Guerrilla marketing was initially used by small and medium-sized businesses, but it is increasingly being adopted by big business. The concept of guerrilla marketing rises from an unconventional system of promotion that relies on patience, energy, and imagination rather than a big advertising budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, with consumers targeted in unexpected places. The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging, and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz.It involves high imagination and energy to execute a guerrilla marketing campaign
Guerrilla marketing originally was a concept aimed towards small businesses with a small budget, but this didn’t stop big businesses from adopting the same ideology.
Larger companies have been using unconventional marketing to compliment their advertising campaigns. Some marketers argue that when big businesses utilize guerrilla marketing tactics, it isn’t true guerrilla. Bigger companies have much larger budgets and their brands are usually already well established.It can also be far more risky for a big business to do guerrilla marketing tactics. In some instances, their guerrilla stunts can flop and ultimately become a PR nightmare. Smaller businesses don’t run as much risk as most people will just write it off as another failed stunt.
One such example would be the famous 2007 Boston Bomb Scare caused by Turner Broadcasting on January 31, 2007. What started off as a guerrilla marketing campaign to promote a new film featuring a Cartoon Network show called Aqua Teen Hunger Force, turned into a citywide bomb scare. Turner Broadcasting with the help of guerrilla marketing agency, Interference, Inc., placed battery-powered LED placards resembling the ‘Mooninite’ character on the cartoon show. The LED placards were placed throughout Boston, Massachusetts and the surrounding cities.
The placards were placed in random locations and remained unlit during the day. At night the placards lit up to show the ‘Mooninite’ character putting up his middle finger. The devices resembled some characteristics of explosive devices and soon caused the scare.
The campaign ended up costing Turner Broadcasting and Interference, Inc. $2 million for the incident. The campaign itself received a lot of criticism both good and bad.
Online guerrilla marketing - The web is rife with examples of guerrilla marketing, to the extent that many of us don't notice its presence - until a particularly successful campaign arises. The desire for instant gratification of internet users provides an avenue for guerrilla marketing by allowing businesses to combine wait marketing with guerrilla tactics. Simple examples consist of using 'loading' pages or image alt texts to display an entertaining or informative message to users waiting to access the content they were trying to get to. As users dislike waiting with no occupation on the web, it is essential, and easy, to capture their attention this way. Other website methods include interesting web features such as engaging landing pages.
Many online marketing strategies also use social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn to begin campaigns, shareable features and event host events. Other companies run competitions or discounts based on encouraging users to share or create content related to their product. Viral videos are an incredibly popular form of guerrilla marketing in which companies film entertaining or surprising videos that internet users are likely to share and enjoy, that subtly advertise their service or product. Some companies such as Google even create interactive elements like the themed Google logo games to spark interest and engagement. These dynamic guerrilla marking tactics can become news globally and give businesses considerable publicity.
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