Gorillas Attacking Your Mind

Guerrilla marketing is a buzz phrase in our industry, so it warrants some time chatting about what it is and how it works. Notice the spelling of guerrilla, not to be confused with gorilla, although comparisons between the two can be made!

Guerrilla: Often used to describe a type of warfare tactic, the term means a method of surprise attack, sometimes even luring the enemy into a trap of sorts. Guerrilla marketing, on the other hand, incorporates a much lower death rate and hopefully much higher rate of positive response. It's interesting the once negative and somewhat scary terminology is now being used by firms to describe a method of marketing that is being hailed by professionals across the globe for its ingenuity and out-of-the-box thinking.

Examples may include an airport shuttle service wallpapering the inside of an airport bathroom with information about the benefits of carpooling to/from the airport with a contact number for their business, or a local event planning organization that stages "litter" that announces their next event along a well-traveled sidewalk (don't worry, they clean it up afterward), or a local business owner tucking his business cards into library books pertinent to his business industry, or a hotel that partners with a local singles pub and distributes it's two-hour rates on coasters in the bar. (Examples, people, just examples!)

The idea behind these tactics is that they are aggressive and they are meant to infiltrate the audience's mind and motivate them to action. Meanwhile, the audience doesn't necessarily make the connection that their action is related to the marketing that just "happened" to them. The idea is aggressive marketing, often holding a direct link or partnership between the marketing piece and its environment -- very camouflaged, much like combat attire, eh?

A book aptly decorated in cammo colors by Jay Conrad Levinson (who lays claim to coining the phrase) and Godin, The Guerilla Marketing Handbook, outline the foundation of guerrilla marketing. (yes, I stole this from Wikipedia, which may have been written by Mr. Levinson himself for all I know):

• Guerrilla Marketing should be based on human psychology instead of experience, judgment, and guesswork.
• Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.
• The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
  The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
• Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering allied products and services.
• Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
• Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
• Guerrilla Marketers should always use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
• Use current technology as a tool to empower your marketing.

All fine and good, Mr. Levinson and Mr. Godin. They also say guerrilla marketing is often a tool of small businesses, but there I would differ with them. I think the movement may have began with smaller businesses, but corporations have certainly stood up and taken notice. And marketing plans from large corporate marketing firms are beginning to show elements of guerrilla tactics. It'll be entertaining -- at the very least -- to watch how this term grows as more and more marketing professionals don their combat attire to take on new marketing antics.

My only worry is that by simply using the word "guerrilla" in my blog, Kinsman Creative may now be closely watched by the Bush administration!