Guerilla Marketing

Guerilla marketing. One of the most unconventional ways to get the consumer to stop and actually look at your message. To me, it is the most powerful way to hit a consumer right between the eyes. It is interactive and keeps the consumer engaged longer.

I haven't experienced any guerilla marketing myself, but I have found a number of examples that makes me think, "why didn't I think of that?"

Mall floor decal for Frontline Flea & Tick Spray

This is an amazing idea! They use the average consumer as a tool to animate their advertisement and allows the consumer the participate and interact with the brand. The only downside is that you have to be on a higher level to appreciate it.

Guerilla technique for the hit TV show The Sopranos

If this isn't a good way to get someone's attention in New York City then I don't know what is. This morbid image will strike anyone right away. It could offend someone easily but it really works with the show it's promoting. I love how at first you don't realize it's an advertisement until the arm leads you to the bumper sticker explaining its purpose.

McDonald's gets a huge standing-O from me. This is pure genius. What a good way to use already standing city structures to your advantage. This larger than life guerilla marketing tactic catches the eye of anyone walking by. Even the lady in the shot is amazed. I just love how the coffee pot is floating in midair. It's a fantastic illusion that kind of makes you think, "how'd they get that up there?"

Here are some other examples that I found:

"Reserved for Drunk Drivers"

Ugly Betty Mall Poster

Yellow Pages Darts

"Free Air Guitar" 95.7 Rock Radio

The Social Contract

While researching brands that use traditional advertising in a new medium, the most prominent example I could find was online advertising. Firstly, I think it's fair to say that all, if not the majority, of brands have a website. Every company that is a traditional advertising media (for example: The Ottawa Citizen for newspaper, CTV for television, or Chatelaine for magazines) has an equivalent of their newspaper, TV station, or magazine online. That alone is putting traditional media in a new medium.

As far as advertising goes, these sites offer ad space to companies that advertise with them through the traditional media. Most of these ads are taken from their original form (print or commercials) and transferred to a new, digital medium.

At the beginning, when online advertising was first getting popular, I remember that the banner ads on websites were so simple and would just flash from one picture to another. Now, online ads can actually be a mini commercial. Here's an example.

When you click on the different tabs in this website, you will see that most of their advertisers are making mini commercials with their spots.

It seems that as time progresses, traditional medias are starting to integrate with each other. Just in this one example we have a two traditional medias (magazine, and television—the online ad is a copy of their TV spots), and we have two new medias (website and online advertising) all meshed into one. This goes to show that it's getting harder to get the attention of consumers and only by integrating a number of media can we actually get through to them.

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