Time to Revisit Guerrilla Marketing
It’s tough to get people’s attention these days. With the economy the way it is, people seem jaded by traditional advertisements. Added to this is the onslaught of information available via social media – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Plus, with all the bad news, people seem to be gravitating towards anything that is funny, clever or uplifting. In an era of shrinking budgets and changing advertising paradigms, how can companies – particularly small or medium-sized ones that don’t have in-house creative teams – get the attention of the marketplace?
In my opinion, this is the perfect time to revisit (or test out for the first time) guerrilla marketing. For those who don’t already know, “guerrilla marketing” is a term first coined in 1983 by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerilla Marketing. It refers to unconventional promotional strategies that rely on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Guerrilla marketing tactics target consumers in unexpected places (which can make the idea that’s being marketed memorable), generate buzz, and the best ones spread virally.
Take for example a recent promotion by HBO for the new series Eastbound and Down, produced by Will Ferrell and starring Danny McBride of Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express fame. The show is a comedy about Kenny Powers, a former baseball star who returns to teach physical education at his old middle school. To get the attention of the show’s target audience – men age 18 to 34 – HBO sent street teams wearing Eastbound and Down branded baseball shirts and caps to sports bars, gyms and liquor stores in New York and Los Angeles. There, they put 5,000 half-baseball static clings to windows and mirrors. On the baseball it said, “Kenny Powers Was Here Motherf&@#ers.”
The tone of the promotion, with the expletive on the ball and the shattered glass, is consistent with the in-your-face, irreverent tone of the show and HBO marketing executives are hoping that people will like the baseballs so much that they steal them. Meanwhile, the street teams are prepared to hit the street again to replace any ads that go missing.
What is so brilliant about HBO’s marketing strategy is that it is comparatively much less expensive than other, more traditional forms of advertising that networks typically use to promote their shows. That static cling baseball costs a little less than $8 for 5000 pieces (the number that HBO distributed) – that means HBO spent about $40,000 on this promotion. Sound expensive? Smaller quantities (for smaller budgets) can be purchased for approximately $13 each (for 50 pieces) and can be imprinted with any logo or message. With the right placement, imagine what you could do and who you could reach with just $500 to $1,000!
In his article “Guerillas in the Real World,” Jay Conrad Levinson says, “Marketing is a waste of money and time if you’re not attuned to the real world. Reality is not necessarily what you want it to be or what it used to be. Instead, reality is what really is. To many marketers, that’s a major problem, but to guerrilla, it’s an inviting chance to stand apart from the competition.” Now, more than ever, marketing professionals must be aware of reality and find creative, yet budget-friendly ways to attract the market’s attention. Sometimes, everything old is new again – and right now, the guerrilla marketing concept of the early 1980’s seems perfectly suited to 2009!