Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Guerrillas vs. Terrorists
Guerrilla marketing methodology is nascent and therefore exciting. It's exportable to myriad sectors of the economy, and has the dynamism to breathe a little revolutionary spirit into an award-obsessed marketing industry. And when applied to the demographic that I mostly serve and market to - that ever-elusive 18-to-24 slice of the pie - guerrilla marketing campaigns elicit astounding resonance and relevancy.
The press is increasingly giving coverage to guerrilla campaigns conducted by both large multinationals and nimble boutique concerns.
Most recently, marketing watchdogs and the press had a field day with two street campaigns that were described as the latest hit-and-run street tactics of cutting-edge guerrilla marketers.
The first front-pager to make it above the fold in The Seattle Times, and to almost instantaneously get picked up by the AP, was a local campaign for Pizza Schmizza.
Get this: the pizza pusher paid homeless people in Seattle to hold up signs that read: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money." The AP quoted "advertising industry watchers" pronouncing the campaign as a "first of its kind," and citing the perennial mantra of "ad clutter" to explain the imperative need for alternative marketing channels.
To that effect, Pizza Schmizza has also handed out fake parking tickets with pizza coupons on them, and has blitzed neighbourhoods with election placards reading "Elect Schmizza for Dinner."
And then there's www.GoldenPalace.com. The online gambling house slathered its URL on a porn star and paid her to streak topless at the U.S. Open. "Guerrilla tactics" were in the press as sports hacks repeatedly wrote of tourney winner Jim Furyk's surprise at landing in the lascivious embrace of mammary marketing. Earlier this year, another branded streaker emblazoned with the casino's online co-ordinates bared his charms at the French Open and at the UEFA Cup soccer final in Spain.
Certainly, GoldenPalace.com knows its market - wealthy, fun-loving and high-living males. The multi-continent streaker attack indeed resulted in millions of visits to the site, and certainly established the casino as the progenitor of body billboards. And Pizza Schmizza got a sizable boost, I imagine, in publicity and awareness. The owner was actually quoted in The Seattle Times spinning the campaign as an altruistic endeavour and not a pure marketing ploy.
But neither of these campaigns is guerrilla marketing. To be sure, guerrilla marketing takes audacity to an art-form. Guerrilla methodologies are predicated on alertness, mobility and attack. But equally paramount to any successful guerrilla foray, whether in battle or marketing, is the absolute co-operation of the people and a perfect knowledge of the target market. Pizza Schmizza and GoldenPalace.com didn't show the world a guerrilla movement. Rather, they assaulted and shocked an already marketing-savvy (and weary) consumer with a terrorist blitz of senseless marketing.
Terrorist marketing seeks airtime. It is parasitic and base. It is indiscriminate, impersonal and ineffective. If there's a lack of audacity to terrorism, there's usually plenty of shock value.
Terrorist campaigns calcify the consumer into mistrust and provoke a negative reaction against creative marketing. Even handing out Pepsi cans on the corner can become a perilous mission.
Because a basic premise of a guerrilla movement rests with the support of the people, guerrilla marketing should be deployed when giving value to the consumer, and presenting a memorable experience. It's the only way that a guerrilla campaign will really work. It's not enough to surprise or to rile the consumer. There's more to it than that.
Guerrilla marketing methods use high-impact, dynamic and unconventional face-to-face interactions at times and places where the target market is most receptive to learning about and experiencing a brand. The creative strategy and selected targets will surely depend on product, messaging, desired effect and consumer psychographics - but the aesthetic to the campaigns must never reach lowest-common-denominator tactics.
Guerrilla marketing is inexorably infiltrating into the general marketing mix to break through the white noise. Terrorist marketing, however, just makes noise, and should be relegated as another reckless contribution to the panoply of mixed messages that are directed at a flabbergasted consumer.
The press is increasingly giving coverage to guerrilla campaigns conducted by both large multinationals and nimble boutique concerns.
Most recently, marketing watchdogs and the press had a field day with two street campaigns that were described as the latest hit-and-run street tactics of cutting-edge guerrilla marketers.
The first front-pager to make it above the fold in The Seattle Times, and to almost instantaneously get picked up by the AP, was a local campaign for Pizza Schmizza.
Get this: the pizza pusher paid homeless people in Seattle to hold up signs that read: "Pizza Schmizza paid me to hold this sign instead of asking for money." The AP quoted "advertising industry watchers" pronouncing the campaign as a "first of its kind," and citing the perennial mantra of "ad clutter" to explain the imperative need for alternative marketing channels.
To that effect, Pizza Schmizza has also handed out fake parking tickets with pizza coupons on them, and has blitzed neighbourhoods with election placards reading "Elect Schmizza for Dinner."
And then there's www.GoldenPalace.com. The online gambling house slathered its URL on a porn star and paid her to streak topless at the U.S. Open. "Guerrilla tactics" were in the press as sports hacks repeatedly wrote of tourney winner Jim Furyk's surprise at landing in the lascivious embrace of mammary marketing. Earlier this year, another branded streaker emblazoned with the casino's online co-ordinates bared his charms at the French Open and at the UEFA Cup soccer final in Spain.
Certainly, GoldenPalace.com knows its market - wealthy, fun-loving and high-living males. The multi-continent streaker attack indeed resulted in millions of visits to the site, and certainly established the casino as the progenitor of body billboards. And Pizza Schmizza got a sizable boost, I imagine, in publicity and awareness. The owner was actually quoted in The Seattle Times spinning the campaign as an altruistic endeavour and not a pure marketing ploy.
But neither of these campaigns is guerrilla marketing. To be sure, guerrilla marketing takes audacity to an art-form. Guerrilla methodologies are predicated on alertness, mobility and attack. But equally paramount to any successful guerrilla foray, whether in battle or marketing, is the absolute co-operation of the people and a perfect knowledge of the target market. Pizza Schmizza and GoldenPalace.com didn't show the world a guerrilla movement. Rather, they assaulted and shocked an already marketing-savvy (and weary) consumer with a terrorist blitz of senseless marketing.
Terrorist marketing seeks airtime. It is parasitic and base. It is indiscriminate, impersonal and ineffective. If there's a lack of audacity to terrorism, there's usually plenty of shock value.
Terrorist campaigns calcify the consumer into mistrust and provoke a negative reaction against creative marketing. Even handing out Pepsi cans on the corner can become a perilous mission.
Because a basic premise of a guerrilla movement rests with the support of the people, guerrilla marketing should be deployed when giving value to the consumer, and presenting a memorable experience. It's the only way that a guerrilla campaign will really work. It's not enough to surprise or to rile the consumer. There's more to it than that.
Guerrilla marketing methods use high-impact, dynamic and unconventional face-to-face interactions at times and places where the target market is most receptive to learning about and experiencing a brand. The creative strategy and selected targets will surely depend on product, messaging, desired effect and consumer psychographics - but the aesthetic to the campaigns must never reach lowest-common-denominator tactics.
Guerrilla marketing is inexorably infiltrating into the general marketing mix to break through the white noise. Terrorist marketing, however, just makes noise, and should be relegated as another reckless contribution to the panoply of mixed messages that are directed at a flabbergasted consumer.
