GUERRILLA MARKETING
The term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book of the same name. It is described as an unconventional system of promotions on a very low budget, relying on time, energy and imagination instead of big marketing budgets. In other words unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.
Levinson's original book was directed to small business but has more recently been taken up by large brands and political campaigns - thus also being known as Guerrilla Advertising.
Often the actual promotions have a short shelf life but generate a longer word of mouth buzz. With the advent and use of sites like YouTube this secondary group is becoming more and more important. Often the actual event is not important, or in some cases, even real.
As building companies in Chile don't work on weekends, the guys at IDB-FCB decided to use the best located cranes in Santiago city as an guerrilla for Lego. The action consisted of hanging a giant fictitious Lego block from a crane.
Did it really happen? Does it matter if it did? This image was seen all over the internet and even ended up on news stations and in newspapers. This is part of the charm of guerrilla advertising and one of it's flaws. If the ad doesn't work well you stand the chance of having it shown all over the world for the wrong reasons.
This is one of the reasons companies are hesitant about employing guerrilla advertising. If it goes wrong it goes wrong in a major way and can cost big money.
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CASE STUDY - Sony PSP Graffiti (2005)
The ads never mentioned Sony or the PSP apart from showing a PSP being interacted with in different ways. The ads didn't even look like ads, showing black-on-white graffiti with wide-eyed cartoon characters riding a PSP like a skateboard, licking it like a lollipop or cranking it like a Jack-in-the-Box. It was supposed to get through to the underground graffiti movement and excite kids who were into street art and hip hop.
The campaign launched in San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago at the start of December 2005. Almost immediately Sony was hit with a number of cease-and-desist letters and city councils instantly started issuing fines to recover any profit the ads produced.
In San Francisco, the ads were defaced soon after they appeared as word spread that Sony was behind them. "Get out of my city!!!" and "Fony" were written on one. Anti-graffiti activists were incensed. Graffiti aficionados were appalled. City Mayors went on a rampage lobbying for Sony's head.
This all became big news and Sony got a lot of publicity they didn't want. In the end they had to pay for the ads to be removed and pay numerous fines ot to mention the negative press they received.
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INSPIRATION & EXTRAS
Each week I throw up things I find that relate to what we've been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at matt@billyblue.com.au and I'll get it up here or on the Bluni inspiration site.
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CASE STUDY - Fake ads!
Kobe Bryant in a possibly fake spot for Nike that got a lot of attention on the web.
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CASE STUDY - Street art?
Chewing gum brand Sportlife in The Netherlands. Videos of a skateboarder got projected on the walls in the main Dutch cities with the goal of draw people's attention on the Sportlife's call to action: "Can you make it to the pack?"
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CASE STUDY - Finding opportunities
The KFC face from space - find it on Google Maps. Is it an ad for KFC or for Google Maps?
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CASE STUDY - Lynx Jet
Sydneys own slice of the big budget multi-faceted campaign that incorporates ATL, BTL and Guerrilla
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CASE STUDY - Nobel Foundation
Bob Ross for Nobel Foundation pulling no punches.
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CASE STUDY - Blow job redefined
Museum of Sex New York hired advertising agency Lowe to get people talking about their new exhibition Exploring the Pleasure of Oral Sex.
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CASE STUDY - INVISIBLE CHILDREN
Melbourne agency - JWT has provided a provoking street campaign for the Australian Childhood Foundation. In their ongoing campaign Stop Child Abuse Now they used child size mannequins to represent children suffering neglect. The mannequins were placed in high traffic locations around the city and then a billposter was pasted over the top of the figure so only the feet and legs could be seen. That's something that would really make you stop and take notice.
