marketing makes an impact.

To conclude, creativity pays off and it is like a great seasoning. It must be spicy and flavorful, but if you use it too much it will just ruin the dish.

Guerilla, thanks for bringing a bit of that movie feeling into our marketing world!