SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT ISSUES

GUERRILLA MARKETING
SUBMITTED TO:

SWAMI KESHVANAND INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, MANAGEMENT & GRAMOTHAN, JAIPUR

(In partial fulfillment of the requirements of M207 for the award of the degree of Master of Business Administration)

SUBMITTED BY: Sudarshan Choudhary

MBA-II SEM

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
It is great relief and pleasure for me to make use of this golden opportunity to express my thanks to those who helped me whole heartedly to bring out this seminar on GUERRILLA MARKETING as a successful venture. The satisfaction that accompanies the successful completion of a particular job will be incomplete without the mention of the people whose ceaseless cooperation made the job possible. Their constant guidance and innovative ideas acquires an important role in successful completion of the task. Our thank of vote in this regard goes to Mr. ATUL GUPTA, Lecturer of MBA department for their valuable suggestions, Motivation & guidance without whom the project cant be accomplished, Mr. VIKAS SHROTRIYA, HOD of MBA department for his support & encouragement.

Sudarshan Choudhary

Preface
As a part of subject requirement of my MBA from SKIT, I have prepared a project report on requirement and selection in any organization so as to give exposure to practical management and to get familiar with various activities taking place in the organization. I have done my project report on the GUERRILLA MARKETING . The report has been prepared to deliever as much information as I could gather from whatever resources I had. It is very important to understand what GUERRILLA MARKETING is all about .It is basically an

Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. Guerrilla Marketing is specifically entrepreneur. geared for the small business and

My Report is based on this important topic GUERRILLA MARKETING

Contents
I.

Introduction of Guerrilla marketing Meaning & Definitions Associated marketing trends Reasons for undercover marketing Benefits The History of Guerrilla Marketing The Origins and Evolution of Guerrilla Marketing Major Corporations Go For Guerrilla Marketing Guerrilla Marketing Versus Viral Marketing Guerrilla Marketing for Social Causes 10 Different Types of Guerrilla Marketing Is Guerrilla Marketing Right for You? The Future of Guerrilla Marketing Controversy 5 Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong

II. III. IV. V.

VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI.

XII.
XIII.

XIV. XV.

XVI.

Conclusion

Guerrilla marketing
Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional system of promotions that
relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing tactics are unexpected and unconventional; consumers are targeted in unexpected places, which can make the idea that's being marketed memorable, generate buzz, and even spread virally. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1983 book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.

Definition
Unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. Guerilla Marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, pr stunts, any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerilla marketing now utilize cutting edge mobile digital technologies to really engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience. Coined by Jay Conrad Levinson, guerilla marketing is more about matching wits than matching budgets. Guerilla marketing can be as different from traditional marketing as guerilla warfare is from traditional

warfare. Rather than marching their marketing dollars forth like infantry divisions, guerilla marketers snipe away with their marketing resources for maximum impact.

Over the past month, WebUrbanist has explored the ins and outs of the weird world of guerrilla marketing. What was once a fringe movement in the world of advertising has become much more popular and mainstream since the 1980s, when marketing expert Jay Conrad Levinson introduced the concept to the world at large. But what is guerrilla marketing, exactly? If youre still scratching your head about what this guerrilla stuff is all about, step onto the tour bus as we take one more look around. Keep hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times, please. Well review the highlights at each of our stops. Feel free to hop off and visit any of the sections that interest you, then hop back on to navigate the rest.

Introduction Levinson's books include hundreds of "guerrilla marketing weapons," but they also encourage guerrilla marketeers to be creative and devise their own unconventional methods of promotion. A guerrilla marketeer uses all of his or her contacts, both professional and personal, and examines

his company and its products, looking for sources of publicity. Many forms of publicity can be very inexpensive, others are free. Levinson says that when implementing guerrilla marketing tactics, small size is actually an advantage instead of a disadvantage. Small organizations and entrepreneurs are able to obtain publicity more easily than large companies as they are closer to their customers and considerably more agile. Yet ultimately, according to Levinson, the Guerrilla Marketeer must "deliver the goods". In The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, he states: "In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. It must build trust and support. It must understand the customer's needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits." Levinson identifies the following principles as the foundation of guerrilla marketing:

Guerrilla

Marketing

is

specifically

geared

for

the small

business and entrepreneur.

