“Guerrilla”, doesn’t the word seem to be a bit alien or sheepish to what the content of the topic should actually be? You might think of me talking about some animal or a blog on wildlife. Now, I add the word marketing next to guerrilla and it gets to this “Guerrilla Marketing”. Now you must be like, eh? What is he upto?

Guerrilla is a Spanish word. It is the diminutive from of “Guerra” i.e. “war”.

Guerrilla marketing dates back to the ‘guerrilla warfare’. It’s important to consider guerrilla warfare as well, as this is where the term “guerrilla marketing” has been signified from.

Guerrilla warfare is a type of irregular warfare. Those involved in a guerrilla warfare mainly obligates as a group of combatants or high-mobile antagonist individuals who are up against larger groups, such as the military or officers of the law. The strategies mainly included in it are ambushes, sabotage, raids.

Well let me brief you up with some of the nuances of Guerrilla Marketing :

1.Street Marketing:- Street marketing as the word says, implies promoting products or services in unconventional ways, generally non-traditionally and is confined to the streets and other public places.

2. Ambient Marketing:- This type of marketing refers, promoting a product, mainly with the motive of captivating the audience’s attention through some message

3. Event Ambush Marketing:- It implies leveraging the audience in an event, to advertise the product or service by one company, where the same product is already being advertised by another company or the competitor.

4. Experiential Marketing:- It is a tactic with the motive of getting customer engagements through branded experiences. It’s also called as “Engagement Marketing”.

5. Viral Marketing:- It’s a tactic where a brand or a company is able to generate interest amongst the consumers, leading onto the increase in the word-of-mouth of the brand or the company.

Fact: An Average person sees around 5000 marketing impacts a day,

A fact even bigger: While they tend to remember only 4 of those.

They say that, “Anywhere the eye can see, it’s likely to see an Ad”.

While guerrilla warfare is about the strategies or the tactics including some elements of surprise, nothing different is there when it comes to guerrilla marketing.

Regardless of the terminologies, the term was brought into the vogue by Jay Conrad Levinson’s book Guerrilla Marketing.

It’s considered to be a cost-effective marketing mechanism that helps yield maximum result.

This type of marketing moreover creates humongous unconventional sort of campaign which leaves the people in awe of the moment while they’re busy with their daily routine.

It’s generally a tactic eliminating which involves more of energy and creativity and fairly less amount of expenses involved.

We actually happen to come across such campaigns daily, done in shopping malls, parks, urban cities and considering the impact created by social media, the ROI brands are getting, do I really even need to talk about that? We’ll know how favourable has the outcome been for the brands!

Basically, when an emerging startup out of nowhere hits the headlines with a radical marketing approach leaving everyone astounded, that’s what you call they got the guerrilla tactic done right.

Few examples of how the tactic created a buzz amongst peeps

McD’s Guerrilla Marketing in Zebra Crossing

McD got their GM done right with the French Friese’s playing a significant role of the zebra crossing. Well, that’s a mouth-watering tactic, isn’t it?

Bus Stops which really makes us stop for a while

We all know how adverts are been greatly promoted through Bus Stops, isn’t it? Stop and save the thirst, don’t just burst!

Ambushed!

In 1996, Coca Cola acquired the rights of being the official sponsor of the cricket world cup held in India. However, Pepsi launched a campaign named – “Nothing official about it’ and stole the limelight from Coca Cola. The Pepsi-Coca Cola rivalry you know right! The campaign perhaps marks the most famous example.

Elevating the mammoth Swiss Skydive experience

The sticker inside the elevator was placed just to make the people know how joyful powered by terrific could their experience be with Swiss Skydive!

NIKE being NIKE

Pic Courtesy: Moosend

Well, here I should consider saying Guerilla Marketing has always been owed by Nike, isn’t it? Lol!

Engagement triggered

Vijay Sales sailing through the heat

DHL pulling its rival’s leg (FedEx)

Until one day the escalator stops working 😛

Due to the Coronavirus Outbreak, we all know how extensively has the pandemic led to a huge loss for the brands out there!

How Guerrilla Marketing can be implemented by a brand amid such pandemic?

Amid the lockdown, Indians has switched towards the social media to pass their time and there’s been a record 87% increase in social media usage.

Brands are well-aware of how cost effective the guerrilla marketing tactic is! It includes a low cost on successful implementation, moreover it also helps in establishing a direct-connections through social media platforms. All a brand need is, a robust and attractive campaign which could steal the interest of the people so much that the people cannot stop sharing and spreading the word out there.

With Covid-19 just being a catastrophe for the brands out there causing store closures, the online shopping sales has gone all south (downwards) followed by an immense decline in the fashion retail.

So how can brands remain intact by maintaining their customer interaction base?

Being creativity-driven, and unique in your tactic can help your brand communicate well with the customers during the pandemic.

Brands have still got the opportunity to go off the shoe and spread their word through social media platforms using the tactic.

So what if the exemplary or the masterpiece strategy you planned isn’t working? You must send in the guerrillas to notch you the battle.

Thank you, everyone, take care! 🙂