Guerrilla marketing is a grassroots approach that aims to spread ideas by utilizing inexpensive and unorthodox methods to catch the public’s eye. This radical form of advertising often makes use of everyday objects or city infrastructure – anything that people may encounter in their daily lives.
The goal of guerrilla marketing is to create an ad campaign so memorable that it goes viral. This not only requires some serious out-of-the-box thinking, but care must be taken not to be so avant-garde that you offend your audience and push them away.
Because guerrilla methods of advertising are meant to create social buzz, this can easily backfire and turn into a publicity nightmare should it spark a negative reaction.
Although, guerrilla advertising was originally developed for use among small businesses with a tight budget, larger companies wanting a piece of the action jumped on the band wagon, too.
However, the public will hold an established brand to higher standards. So despite having a more substantial budget for advertising, major brands have more to lose if a guerrilla ad campaign goes south.
Conventional forms of marketing can sometimes go unnoticed or even irritate the consumer. Done properly, guerrilla marketing bypasses both of these problems. When astute marketers create advertising campaigns that communicate on a personal level, the consumer is compelled to share it. In a perfectly executed viral marketing campaign, the reach extends far and wide.