It should be based on human psychology instead of experience, judgment, and guesswork.

Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.

The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.

The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.

Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.

Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.

Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.

Guerrilla Marketers should always use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.

Use current technology as a tool to empower your business.

Associated marketing trends

The term Guerrilla Marketing is now often used more loosely as a descriptor for non-traditional media, such as:

Viral marketing -- through social networks he buzzwords viral marketing and viral advertising refer

to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives (such as product sales) through selfreplicating viral processes, analogous to the spread

of pathological and computer

viruses.

It

can

be word-of-

mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet. Viral promotions may take the form of video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, marketing is not infinitely sustainable.

ebooks, brandable

software, images, or even text messages. The basic form of viral

The goal of marketers interested in creating successful viral marketing programs is to identify individuals with high Social Networking Potential (SNP) and create Viral Messages that appeal to this segment of the population and have a high probability of being passed along.

The term "viral marketing" has also been used pejoratively to refer to stealth marketing campaignsthe unscrupulous use of astroturfing on-line combined with undermarket advertising in shopping centers to create the impression of spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm.

Ambient marketing

Presence marketing Grassroots marketing Wild Posting Campaigns Alternative marketing Buzz marketing -- word of mouth marketing Marketing buzz or simply buzz is a term used in word-ofmouth marketing.

Buzz is a form of hype among consumers,a vague but positive association, excitement, or anticipation about a product or service. Positive "buzz" is often a goal of viral marketing, public relations, and of advertising on Web 2.0 media. The term refers both to the execution of the marketing technique, and the resulting goodwill that is created

Undercover marketing -- subtle product placement Undercover marketing (also known as buzz marketing, stealth marketing, or by its detractors roach baiting) is a subset of guerrilla marketing where consumers do not realize they are being marketed to. For example, a marketing company might pay an actor or socially adept person to use a certain product visibly and convincingly in locations where target consumers congregate. While there, the actor will also talk up their product to people they befriend in that location, even handing out samples if it is economically feasible. The actor will often be able to sell consumers on their product without those consumers even realizing that they are being marketed to. Reasons for undercover marketing An undercover campaign which aims to generate buzz, is economical, and once sufficient buzz has been generated, is almost free, as consumers "market" the product to others, through a network of referrals which grows and grows. Buzz campaigns can reach consumers isolated from all other media, and unlike conventional media, consumers tend to trust it. Marketers find it very hard to predict buzz let alone generate it on demand. However, when it works, undercover marketing does exactly that:

an ideal consumer from the example above will not only begin using that product themselves, but will also tell their friends about it, inciting a planned viral marketing campaign that looks spontaneous. Financial risk here is relatively small because such marketing approach requires fewer expenses and is usually more cost-effective as well. Undercover marketing is used when traditional marketing techniques have been exhausted and investors are looking for a new effective solution for their marketing needs. It is the consumer's sense that this recommendation was spontaneous and unsolicited, and the resulting feeling that "one good turn deserves another", that drives the buzz. So, the "bought and paid for" aspect of the transaction must remain hidden. Overall, the person doing the marketing must look and sound like a peer of their target audience without any ulterior motive for endorsing the productemployees of the company cannot do undercover marketing, nor can celebrities (except possibly to other celebrities).

Astroturfing -- releasing company news to imitate grassroots popularity Astroturfing is a word in English describing

formal political, advertising, or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf. The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entitya politician, political group, product, service or event.

Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach", "awareness", etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research.

Experiential marketing -- interaction with product

Tissue-pack marketing

Tissue-pack marketing is a type of guerrilla marketing that is a phenomenon in Japan. Companies use small, portable tissue packages to move advertising copy directly into consumers' hands. About 4 billion of these packages of tissues are distributed on the streets annually in Japanlargely outside of subway stations. This industry generates sales in the range of 75 billion annually.

The concept of tissue-pack marketing was first developed in Japan. Its origins date back to the late 1960s when Hiroshi Mori, the founder of a paper-goods manufacturer in Kchi Prefecture called Meisei Industrial Co., was looking for ways to expand demand for paper products. At the time, the most common marketing freebie in Japan was boxes of matches. These were often given away at banks and then used by women in the kitchen. Mori figured tissues would have even wider appeal than the matches, and as a result he developed the machinery to fold and package tissues

into easy-to-carry, pocket-size packs. The new product was marketed only as a form of advertising and was not sold to consumers.

