OMG!!! DINOSAURS WITH LAZERS!!!

Now that I’ve got your attention, let me tell you something about… guerilla marketing!

It is pretty obvious, that raising (brand) awareness is getting harder these days: People got used to the plentitude of persuasion lurking almost everywhere and consequently developed better filtering mechanisms, made up picturesque terms like “spam” and last but not least got a little spoiled by the supplied variety.

In order to get noticed, one has to stand out – being creative, sudden and amusing.

Guerilla marketing campaigns generally fulfill the given criteria inexpensively. By creating street-art, telling stories, playing monster, faking events, or rapping about sweat for instance – they gasp the potential customer’s attention and create a positive emotional link to the product. Furthermore successful actions are promoted voluntarily by their targets; which share the funny link with their friends, or simply talk about it (good old mouth-to-mouth-propaganda); and clueless journalists.

Back in the 80ies, when the term “guerilla marketing” was coined by the marketing expert Jay C. Levinson, it was envisioned as PR for small firms with tight budgets. Today, many big companies adopt the concept, out of similar reasons. As ads-space-real-estate gets more expensive and less effective, marketing departments are pushed towards alternative approaches. Guerilla marketing is not only in advantage because of its efficiency & effectiveness, but also because its actions are (unlike forbidden “Schleichwerbung”) in a legal grey zone. The fee for inadequate parking, or vandalism is usually a lot lower than the cost of a big PR campaign and (if implemented correctly) at least as successful as that.

Guerilla marketing can be found everywhere. Even on Google.

My personal favorites are probably Greenpeace’s campaigns. They’ve been in the business of guerilla marketing before it even had a name and their actions are always directed towards virtuous goals, like boycotting whaling, raising awareness about genetically modified food, or the dangers of nuclear power.

What are yours?

P.S. Yeah, I know.. “lasers”