Guerrilla marketing “works because it’s simple to understand, easy to implement and outrageously inexpensive,” says Jay Conrad Levinson, the man who coined the phrase.
Consumers have grown immune to big budget advertising, but marketers that expend a bit of time and effort — rather than piles of money — can generate effective results with inexpensive, small-scale stunts.
Take a look through our gallery of guerrilla and street marketing examples, where promotions costing no more than a few dollars can have a big impact on the consumers. Let us know which you think are the most effective in the comments below.
1. Absolut
This stupendously simple idea places Vodka-flavored temptation in the traveling consumer's way.
The use of the luggage belt is more clever than you might initially think. First, it's a place a consumer is forced to wait, consequently making any distraction a welcome one.
Second, it plays on the fact that -- even if you'd never act on it -- you've probably thought about how easy it would be to nab an interesting looking item from the belt and just walk off.
2. Nike
By taking an instantly recognizable shared experience (the booted car, the parking ticket) and adding an element of fun (the big shoe and randomly targeting anonymous vehicles), Nike gets across its message, which under different circumstances could be seen as a little too preachy.
This also serves to show that timing is everything. With the stunt taking place on "International Car Free Day," it adds legitimacy to what could be a slightly dubious, potentially invasive campaign.
3. Ikea
Swedish furniture giant Ikea makes little public pockets of Manhattan a little nicer with whimsical street settings in the "Everyday Fabulous" campaign.
Seeing such ordinary items in unexpected places is a great way to cement something in a consumer's mind, as well as actually get your physical product right under their noses -- not an easy feat under normal circumstances.
4. Libresse
Libresse (or Bodyform as it's branded in the UK) dropped more than 3,000 gift packs of tampons on Dutch beaches, with the feminine hygiene products falling out of the sky on pink parachutes.
The logic behind the "drop" was in response to Libresse data suggesting women avoid the beach during their period - hence the slogan, "With Libresse, you don't have to."
However, we think the real success of the campaign was making a fun spectacle out of what society suggests we should keep under wraps.
That, and the fact that the resulting video is chock-full of women in bikinis, all adds up to a successful promotional stunt.
5. Loctite
Our favorite on this list for its sheer simplicity, Loctite's street marketing for its Super Glue 3 product can literally be found at street level -- as in glued to the sidewalk.
Really, what better way is there to demonstrate the effectiveness of your adhesive than the old coin-glued-to-the-ground trick?
6. SIXT
Car rental company SIXT's German agency came up with a novel super-solution to get its rental deals seen by visitors at the Hamburg airport.
What makes this so innovative is not just making very affordable use of an existing platform, the Wi-Fi network, but that its target audience (professionals) was arguably the group most likely to be accessing that platform.
Besides being a case study in clever guerrilla marketing, this is a great example of using the tools already at your disposal.
7. Lee
The concept is not ground-breaking by any means, but what's notable about this campaign to raise awareness for a new Lee jean store opening in Paris is how far the team has gone to plaster Paris with Lee denim.
The sheer scale of jean-covered parking meters, clothes lines, manhole covers and stickers would surely guarantee that no one in the area could fail to notice the grand opening.
8. UNICEF
UNICEF took a very ordinary object -- a water vending machine -- and made it startling by filling it with bottles of disease-laden H2O to enlighten New Yorkers about how something we take for granted is not such a luxury in the developing world.
While stopping passersby in their tracks with choices of malaria, cholera and typhoid-flavored "Dirty Water," the UNICEF staffers then got the message across that $1 is enough to ensure a child gets access to clean water for 40 days -- a simply bottled message that saw the donations roll in.
It was a clever way to convey an issue, confronting those that live a life of luxury with stark realities from other parts of the world.
9. Volkswagen
Let's face it -- any change from the mind-numbing daily commuting routine is a bonus, and Volkswagen really delivered the goods with this installation that offered the "Fast Lane" option.
While the speed message suits a car marque well, so too the sense of fun suits the brand message of the particular car being promoted, the Polo GTi.
Other parts of this campaign saw skateboards attached to shopping carts and an elevator pimped out as a space shuttle -- all slightly anarchic ways of spicing up daily life and all quite memorable.
10. VrijVerzekerd.nl
Dutch agency Novocortex managed to get its online insurance client a ton of press -- and traffic -- with a simple guerrilla marketing campaign that went viral, and cost less than 1,000 euros.
Using static paper "stickers," motorists were fooled into thinking their cars had been scratched. But the sticker is really an ad for the insurance company.
The agency didn't stop there. It put videos of tricked drivers online and offered stickers to viewers so they could fool their friends.
The stickers ran out after two days as the public willingly spread the message across the Netherlands, which, as we all know, is pretty much the Holy Grail of any marketing campaign.
BONUS: TBWA
We're tacking this fun stunt on as a bonus video, since it's not a consumer targeted campaign, but still amusing nonetheless.
The story goes that when the Saatchi & Saatchi agency was having its reception area refurbished, it covered up the construction areas with big white boards bearing the message "Bill posters will not be prosecuted."
This was taken advantage of brilliantly by nearby rival agency TBWA, which took the opportunity to post a giant message reading "You'll get a better reception at TBWA" -- a statement that, considering the ongoing construction in the building, was technically correct on one level at least.
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