Benefits

A variety of advertising tissue packages Where the more traditional flyers are often discarded without being read or simply not accepted by the consumer, the same is not true of

advertising tissue-packs. The most important reason for this is because the tissues add functionality to the advertisement. This functionality has several benefits:

Gets the ad into consumers' hands In a recent Internet survey of over 100,000 Japanese consumers conducted by Marsh Research, 76% said they accept free tissues. This is a much higher rate than either fliers or leaflets.

Gets consumers to read/look at the ad after they have accepted it In the same study referenced above, of those that accepted the tissue-pack, slightly more than half of the participants said they either "definitely look" or "at least glance at" the advertisement. One possible reason for this increased statistic when compared to fliers is that consumers were hoping to find coupons or special offers packaged inside with the tissues.

Helps consumers to retain the ad and its message The advertisement on the package is more likely to be retained by the consumer because they are being consistently exposed to it.

Global spread Japan is still the main market for tissue-pack advertising, but the practice has begun to spread overseas. In the United States, a

subsidiary

of

the

Japanese

trading

company Itochu,

Adpackusa.com, introduced tissue-pack marketing in New York in 2005 and now offers it throughout the country.

In April 2005, this marketing method was introduced to Canada by Hold'em Promotions Inc. Hold'em founders got the idea when encountered the tissues during a trip to China. Clients of Hold'em Promotions have handed out tissues in a wide variety of locations and venues, including Major League Baseball games and Canadian Football League games. In 2008, NeoSec introduced tissue-pack marketing to Paris.

1) The History of Guerrilla Marketing In part one of our gmarketing series, we took a look at how advertising went from boring, educational, and sometimes downright false ads to the entertaining spectacle we know and love today. Jay Conrad Levinson, author of many books on the subject, is credited as the father of Guerrilla Marketing. His ideas paved the way for small businesses to compete in the marketing arena with the big companies, ushering in an era of innovative and sometimes extreme marketing ideas. But Levinsons ideas arent just about getting the customers attention:

2) The Origins and Evolution of Guerrilla Marketing Have you ever wondered how guerrilla marketing got so popular? J.C. Levinsons book was only part of the equation. The main reason guerrilla marketing took off was its incredible effectiveness at breaking through our advertising blinders. The first instances of guerrilla marketing were radical for their time, but the techniques continued to develop. Girls convincing men to buy them drinks was suddenly more about marketing than about flirting. Even rappers got into the game when Run DMC

released a song called My Adidas, sending sales of Adidas through the proverbial roof.

3) Major Corporations Go For Guerrilla Marketing Although J.C. Levinsons ideas were geared toward the small business evening the playing field against bigger rivals, major corporations soon began using guerrilla tactics to sell their products. Their efforts arent always rewarded, especially when existing customers feel like the big

businesses

are

overstepping

their

bounds

or

being

deceitful.

4) Guerrilla Marketing Versus Viral Marketing Advertising executives are under a lot of pressure to make their campaigns successful. At some point, it occurred to some ad people that they could make ads so irresistible that they would actually be passed around willingly by customers. The result: self-propagating advertising. Guerrilla marketing sometimes takes the form of a viral campaign. The viral campaign happens organically and spontaneously; if its pushed too hard by its creators theres a pretty good chance itll never get off the ground. Some of the most successful guerrilla marketing campaigns have taken the form of viral videos or websites.

5) Guerrilla Marketing for Social Causes So far, our guerrilla marketing tour has focused on businesses and making money. Nonprofit organizations need to spread their word, too, and today many of them are turning to guerrilla marketing tactics to reach their target audience. The Red Cross has created some of the most ingenious and eye-catching socially aware guerrilla marketing messages.

6) 10 Different Types of Guerrilla Marketing Did you know that guerrilla marketing isnt just about putting up some posters or creating a rad short video? It can take on nearly any form. From strangers chatting with people on the street to making a product really hard to get hold of, marketers have lots of sneaky, amusing, and intelligent ways to get you to want what theyre selling.

