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In a nutshell, guerrilla marketing is an inventive, unconventional, and typically budget-friendly way of promoting your business, brand, product, or service. It lends the name to the concept of “guerrilla” warfare, or the element of surprise, to attract the attention of target audiences. It’s a great way of gaining and keeping exposure through social media and word of mouth.
Though guerrilla marketing requires a lot of creativity and planning, it can be a huge success and just what you need to gain attraction. Below is a list of the four main types of guerilla marketing and examples to show how it’s been executed by other brands.
Main Types of Guerrilla Marketing
Indoor Guerrilla Marketing
Indoor guerrilla marketing primarily aims to drum up attention using indoor public venues like college campuses, train stations, or museums.
Photo: HubSpot
Frontline Flea & Tick Spray utilized the ground floor of a building to promote their product. Knowing many pedestrians walk through the building daily and that the ground floor is often viewed from the floors above, it was the perfect spot for their campaign.
Outdoor Guerrilla Marketing
Outdoor guerrilla marketing integrates areas of high public traffic for promotion, typically in urban settings.
Photo: Marketing Renegade
Nike used a seatless bench to promote their activewear and fitness in this guerrilla marketing campaign.
Photo: ThoughtMedia.com
Jeep showed off its vehicle terrain capabilities by marking off parking spaces on uneven surfaces.
Image Source: Target Corporate
Target painted their bollards as Poké Balls at select stores to promote Pokémon Go when it was released in 2016.
Ambush Guerrilla Marketing
Ambush marketing is a way for one brand to get ahead of another by ambushing their advertisement.
When using ambush marketing, you must do your homework first to ensure you don’t break any rules or infringe on anyone else’s copyright.
Photo: Rocket Content
Rona Paint ambushed Apple iPod’s Nano advertisement by placing a banner directly underneath showing their paint cans catching the dripping paint.
Experiential/Interactive Guerrilla Marketing
This type of guerrilla marketing requires participation from the audience. Anything from a pop-up shop to fully immersing your audience in the experience.
Photo: Marketing Renegade
3M used their security glass to encase 3 million “dollars” from the public. A security guard was hired to allow people to kick the glass, and if it broke, that person would take home the jackpot. Of course, 3M not only won the kick contest but also won a great interactive promotional campaign.
Photo: VW Youtube
Volkswagen integrated their “The Fun Theory” (claiming that their eco-friendly cars are just as much fun to drive as regular cars) into everyday life. Here, they turned a staircase into a piano to prove that fun can improve people’s behavior.
The Wrap-Up
It is imperative for brands to find unique and inventive ways to stand out today. Guerrilla marketing techniques offer the ingenuity it sometimes takes to achieve the exposure a company desires. Couple that with the relatively low cost this form of marketing requires, and you’ve got an incredibly powerful tool at your disposal!
