Little war of marketing

A guerrilla campaign exists outside the normal rules of engagement, and works by seizing and subverting people's attention when they least expect it, holding them captive until they have absorbed the message. Some guerrilla strikes are designed in such a way that the audience is left unaware they have been the target of a marketing strike.

Coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, “guerrilla marketing is more about matching wits than matching budgets. Guerrilla marketing can be as different from traditional marketing as guerrilla warfare is from traditional warfare. Rather than marching their marketing rands forth like infantry divisions, guerrilla marketers snipe away with their marketing resources for maximum impact.”

Inspiration and vitality

Gullan believes that guerrilla marketing strategies offer inspiration and new vitality to classical forms of marketing.

“It is best to combine guerrilla marketing strategies with traditional marketing methods. Television, billboard and press advertisements are expensive. For the most part, they have become background noise in the life of consumers, but this is not to say that traditional advertising will become ineffective. Marketers must now think of creative ways to strengthen these traditional methods, and this is where guerrilla marketing strategies come in,” he says.

Guerrilla marketing tactics can include the following:

• Viral word of mouth campaigns
  
• Experiential, or reaching the consumer directly through their daily routines
  
• Brand activation
  
• Electronic strikes
  
• All added in with traditional methods

“Initially, guerrilla marketing was mainly used by small businesses as it helped them to obtain publicity more easily than large businesses and they are closer to their customers and considerably more agile. This has changed and is now increasingly adopted by large businesses. This is due to the successful results we achieve again, and again,” notes Gullan.