7) Is Guerrilla Marketing Right for You?

You dont have to be a business (big OR small) or a socially conscious nonprofit organization to reap the rewards of guerrilla marketing. You can use unconventional techniques to land a job, get a date, or promote your talents. Of course, if youre a small business owner you should know that guerrilla marketing isnt all about the flashy message. Its essential to back up the advertisements and never disappoint your customers. As quickly as guerrilla marketing messages can spread, negative feedback spreads even faster.

8) The Future of Guerrilla Marketing We cant see exactly what is in the future for guerrilla marketing, its devotees, and the public who alternately loves and hates the constant advertising. But as we become more commercially oriented, it seems that advertisements are popping up nearly everywhere. Will we soon see ads on any and all available surfaces? Will the forehead tattoo ad become mainstream? Perhaps, but one thing thats sure is that future advertisements will be even more difficult to tell apart from real life. Weve reached the end of our guerrilla marketing tour. Weve seen some amazing sights and gained some valuable knowledge about the world of advertising. Youll probably find yourself looking differently at ads now that you know the secrets that marketers use to grab your attention. We hope youve enjoyed your tour, and youre invited back to re-visit all of your favorite stops at any time. Please watch your step as you exit the bus.

Everyone loves a story about the little guy who takes on the bigger, more heavily armed opponent and wins. When the little guy uses unconventional tactics and surprises the opponent, its called guerrilla warfare. When some starry-eyed startup shocks the world with an underground marketing campaign that costs nothing but causes shockwaves for months, its called guerrilla marketing. We hear the term guerrilla marketing everywhere these days. Its used to describe all sorts of marketing campaigns, from some scantily clad bottoms bearing the name of a business to the ill-fated Cartoon Network Lite-Brite stunt in Boston. But what is at the heart of guerrilla marketing? What is the difference between a creative guerrilla marketing campaign and a more traditional form of advertising? Well explore the inspiring world of guerrilla marketing in this multi-part series.

This iconic and often controversial form of advertising didnt come into popular existence until the late 1970s. Before that time, advertising was mostly about big budgets, big exposure, and catchy jingles. Advertisers were all about the profits and bringing in new customers by the truckload. Just like Darren on Bewitched, the ad men of the first half of the 20th century gave themselves ulcers worrying about how to make that Thompsons Toothpaste or Smiths Socks campaign one that they could retire on. From the beginning of the 20th century until the 1940s or 50s, the main goal of advertisements seemed to be to educate the target audience rather than entertain or engage them. Ads centered on telling the consumer something that they didnt know before. From posters on public fences to newspaper ads to radio and, later, television spots, advertisers assumed that the consumer needed to be taught. This resulted in hilarious (and dangerous) campaigns like the smoking will make you thin one, or the infamous Lysol douche ads.

Over time, though, advertisers noticed that their advertising techniques were getting less effective. Consumers could spot a pitch and were too

jaded to fall for advertising the way they had a generation before. By the 1970s, the advertising world was ready for a revolution. That revolution came in 1984 when Jay Conrad Levinsons ideas for big advertising results with little investment hit the book stores. Guerrilla Marketing laid out the secrets of subtle marketing that professional ad men had already known for years. When the book was published, not even Levinson could have predicted how small businesses would take the concepts and run with them. The attraction of guerrilla marketing is that its not educational or preachy. It makes the viewer think that theyre in on a secret. The more creative and jarring a campaign is, the more attention it gets. Some of the most memorable guerrilla marketing events have made bystanders feel lucky to be there to witness them.

The

goals

of

guerrilla

marketing

are

relatively

simple:

use

unconventional tactics to advertise on a small budget. Forget about TV and radio ads - think outside of those boxes. Create a trapezoid instead of a box. Make your campaign so shocking, funny, unique, outrageous,

clever, or creative that people cant stop talking about it. Back up your claims and make sure that whatever youre advertising is worth all of that buzz. Levinsons ideas had been used for years to help underdog businesses vanquish their larger competitors. The Marlboro Man, Pillsbury Dough Boy, and Jolly Green Giant can all be credited to teams including that rebel marketer who took their respective companies from relative obscurity to advertisement immortality. The ideas that small business owners got from this book completely changed the way the advertising game was played. For the first time, small businesses were able to garner as much attention as the big players. By being quirky, personal, or just completely unexpected, the new generation of advertisements was taking the country - and the world - by storm. Be sure to stayed tuned for the next installment in our series on the history of guerrilla marketing. Which of your favorite brands have used guerrilla tactics to sell you something? Feel free to add examples in the comments below.

