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5 Guerrilla Marketing Ideas You Need to Use
What is guerilla marketing and why do you need to know about it? Besides the fact that it’s cost-effective and creative, it aims to get you as much traffic as possible. Here are 5 guerilla marketing ideas to give you inspiration.
When many of us here “guerrilla marketing,” we tend to think about guerrilla warfare. That’s a fair thought to have, especially because the concepts aren’t very dissimilar.
Just like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing is meant to take your customer by surprise. It’s not comprised of run-of-the-mill marketing tactics.
This term was first coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in the 1980s. Back then, guerrilla marketing looked much different. However, with a constantly changing digital landscape, guerilla marketing tactics continue to evolve.
Here are some guerrilla marketing ideas to inspire you for your next campaign.
Bounty Paper Towels
We bet that if we said “Bounty” you’d start singing “the quilted quicker picker upper” in your head. (Were we right?)
Bounty’s branding and marketing run deep. However, Bounty surprised everyone with a guerrilla marketing campaign when they placed super-sized installments of spills on the streets of New York.
It was difficult to ignore a giant popsicle and spilled cup of coffee on the sidewalk. The only message? Make small work of BIG spills.
The installations delighted passers-by and surely stuck in their minds more than a billboard or commercial.
IBM’s Smarter Ideas for Smarter Cities
Back in 2013, IBM tapped Ogilvy & Mather France to make new billboards, only cooler.
IBM was promoting their People for Smart Cities Program. The idea was to bring planning resources to smaller cities.
Instead of plain Jane billboards, Ogilvy & Mather produced billboards which were functional, not just informational. They produced two bus stop billboards – one had a lip overhead to protect bus riders from the rain and the other had a lip below so they could sit down. There was also a billboard that provided a ramp over short flights of stairs for pedestrians with suitcases.
The fact that the billboards were useful made more people stop and notice what was actually on them.
Ponds Anti-Bacterial Facial Scrub
If you ever suffered from acne growing up, you probably tried all kinds of scrubs and cleansers to get rid of it. Squeaky clean pores would supposedly get rid of your problem, right?
Ponds took this idea and ran with it on a billboard that launched in the mid-2000s. The billboard was white with a cutout in the shape of a pore that showed the clear blue sky behind it.
The shape was innovative and got right to the point about having clean skin. Ponds took it one step farther and filmed a worker in a clean white suit mopping the bottom of the pore. This furthered the idea that the cleanser really scrubbed your pores.
GoldToe’s Underwear
Have you ever seen a bull wearing underwear?
Probably not, which is why ALT TERRAIN’s guerrilla marketing campaign for GoldToe Underwear was such a hit.
As part of a PR stunt, the firm sewed together a HUGE pair of underwear to sneak onto the bull statue on Wall Street in NYC.
Passers-by thought it was a hilarious prank and stopped to take pictures with the bull.
Misereor’s Social Swipe
Not all guerrilla marketing campaigns try to get you to buy something. Sometimes they’re used for social good like this interactive billboard that collects donations.
Misereor, a non-profit in Europe, realized about 40% of all payments are made with a credit card. Latching onto the fact that nearly everyone has some plastic card, they created a billboard where consumers could swipe their card to donate 2 euros to charity.
To entice people to interact with the billboard, it was programmed to make it look like the consumer was slicing a piece of bread or cutting ropes binding a pair of hands.
The action feels gratifying for users and encourages charitable giving in a new and innovative way. It also spread like wildfire on social media.
More Guerrilla Marketing Ideas to Be Had
As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, so do the opportunities for guerrilla marketing ideas.
When thinking of your next guerrilla marketing campaign, consider what will grab your target customer’s attention in an exciting way that will make them remember your name.
For more tips on marketing, check out our blog.
