Guerrilla Marketing: Thinking Outside the Box

Guerrilla marketing is a relatively new marketing strategy that relies on unconventional, often low-cost tactics to create awareness of and goodwill toward a brand, product, service, or even a company. The term "guerrilla marketing" itself comes from Jay Conrad Levinson, who coined the term in his 1984 book Guerrilla Advertising. Though "guerrilla" has military connotations (the word means "little war), guerrilla promotion strategies often combine elements of wit, humor, and spectacle to capture people's attention and engage them in the marketing act. Guerrilla marketing is memorable. And, like the renegade militias it was presumably named for, unexpected.

Practitioners of guerrilla marketing today have used other words to describe it: disruptive, anti-establishment, newsworthy, and a state of mind. By its nature, guerrilla marketing defies precise description, so it may be worthwhile to view an example before going further.

Classic Guerrilla: Nike Livestrong at the Tour de France

Although this campaign was a full-blown IMC effort, at its core it was really a memorable guerrilla marketing stunt: the spectacle of painting the streets of France during the world-famous Tour de France bicycle race. It ran in 2008 when Lance Armstrong was still one of the most revered athletes of his generation. Designed to generate awareness for Nike, the nonprofit Livestrong Foundation, and the cause of fighting cancer, marketers succeeded in sharing inspiring messages of hope with their target audiences: athletes, sports enthusiasts and people affected by cancer, particularly young people.


Telltale Signs of Guerrilla Marketing




Guerrilla marketing campaigns can be very diverse in their approach and tactics. So what do they have in common? Guerrilla marketing often has the following characteristics:

  • It's imaginative and surprising, but in a very hip or antiestablishment way
  • Doesn't resemble a traditional marketing initiative, such as a straightforward print or TV advertising campaign
  • Uses combinations of different marketing communications tactics, in creative ways
  • Is experiential, drawing in the target audience to participate
  • Takes risks in what it aspires to accomplish, even if it might ruffle some feathers
  • Is not 100 percent approved by the establishment (i.e. the city, the event planners, the powers that be)