The History of Guerrilla Marketing: Part One in an Eight-Part WebUrbanist GMarketing Series

Everyone loves a story about the little guy who takes on the bigger, more heavily armed opponent and wins. When the little guy uses unconventional tactics and surprises the opponent, its called guerrilla warfare. When some starry-eyed startup shocks the world with an underground marketing campaign that costs nothing but causes shockwaves for months, its called guerrilla marketing. We hear the term guerrilla marketing everywhere these days. Its used to describe all sorts of marketing campaigns, from some scantily clad bottoms bearing the name of a business to the ill-fated Cartoon Network Lite-Brite stunt in Boston. But what is at the heart of guerrilla

marketing? What is the difference between a creative guerrilla marketing campaign and a more traditional form of advertising? Well explore the inspiring world of guerrilla marketing in this multi-part series.

This iconic and often controversial form of advertising didnt come into popular existence until the late 1970s. Before that time, advertising was mostly about big budgets, big exposure, and catchy jingles. Advertisers were all about the profits and bringing in new customers by the truckload. Just like Darren on Bewitched, the ad men of the first half of the 20th century gave themselves ulcers worrying about how to make that Thompsons Toothpaste or Smiths Socks campaign one that they could retire on. From the beginning of the 20th century until the 1940s or 50s, the main goal of advertisements seemed to be to educate the target audience rather than entertain or engage them. Ads centered on telling the consumer something that they didnt know before. From posters on public fences to newspaper ads to radio and, later, television spots, advertisers assumed that the consumer needed to be taught. This

resulted in hilarious (and dangerous) campaigns like the smoking will make you thin one, or the infamous Lysol douche ads.

Over time, though, advertisers noticed that their advertising techniques were getting less effective. Consumers could spot a pitch and were too jaded to fall for advertising the way they had a generation before. By the 1970s, the advertising world was ready for a revolution. That revolution came in 1984 when Jay Conrad Levinsons ideas for big advertising results with little investment hit the book stores. Guerrilla Marketing laid out the secrets of subtle marketing that professional ad men had already known for years. When the book was published, not even Levinson could have predicted how small businesses would take the concepts and run with them. The attraction of guerrilla marketing is that its not educational or preachy. It makes the viewer think that theyre in on a secret. The more creative and jarring a campaign is, the more attention it gets. Some of the most memorable guerrilla marketing events have made bystanders feel lucky to be there to witness them.

The

goals

of

guerrilla

marketing

are

relatively

simple:

use

unconventional tactics to advertise on a small budget. Forget about TV and radio ads - think outside of those boxes. Create a trapezoid instead of a box. Make your campaign so shocking, funny, unique, outrageous, clever, or creative that people cant stop talking about it. Back up your claims and make sure that whatever youre advertising is worth all of that buzz. Levinsons ideas had been used for years to help underdog businesses vanquish their larger competitors. The Marlboro Man, Pillsbury Dough Boy, and Jolly Green Giant can all be credited to teams including that rebel marketer who took their respective companies from relative obscurity to advertisement immortality. The ideas that small business owners got from this book completely changed the way the advertising game was played. For the first time, small businesses were able to garner as much attention as the big players. By being quirky, personal, or just completely unexpected, the new generation of advertisements was taking the country - and the world - by storm.

Be sure to stayed tuned for the next installment in our series on the history of guerrilla marketing. Which of your favorite brands have used guerrilla tactics to sell you something? Feel free to add examples in the comments below.

