Guerrilla Marketing, the concept

Guerrilla Marketing, the concept coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, is no different from the Guerrilla Warfare. It’s war against traditional thinking and big budget by the use of creative force. The only rule here is that there is no rule. If anyone still wants to define the guiding principles then those would be Identify, Innovate, Interact and Impress.
Identifying the target audience is the most important part in conceptualizing any guerrila campaign as the placement of the advertisements depends on it. Guerrilla marketing is more about matching wits than matching budgets and this demands innovation. What separates it from normal marketing techniques is it’s interaction with people. This makes them think which results in longer brand recall. And if you can impress them during the brief interaction then you have the winner. Here are some tools which can be used for Guerrilla campaigns.
Humor
Humor when understood is the greatest way of getting attention, but can be risky too as it might offend certain section of people. Here is an example where humor is used to convey the selling point of Axe in a fun filled way.
Every year Europe’s largest women’s running event takes place in Aarhus, Denmark. This year more than 6,000 women participated in the race and an enormous crowd along the roads was following the event.
Immediately after the race begins, a man in an AXE T-shirt jumps over the fence approximately 100 meters after the Starting Line. He begins to spray himself with AXE deodorant and starts to run along the route, when the 6,000 women gets near him.
From the point of view of the spectators along the road, they saw a man - wearing an AXE T-shirt - that was being hunted by over 6,000 women.
Curiosity
I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious. ~Albert Einstein
Not everyone is even a distant close to Albert Einstein in regards to physics and science, but most definitely will surpass him in curiosity level about beautiful women. In this guerrilla campaign the agency is banking on curiosity factor.
Napkins with lipstick stains were left on tables in pubs and inside the napkins was an ad for Detective Smith. I wonder how many people would hire Detective Smith but many would like to kick him for the beautiful trap.
Shock
In India you will find astrologer and god man at every corner. And if you happen to go to them for advice on your future then you will most likely be told about all kind of problems that are coming to hit you unless you perform some rituals as suggested by them. What choice you have when you are scared to death ?
You might be wondering what’s this to do with the advertisement of a CCTV system. The common thing between them is “Shock and Fear Factor“.
Polaroid photos were taken outside homes and businesses and a sticker with message “With a CCTV security system you could have seen me outside your house” was placed on the back before dropping them in their respective mailboxes. An innovative and bold idea to demonstrate the disadvantages of not having a CCTV and suggesting to go for one.
Simplicity
It’s easy to be complex but difficult to be simple. This campaign of business card for a diving instructor strikes precisely with simplicity of thought.
Diving is a very small & niche market. This gave the liberty to manually create the ‘wet’ effect on each card. The recipients instantly got the message about the client’s passion for diving and the fact that he was in the ocean most of the time. As a result the diving class was fully booked up to 4 months in advance.
Intelligence
Intelligence in advertising is like two-edged sword. It’s foolish to be too intelligent just not to get understood. Yes, it might win you some award but the company doesn’t pay you for that. At the same time it works beautifully if it can make people ask themselves; Why didn’t this idea come to my mind?
Bikers in big cities like Jakarta often suffer from eye irritation (red eye) caused by pollution on the road. The idea demonstrates how fast Visine alleviates the problem. The signage is placed on a traffic light in the city of Jakarta which has a 60 seconds countdown timer.
Sexligance
Sexual theme presented with elegance always sells. Most of the times sex is abused to sell anything and everything even though there is no connect with the product. This is a nice campaign though for Axe which stays within the line to promote the well-established brand image.
As wrapping the female students’ dormitory in the shape of calendar and using Axe for a month throughout March, they aimed for the expression that a new female can be met on a daily basis, to promote the brand image and preference for Axe.
Common Sense
They say common sense is not so common, rightly so. But when you need to extract maximum out of limited resources then you don’t have any other choice but to be innovative and use common sense.
This is a campaign for Casinò di Venezia where the conveyor belt in an airport is smartly used to market the casino. It’s impossible for the passengers to escape this campaign.