The Guerrilla Marketing term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, an American consultant, who
helped smaller companies out of trouble with innovative advertising campaigns.
The idea is to use a small budget to achieve a mass action from a target group.
It's not about large scale branding, but rather the achievement of the
individual and effective competition by appropriate means. Guerrilla
Marketing uses different communication instruments, at
comparatively low costs, aimed towards the largest possible number of
people. Campaigns that are geared
towards mass media such as television, radio and print media are not classified
as Guerrilla marketing, because they are contrary to the fundamental aspects of
an inexpensive campaign.
Guerrilla tactics may involve:
• "Face/headvertising" campaigns
• Vehicle advertising
• Word of mouth
• Surreptitious graffiti
• Sending a personal message via Bluetooth
• Sticker and poster campaigns using statically
charged self-adhesive films
This represents only a small selection of the enormous
diversity within Guerrilla marketing.
Viral marketing uses channels of the Internet, such as
social networks, to generate attention. One could compare viral marketing with
word of mouth, but the effect is many times greater. There are also things like
Link bait, in which a person creates content, that other people will want to
link to without being prompted.
Ambush marketing is also considered a form of guerrilla
marketing and the idea is to exploit the presence of a major media event. Attaching marketing efforts to big sporting
events is common place. Ambush marketing
may be, let’s say, if a footballer cheated on his wife, a night club may claim
that it was frequented by the football player and his mistress. It would be done with an alarming tagline,
such as “Rovers Disco, come and see the corner where Freddy spent his half
Ambient marketing is a form of guerrilla marketing
that relies on the use of advertising in public. It's about generating attention through its presence
in public. This is stuff like cards in
phone boxes, posters on lamp posts, fast food packaging, etc.
Basically, if you can whip up some form of consumer
frenzy by cheap means, then it is probably guerrilla marketing. Things such as Blogs and comment sections are
a good place to start. See how many
websites you can get to link to you. Try
social media and see how many comments you can illicit from people or how many
“likes” you can get for your contributions.