Guerrilla marketing was initially used by small and medium size (SMEs) businesses, but it is now increasingly adopted by large businesses. Controversy

Aqua Teen Hunger Force On 31 January 2007, several magnetic light displays in and around the city of Boston, Massachusetts, were mistaken for possible explosive devices. Several subway stations, bridges, and a portion of Interstate 93

were closed as police examined, removed, and in some cases, destroyed the devices. The suspicious objects were revealed to be ads depicting the Mooninites, Ignignokt and Err, characters from the Cartoon Network's latenight Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Messages On Hold In December 2007, a staff member of on hold advertising company, took a life-size placard of cricket legend Shane Warne wearing a branded tshirt and the companys tell-tale giant hand outside the West Australian Cricket Ground at the 3rd Ashes Test. The act of ambush marketing was noticed and the staff member issued a fine for displaying a sign without a permit, sparking a nationwide debate over wearing clothing with brand names.[1] Techniques

Guerrilla marketing warfare strategies Street art Flyposting Wheatpasting Graffiti

10 Different Types of Guerrilla Marketing: Part Six in an Eight-Part WebUrbanist GMarketing Series In our journey through the captivating world of guerrilla marketing, weve seen some interesting sights. The birth of the concept, its evolution, the big corporations that play the guerrilla game, the viral nature of some campaigns, and gmarketing for social

causes have all caught our attention as we stroll along Advertising Street.

Coming up on your left is a peculiar little place. Its a squat building with the windows blacked out. A security guard stands sentry over the single entrance and regards passers-by suspiciously. This, friends, is where new guerrilla marketing methods are cooked up and shipped out hot and fresh to you, the unwitting consumer. The details of what goes on in there are tightly guarded, but weve got a key. One of the main advantages of guerrilla marketing is that its unexpected. It catches us off guard and causes an emotional response: laughter, shock or sadness are great sellers. Its easy to see why marketers would rather you didnt know just how theyre using guerrilla marketing to their advantage. If you know their secrets, you may just stop responding.

It probably doesnt come as a surprise that marketers are a clever bunch. They are well versed in the principles of human psychology that make us want to buy what theyre selling. Anyone who has ever taken a marketing class will probably recognize the psychological principles used to sell us things: reciprocity, authority, consistency/commitment, social proof/acceptance, and scarcity/urgency. And in the methods well explain below, you can find each and every one of those principles. In this installment of our guerrilla marketing series we will take a closer look at some unusually interesting types including ambient marketing, presence marketing, grassroots marketing, wild posting, undercover marketing and astroturfing.

We took a look at viral marketing back in part four of this series. This is a highly visible form of guerrilla marketing these days. A viral campabe planned or predicted, but it is dearly hoped for by marketers. A successful viral campaign uses existing communication networks (you tell two friends, they each tell two friends, and so on), doesnt require much in terms of resources, and has the potential to be unstoppable. If youre giving something away, even better. Remember Gmail invites? They were somewhat difficult to get at first, so everyone wanted one.

Ambient marketing allows a business to create brand recognition without necessarily pushing their products. One excellent example is the Dancing Grass Vans of London. Owned by renegade smoothie makers (and brilliant marketers) Innocent, the vans are covered in real, growing grass and can often be seen around the city making deliveries and drawing stares. Because they serve a real purpose (delivering smoothies), the vans dont look like advertisements. But do you forget the name of a company with grass-covered vans? Never. Leading up to the release of the Simpsons Movie, 7-11 transformed some of their stores to look just like Kwik-E-Marts, complete with weird Springfieldtype products. This ambient marketing campaign was ridiculously effective.

Presence marketing is along the same lines as ambient marketing. Its about making the business name recognizable and familiar and always there. You know that saying, out of sight, out of mind? It goes double for products that dont maintain a constant presence. This can be achieved through product placements in movies and TV shows, stalls at local festivals and markets, regular Twitter updates, or whatever else makes that product name visible daily. Small businesses and entrepreneurs with modest marketing budgets often find that presence marketing delivers an excellent return for their investment. All they really have to do is be visible. Grassroots marketing is gaining popularity like - well, like a grass fire. A grassroots campaign can take on many forms, but for the most part it is about winning customers one-by-one rather than on a very large scale. Some grassroots campaigns have elements of presence marketing (like posting on message boards relevant to your business) or viral marketing (like the above user-generated Sony ad). A successful grassroots campaign is all about building relationships and emphasizing the personal connection, not about broadcasting your message and hoping potential customers are listening.

