Edi Diwan: Guerrila Marketing

In the world of marketing, there are dozens of approaches to promoting products, advertising services, and enhancing brand awareness. Guerrilla Marketing is a modern alternative to traditional marketing practices. Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy in which low-cost unconventional means (graffiti, sticker bombing, flash mobs) are utilized, often in a localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerrilla warfare which utilizes atypical tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive and unforgiving environment. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, and consumers are targeted in unexpected places.

The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turn viral, or in the other words, The goal is to be super creative and create an interaction that the customer will not forget. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks. Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, or any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize mobile digital technologies to engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.

The term Guerrilla Marketing is now often used more loosely as a descriptor for non-traditional media, such as:

Reverse Graffiti — clean pavement adverts
Viral marketing — through social networks
Presence marketing — marketing for being there
Grassroots marketing — tapping into the collective efforts of brand enthusiasts
Wild Posting Campaigns
Alternative marketing
Buzz marketing — word of mouth marketing
Undercover marketing — subtle product placement
Astroturfing — disguising company messaging as an authentic grassroots movement
Experiential marketing — interaction with product
Tissue-pack marketing — hand-to-hand marketing
Live-in marketing — real life product placement - see related article or Hostival Connect
Wait marketing — when and where consumers are waiting (such as medical offices and gas pumps) and receptive to communications

Guerrilla marketing was initially used by small and medium size (SMEs) businesses, but it is now increasingly adopted by large businesses.

Low Cost

Traditional marketing approaches can be very costly. Each year, companies spend billions of dollars on commercials, print ads, internet campaigns, billboards, and radio broadcasts. For small businesses, money is a precious resource. A huge benefit to guerrilla marketing is that it has a low cost. Typically, you will only need to pay for the workers who run the campaign and basic marketing materials such as flyers. This gives small businesses to opportunity to easily reach thousands of customers for a few hundred dollars.

Here are some examples of Guerilla Marketing Campaign from :
www(dot) creativeguerrillamarketing(dot) com/guerrilla-marketing/122-must-see-guerilla-marketing-examples/trackback/