What is guerrilla marketing

With "cheeky" pics and witty profile copy, Deadpool broke the fourth wall and met potential movie-goers ahead of the movie's Valentine's Day release. If the Tinder user "swiped right" and matched with the character, they received a link to purchase tickets. While Tinder isn't the best way to generate buzz -- it's limited in its reach to a small subset of users, and you're technically not allowed to use the platform for promotion -- screenshots of this gag quickly made it to social media, garnering a ton of attention.

The big takeaway: Promotions that use "interruptive" techniques aren't frustrating if they create unexpected delight. Have you ever seen how powerful of a motivator free food can be? Make it a sweet treat, and you have yourself a winning combination. Childish Gambino likely had this in mind for his "Summertime Starts Here" pop-up events where free ice cream was given away. As people queued up in the heat for some delicious ice cream, Gambino's two singles played on a loud speaker. The big takeaway: Sometimes you have to draw an audience in with incentives to earn attention.

Okay, this one might not be entirely fair, since it wasn't pulled off "in real life. It might sound impossible to actually carry out something like that. But imagine -- what if you could create musical posters for your brand? Again, it's different than a billboard ad because, when we walk by a wall of paper advertisements in, say, New York City, we don't expect them to start moving.

Now, we'll admit that this idea isn't exactly a budget-friendly one, as it might require some technical work to bring to fruition. But even if you could include a single moving or digital image among a sea of still ones -- in a place where it would come as a surprise, like a brick wall -- it would catch people off guard and, therefore, get their attention. The big takeaway: Think about the things that your audience might just pass by every day -- and make those things do something that's both unexpected and interactive.

When I first saw this photo, I'll admit that I fell for it. Then, I realized that the dog wasn't real, and neither were the flies. The former was a photo, and the latter were actually humans. That's because Frontline, the makers of flea and tick prevention products for dogs, were able to fill the entire floor of this large, public space with this image. The brand knew that many people walk across that space every day, and that a good number of people would also see it from the building's upper levels, creating the dog-and-insect illusion.

It's hard to miss -- and to not look twice. Again, this campaign is different than traditional marketing because it's not just plastering a single message somewhere that's likely to be ignored.

It creates a form of accidental human interaction that reminds the viewer what the product does. The big takeaway: Figure out how humans might involuntarily interact with your marketing messages. While your product or service may not address the issue of, say, insect removal, there are ways to make people part of the campaign. Breaking up is hard to do in person, let alone when it's publicly played out online.

That's what happened -- allegedly -- when one Instagram user left a comment on one of Burger King's Instagram posts sharing a tale of his "girl" procuring food from Burger King.

There was just one problem. This guy does have a girlfriend, but she was nowhere near a Burger King. So, who was he referring to? The drama ensued, via Instagram comments:. After the comments began to make headlines, many speculated that the entire exchange may have been staged by Burger King.

And if it was, we can't help but salute them -- what a way to get your brand into the zeitgeist. Burger King has roughly one million followers on Instagram. And while we're not sure how many followers the former had before this famous breakup, it makes sense to assume that this at least drew more attention to its social media presence, at least on this particular platform.

People may have already been observing the brand on Instagram, but before now, were they actively discussing it? The big takeaway: Guerrilla marketing has gone digital. Think about where your audience already exists digitally -- then, give 'em a show. While we can't condone lying, we can applaud creativity, so don't be afraid to use the comments to get people talking. I'm as guilty as anyone of wasting money on bottled water. I have no excuse. I have a reusable one. My workplace offers filtered water from a machine, not a traditional cooler, and yet, it remains a bad habit.

It posed the question, "What if those bottles of water you waste money on were filled with dirty water? So instead of frivolously spending that money on bottled water, UNICEF suggested putting it toward efforts to bring clean drinking water to these areas. It did so by creating makeshift vending machines that sold bottled dirty water, with each button labeled as a disease caused by a lack of clean drinking water. The big takeaway: Guerrilla marketing works in the not-for-profit sector, too.

And while scary, saddening images are often an impactful way of communicating your mission, there's a way to convey it by creating something less in-your-face and interactive for the public.

Are you an underwear company looking for an unconventional way to market your product? It also is used by big companies in grassroots campaigns to compliment on-going mass media campaigns. Individuals have also adopted this marketing style as a way to find a job or more work. Advertising can be dated back to BC where the early Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. What we consider traditional advertising and marketing slowly developed over the centuries but never really boomed until the early s.

It was at this time that the main goal of advertisements were to educate the consumer on the product or service rather than to entertain and engage them. In , campaigns focuses on heavy advertising spending in different mass media channels such as radio and print.

The most memorable pioneer during this time was MTV where they focused on getting the consumer to tune in for the advertising message rather than it being the by-product of a featured show. Agencies struggled to make an impression on consumers and consumers were tired of being marketed to. It was time for a change. Levinson comes from a background as the Senior Vice-President at J.

During this time, radio, television and print were on the rise, but consumers were growing tired. Levinson suggests that campaigns need to be shocking, unique, outrageous and clever. It needs to create buzz. Small businesses started changing their ways of thinking and approached marketing in a brand new way.

Larger companies have been using unconventional marketing to compliment their advertising campaigns. Bigger companies have much larger budgets and their brands are usually already well established. In some instances, their guerrilla stunts can flop and ultimately become a PR nightmare. The placards were placed in random locations and remained unlit during the day. Covid why I have not ordered a take-away 12 Mar, Inbound marketing: why your traffic is not an indicator of success 10 Mar, Experiential marketing: definition, interest, and advice 26 Feb, Guerrilla marketing: definition, types and examples 19 Feb, Operational Marketing: definition, tools, performance measurement 5 Feb, World Packaging Organisation: our eye on the Awards 17 Apr, SEO A look at the fundamentals 10 Apr, Smart bottles, from health to marketing 29 Mar,