Wild postings may seem old-fashioned, but they are still wildly popular with indie bands and products that want to portray that indie image. Have you ever walked down a city street and seen a wall plastered with multiple copies of a poster for a movie, concert, or alcoholic beverage? Those would be wild postings, and part of their effectiveness lies in the way that they can make us believe were witnessing something momentous. Most of us would love to have a poster from the wild posting days of the Beatles, right? So youd better grab that Smirnoff Ice poster now while you can, right?

Would you rather have your advertising handed to you? Tissue-pack advertising was made popular in Japan, but today its spreading to infiltrate the rest of the world. Knowing that advertising fliers were almost never accepted, much less read, Japanese businesses began to hand out pocket packs of tissues with ads on them. This simple but ingenious marketing method works because, well, who would turn down free stuff? Because the giveaway is a useful item, it stays close to the target consumer until its been used up. These days, youd be hard pressed to find pocket packs of tissues in Japanese shops because they are so readily available for free.

Undercover marketing, also known as buzz marketing, is said to be one of the more devious ways of marketing to the masses. Remember the buy me a drink girls from part two of this series? These lovely young vixens were being paid to create a buzz around a certain beverage without ever letting you in on their dirty little secret: they were being paid to be so friendly. Undercover marketing/buzz marketing is all about selling something to someone who has no idea theyve just witnessed a sales pitch.

Astroturfing is widely considered to be the slimiest of all guerrilla marketing practices. It involves creating an artificial buzz about a product or company, and its mighty risky in the information age. Postings are created in online forums, singing the praises of a certain product or service - but they arent made by the public. Theyre made by shills, or people associated with the company who are paid to express a positive opinion. Astroturfing is rampant online in forums and blogs (actually flogs, or fake blogs), but you can still see the odd IRL astroturfer wandering department stores, lobbying Congress, and writing letters to newspaper editors.

Alternative marketing is referenced consistently by marketers, but it is by nature challenging to define. It may be best defined as publicity that looks like it is completely removed from the company itself. For example, when Paris Hiltons Sidekick was hacked, sales of Sidekicks jumped overnight. While T-Mobile probably (maybe?) had nothing to do with that publicity, it was excellent marketing for them. In fact, it has been suggested more than once that the whole event was an orchestrated publicity stunt. Alternative marketing takes a good deal of imagination and a healthy dose of luck to pull off. If the public finds out that theyve been duped, it will spell disaster for the campaign.

Experiential marketing is increasingly embraced by all types of companies and brands today. Its becoming easier for us to tune out and ignore advertisements today, so experiential marketing aims to give you an experience rather than send you a one-way message. Experiential marketing lets you interact with the product and associate your immediate emotional responses with that brand. The Charmin Pottypalooza bathrooms at state fairs and the semi-permanent ones (now gone) in New York City are an unprecedented example of effective experiential marketing.

5 Great Examples of Guerilla Marketing Gone Wrong: Olympic Belly-Flops to the Boston Bomb Scare

(Check out our complete collection of Subversive Marketing and Culture Jamming.) Guerilla marketing is often a risky business, skirting the edge of ethical (or even legal) acceptability. Some guerilla marketers who have crossed the line have caused everything from Olympic belly-flops to citywide bomb scares and have been punished with anything from modest jail time to millions of dollars in fines. All the same, some of these are probably (secretly) considered successes because subsequent media attention to the debacles probably raised more awareness than the guerilla campaigns alone ever could have. Some guerilla marketing is even done to support good causes though much of it is created to line the pockets of giant corporations. Know of other great examples of guerilla marketing gone wrong? Be sure to list them below!

The Olympics arent games to be toyed with apparently, as one tutuwearing prankster learned the hard way. In an effort to guerilla market an online gaming site a Canadian man leapt into an Olympic pool at the 2004 Athens games. He was convicted of various counts of trespassing and creating a disturbance and was sentenced to multiple months in a Greek prison but then released with a fine of just a few hundred dollars. Some divers were apparently put off by the intervention and subsequently failed to complete their dives.

The

Microsoft

Zune

arguably

has

more

haters

than

fans,

apparentlyincluding some police officers in Austin, Texas. A person postering guerilla advertisements for the Zune was detained and handcuffed by authorities at SXSW last year. According to one eyewitness the police were overheard saying something like We ll have none of your advertising for your DRMd cripplewared crappy MP3 player littering our town. Now that is an interesting reason to state for arrest if ever there was one.

