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Long ago I told you about untraditional models of gaming business. This time, I will present an untraditional way of advertising which is called Guerrilla marketing. Guerrilla is war tactics where you stay hidden, then attack surprisingly, and lastly get away. This tactics is used for weakening the more powerful opponent. I don’t support a war as it is at all, but Guerrilla marketing made me interested.

The term itself isn’t so new. It was introduced to the world when I was two years old. Guerrilla marketing defines creative promotions based not on a high budget, but rather time, energy and open imagination. The most obvious examples of such a marketing are various graffiti and stickers in the places passed by potential users of some products or services. The mostly remembered examples from Lithuania for me are these: the street advertising of Kaobanga and the way how IMPartner searched for an employee. As far as I experienced in Germany, this approach is usually used to advertise various events, online radio stations, new music albums, cloth stores and new night clubs – everything what might interest youth.

About half a year before Berlin settled by tree-eyed creatures inviting everybody to chat. That seemed to be an advertisement of some devices for text messages, RSS subscriptions, e-mails and online chats. Personally I didn’t even think about purchasing that device, but I got interested into the backyard of the street art and I contacted the Robot Berlin, which had organized all those arts.

Lars Oehlschlaeger from the advertising agency told me that this campaign was very effective. The whole store of handholds was sold out during the first few weeks. And there was nothing illegal. The fines for vandalism are much larger than the rent for the walls, so it is much more worthy to pay for the advertising space in the beginning. The work was done by two Berlin graffiti artists in the daytime. They just put the ladder next to the walls and painted the tree-eyed creatures in white. To tell the truth, the police arrested them in the middle of their work somewhere at Alexander Square (close to TV tower), and they didn’t want to pay any attention to the legal permissions shown to them. The explanations in the police-station lasted for hours…

The success of this advertising campaign perhaps wouldn’t be so great if it was based only on the street art. The creatures hungering to chat were presented not only on walls, but also in plenty of posters, flyers, stickers, and online banners.

Guerrilla marketing seems to be overrated at this time. A lot of brands think, that they can advertise for free, using the press, internet and blogs. But the communities has become very guerrilla-wise, it’s not easy to e.g. make a film, that will get the awareness you need to justify the production costs. And if your ad is so very extreme that everybody talks about it, it might also cause hate and disgust.

It’s important to be honest to the people: “Look, this is an guerrilla approach that wants to entertain you. We hope, you like it.” If the people like your campaign, you win.

Thank you, Lars, for information and your opinion.

I think, that this approach of advertising still doesn’t use all of its opportunities in Lithuania. Nevertheless, the responsibility for the support for order shouldn’t be forgotten, when the actions-attractions are over.