Audience Engagement with Guerrilla Marketing

Welcome to the Engaging Guerrillas Marketing blog!  

Focus of blog: Analyze how brands do, can, and should engage their audience with guerrilla marketing.

• Highlight current  brands and nonprofit organizations who have implemented brilliant guerrilla marketing in the streets and through events.
• Provide inspiration for other marketers looking for a creative way to advertise through tracking my favorite guerrilla marketing examples.
• Prove that audience engagement needs to be an objective when implementing guerrilla marketing.

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Guer(r)illa Marketing was created by Jay Conrad Levinson in 1984 with the publishing of his first book, Guerrilla Marketing.  Guerrilla marketing is a form of unconventional advertising completed on a small budget.  It is different from print, online, tv, radio advertising, etc because of the unexpectedness.  Although small businesses were the main users of guerrilla tactics, it has grown in popularity so brands of all sizes now use it.  It is part marketing and part psychology which capitalizes on creating the unexpected for consumers in everyday places.

1.  Draw customer attention
2.  Trigger an emotion (humor, surprise, happiness, etc.)
3.  Inspire call to action through audience engagement
The next step in the process should be to inspire a call to action for the consumer, but many guerrilla marketing attempts stop after the first step.  This blog will explore how marketers do, can, and should inspire a call to action and engage audiences through guerrilla marketing.

Types of Guerrilla Marketing

Presence

Across the internet, guerrilla enthusiasts claim there is anywhere from 10-12 types of guerrilla marketing including: ambient marketing, presence marketing, grassroots marketing, wild postings, tissue packs, astroturfing, undercover/buzz marketing, alternative marketing, and experiential marketing.  A more detailed look at these types of marketing can be found at http://weburbanist.com/2008/06/19/different-types-of-guerrilla-marketing/.  However, what I find most important in guerrilla marketing is not only capturing the attention of the audience, but engaging them and then inspiring them with a call to action.

Experiential: Product Interaction

This focus on audience engagement as a success objective combines these types of guerrilla marketing:

• Ambient Marketing: Achieving brand recognition without pushing the product
• Presence Marketing: A great example is product placement
• Experiential marketing: Allows the customer to touch, feel, experience the product--my personal favorite!

Ambient: In the surroundings without pushing product

Why Guerrilla Marketing is Relevant
As commercial avoidance increases with the increasing use of time-shifting devices such as DVRs and readership of print advertisement decreases, marketers will need to utilize more unconventional methods to reach the audience.  Guerrilla marketing is a cheap solution which presents unique and creative solutions while gaining the attention of consumers in their everyday lives.  If implemented correctly, guerrilla marketing should do more than gain attention.  It should attract attention, engage the audience, and inspire them to act.

Please comment with feedback and any examples you would like me to analyze!

Remember: Say "I do" to engaging the audience with guerrilla marketing--Kayleigh Green