There are many fans of the new movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall unfortunately, most women named Sarah Marshall arent among them. Guerilla-style scrawled ads posted around the country have featured disparaging phrases like You Suck Sarah Marshall leading up to the films release. Perhaps it never occurred to the guerilla marketers behind these campaigns that there are, in fact, many real-life women with that name. Responses have ranged from frustration to raging retaliation (with comparable You Suck signs aimed at the films director). The lucky woman, however, who owns SarahMarshall.com was relatively pleased with the tens of thousands of visitors her website received.

Weve all heard of subtle guerilla marketing campaigns aimed at mentioning products casually so that passers-by will overhear a namedrop and it should be no surprise that this kind of marketing has found its way online as well. Nvidia is one of a number of companies that has been accused of seeding online forums with fake-fan support for their products. Of course, when the truth comes out real forum users are often none-too-pleased with the deception and the lame excuses provided by the marketers or companies accused.

Of course, no discussion of guerilla marketing gone wrong could possibly be complete without the 2007 Boston bomb scare. A number of LED signs designed to promote the television program Aqua Teen Hunger Force were mistakenly identified as explosive devices. At the time, these cute little blinking cartoon figures probably seemed like a brilliant way to raise curiosity. In retrospect, in this post-911 world installing a series of complex wire-filled devices with their own power sources on public structural elements like bridge supports was probably a tremendously terrible idea. Worse yet, the marketing company and device designers failed to notify the police of the devices true purpose even after learnings that they were being treated as bombs by authorities. Though no jail sentences resulted from the incident Turner Broadcasting paid millions of dollars to city police and Homeland Security to resolve the matter. ven have what it takes to play the guerrilla game?

First, consider some of the basic rules of guerrilla marketing: 1. Use ingenuity instead of big money. 2. Dedicate plenty of time to your gmarketing effort - it wont come together instantly. 3. Follow through; dont hype up an inferior or non-existent product. 4. Make it personal. Appeal to your target audiences vanity or pride. 5. Creating a recognizable and memorable brand will do wonders for any campaign, large or small.

To put this into context: say you are part of a small consulting firm with a tiny advertising budget. You know youre good, and your team has buckets of experience between them all. But for the life of you, you just cant seem to stand out among all of the other firms out there. How do you get attention from prospective clients without wearing a big flashingneon hat? You gather information on prospective clients, and you use that information to create a pitch that is tailored to each client. Tell them why they need you, and go into specifics. If the prospective client mentions a passion for Mexican food, have an order of nachos delivered to their office from their favorite Mexican restaurant. Under the lid, include a picture of your team wearing sombreros and big smiles along with their business suits. Whatever gets your foot in the door and gets your name remembered.

Timing plays a large part in your success. Find out when theres a big convention in town and frequent the area its being held in. Leave business cards, bumper stickers, and promotional giveaways all over that place. Hang a banner over the entryway that says [This Company] Welcomes You to [This Convention]. Put your logo-emblazoned golf balls in the carts at the closest golf course. What about those of us hitting the job market? How does guerrilla marketing apply to that situation? Most of the time, its just about getting your name remembered. When you send out a resume, do you simply print out the same one thats been following you around since college and indiscriminately mail it to companies? Chances are you spruce it up, update the format, and target the companies you send it out to. A guerrilla takes it one step further.

Instead of printing out a slightly revamped resum, the guerrilla redesigns theirs. They tailor the document to the position theyre applying for. They try to get a contact inside the company theyre targeting and find out what qualities the human resources department admires most. They send thank-you cards after interviews and remember to congratulate the interviewer on their new grandchild. Sneaky? Maybe. But no more than the tactics that have been used for decades whenever the demand for jobs outweighed the available positions.

Bibliography
o Business line the magazine o Forbes Magazine o www.google.co.in/images o www.wikipedia.com o www.businessweek.com o www.businessreview.com o http://www.mumbaispace.com
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A blog of Author - Mritunjai kumar, expert Marketing Analysist and prolific writer.

o www.rediff.com/news o http://www.financialexpress.com o http://www.indianexpress.com