Creativity is key here are at Happy, and guerrilla marketing fits that bill to a tee. It’s about creating a buzz and getting your company noticed in unconventional ways. In our abundant experience, thinking outside the box can never be a bad thing, and guerrilla is one of the tools we can use to achieve this. Lets face it, it’s getting a lot more difficult (although not impossible) to grab people’s attention nowadays. But our process of using highly creative guerrilla marketing along with a stringent, formulated process really hits the mark.
This Rimmel campaign screams of guerrilla marketing. The best thing about this campaign, and all guerrilla marketing, is that it combines press coverage, with viral after the campaign has been completed. This is where we can join guerrilla with more traditional marketing. It’s essential to maximise the impact of any ‘buzz’ you create, and finding as many routes to get your guerrilla campaign noticed. You can do this by integrating this with your existing and more traditional marketing.
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One of our favourite exponents of a guerrilla approach is the elusive street artist Banksy. Banksy markets himself in a guerrilla style and is the perfect template for guerrilla marketing. He manages to get across his talents in a way that is highly creative, hugely attention grabbing and completely unexpected. Of course, Banksy does play with legality when it comes to his work, certainly not something we’d ever advocate. However, the general principles used by Banksy are certainly a great illustration (excuse the pun!) of just how effective a guerrilla marketing campaign can be.
The legality issues touched upon with Banksy’s work are something that any guerrilla campaign will need to take into consideration. However, with the right planning and advice it is possible to execute a guerrilla campaign without stirring too much of the ‘wrong’ type of controversy. The old saying, ‘no bad publicity’ can often be true, but ensuring you cause a stir without incurring any legal wrath is much more fun!
Without expert advice, guerrilla marketing can go wrong spectacularly. To see some examples of guerrilla marketing gone wrong, check out our other guerrilla blog piece, Guerrilla Banana Skins!
Guerrilla marketing can be used to shock. Some charities and governments use it to shock people into taking notice of key issues. On certain occasions this is exactly the approach to take; however matching the right message with the right approach to suit a company is the only way to get results. Matching messages and plenty of planning are the two key activities for any marketing campaign, but particularly guerrilla marketing. Concentrating on who you are targeting with your message guides the rest of the process in terms of execution, placement and measurement.
All in all, used in the right way, guerrilla marketing is a tool that can be used to teach, inspire or just get your message out there in big way. And we at Happy Creative know all about it!
Scott Lumley is a Guerrilla Marketing Expert at Happy Creative, a full service marketing agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
