We live in a world where we’re bombarded with marketing and advertising messages wherever we go: on billboards, on the radio, on TV, on our mobile phones, you name it. With so much noise, it’s getting harder and harder for businesses to be heard.
That’s why some brands are using guerilla marketing to cut through the clutter. Low-cost, unconventional strategies are making a lot of noise and are proving to be a big success for many businesses.
Last year saw the growth of ‘prankvertising’. With the power of social media (not least the fact that Google now owns YouTube), branded prank videos have flooded the internet in the hope of ‘going viral’. These videos are effective because there’s a level of irony involved. We know they’re not real and the makers know they’re not real, but they’re made as if they are. We don’t mind this, so it’s almost as though we’re saying ‘it’s okay – we don’t mind being sold to’. That’s valuable in itself.
Plus, don’t be fooled by the nickname – some videos are serious, some are funny, some are downright strange, but all good prank videos have one thing in common: they’re memorable. And memorable videos conjure up brand awareness and brand loyalty that CEOs would kill for. Take Old Spice for example. Thanks to their quirky ‘Get shaved in the face’ campaign, they’ve managed to transform their brand from a dated, old-fashioned deodorant that your dad would use into a cool, fresh rival to Lynx and co. That’s hard to achieve without repositioning the company with a bit of ‘prankvertising’.
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Guerrilla marketing is only limited by a brand’s imagination. We’ve seen eco graffiti (graffiti made from moss), live experiential marketing, marketing with some sort of social enterprise attached to it and the like.
A popular technique is to manipulate posters and furniture with particular designs. Nivea, for example, once took hold a bench in a shopping centre to advertise a cream that combats cellulite. They worked on it so that half the bench was bobbly and half was smooth. Needless to say, the smooth half was the section branded with ‘Nivea blue’. It’s a simple idea, but it gets the point of their products across. No heavy text, no images, just an effect. The idea cost next to nothing, but the beauty of it is that the bench is continually seen (and sat on) by the shopping centre’s footfall. Nivea could have invested the same amount of money in a flyer campaign, or even a billboard, but they simply couldn’t guarantee their message will be read, let alone absorbed.
In recent times, guerilla marketing has been a tactic employed by businesses who have a small budget, but are looking to engage with a large audience. But bigger brands are starting to realise the effectiveness of such campaigns – Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Volkswagon don’t care about saving their marketing budget, they’re just convinced by the results. Don’t forget, with the bigger companies being able to resource some of the top creatives around, we’re seeing some quite brilliant and memorable campaigns.
Hotcow is a non-traditional creative agency that specialises in experiential marketing that goes viral. Our campaigns generate buzz through crowd participation, PR and content sharing. Contact us on 0207 5030442 or email us on info@hotcow.co.uk.
