"In The Mainstream"
By Eilene Zimmerman
Counselor: 2005MAY

No longer a fringe tactic, guerilla marketing has become a legitimate - and highly effective - tool for many marketers. Here's how to make it work for your clients.

In 1984, when Jay Conrad Levinson, an acknowledged "guerilla guru," coined the term "guerilla marketing," he defined it as a way of pursuing conventional goals using unconventional, and often inexpensive, means. Twenty-one years later, guerilla marketing isn't a fringe tactic used by budget-conscious marketers any longer. Although Levinson still insists, "Freedom from investment makes guerilla marketing stand out," many other marketing experts say it has largely replaced mainstream marketing, simply because it's a way to be heard above all the other messages that routinely bombard consumers.

The size of the guerilla segment is difficult to quantify. Lisa M. Keefe, editor of the American Marketing Association's Marketing News, says the AMA doesn't keep definitive figures on guerilla-marketing expenditures. "The problem is, it's a fuzzy term," she notes. "It applies to just about any type of marketing not covered by some other term, everything from a positive word-of-mouth mention that could cost nothing to an elaborate setup costing thousands of dollars."

Marketing consultants like Andrew Klein, founder of Revolution Marketing, a New York event-marketing firm whose clients include Federated Department Stores, Nautica and Sirius Satellite Radio, says approximately 10% to 15% of corporate brand-marketing budgets are allocated for event marketing - where guerilla tactics are used at events like football games or rock concerts.

Brock Henderson, founder of Brock Henderson & Associates in Louisville, Kentucky and a 25-year marketing veteran, believes the amount of guerilla marketing used is even higher; he says 40% to 50% of his work is in that category. Henderson's clients are mostly small- to medium-sized tech companies.

Klein says the increase in non-traditional marketing parallels advances in entertainment technology. "Brands used to spend money on television and radio, but because of digital video recorders like TiVo and listening devices like iPods, a lot of people aren't watching commercials and aren't listening to the radio," he says. "You communicate your message to them through street and event marketing."

Cargo's Successful Path
Event marketing was the route Condé Nast Publications chose to promote the rollout of its newest men's magazine, Cargo. Six months before it launched, the magazine began a guerilla campaign pegged to Fashion Week in New York. The program aimed to build momentum, get people talking and convince ad-agency execs to buy space in Cargo. Renée Lewin, associate publisher and head of marketing for Cargo, with the help from Grand Central Marketing, a New York event-marketing firm, ran two promotions revolving around the "Seventh on Sixth" fashion shows that happen twice a year in Manhattan, in a tent in Bryant Park.

The first was linked to the winter fashion shows in September 2004. Cargo didn't want to spend the funds required to become an official sponsor, but did want to reach fashion industry insiders and ad executives. A street team of six young men outfitted in logoed T-shirts and caps (and cargo pants) gave out sleek silver battery-operated fans and black Cargo umbrellas to those entering and leaving the tent during certain men's fashion shows. "We tied the gifts to the weather," explains Matthew Glass, CEO of Grand Central Marketing. "September in New York brings hot, muggy weather and unexpected showers. Besides being functional, these were logoed and very cool-looking, reflecting the style of the magazine and its readers." He adds that team members also had a chance to talk to people, to really stop them and engage in conversation about Cargo. He calls it "intercept marketing."

The second campaign was timed to coincide with the spring fashion shows in February. This time, Cargo's street teams, dressed in black and carrying messenger bags, gave out only the umbrellas with an attached "price tag" bearing the publisher's name and phone number for those wishing to advertise.

Lewin says, "Everyone we wanted to reach in the fashion community goes to these shows, and because we hadn't yet launched, there was this undercurrent about something happening. It became a very effective way to penetrate a targeted group." The cost, she adds, was slightly less than an ad in a major fashion magazine, which typically runs between $25,000 and $30,000. "You get a different kind of exposure with this kind of campaign than you do with traditional media," she says. "It puts your name right in front of people. There's no question; what we did in breaking out of the box that way helped fuel the momentum and curiosity about the magazine." Cargo wound up the single biggest men's magazine launch ever, with 97 ad pages in its first issue. By the end of the year, with six issues out, it had 624 ad pages.

Even though guerilla campaigns like this don't reach tens of thousands of people the way conventional marketing can do, they create a lot of talk. "The benefit is the PR that comes afterwards," says Glass. "In New York, someone is always sticking something in your hand, so it's a good idea to give out something that jump-starts a conversation or causes excitement."

Cargo's campaign would almost qualify as b-to-b, because it was aiming for those in the fashion industry rather than the general public. For campaigns targeted at consumers, guerilla tactics are especially effective in reaching younger audiences. Josh Levine, head of marketing at URB magazine, which covers urban alternative music, and Rebel Agency, a Los Angeles marketing firm specializing in reaching urban youth, says guerilla marketing works well only when businesses aren't seen as trying too hard. "Our mantra is whatever you do has to be organic," he says.

"We're a music magazine. For a few years, we sent out a CD of new music with subscriber copies. Our reader surveys would come back and show the top reason people subscribed was the CD. We were giving people the music we wrote about; it was a natural."

Major, Not Minor
Today, guerilla marketing is the main form of marketing companies use to push products or services, and it's no longer accurate to pin its popularity on low cost. Eric Hauser, creative director and founder of Swivel Media in San Francisco, a firm specializing in experiential marketing, says, "It's not like a client will say, 'I have $50,000 to spend, so I better use guerilla instead of traditional marketing.' It's not about stretching your budget anymore."

These days, many marketing execs put guerilla marketing - which Hauser calls "a quick engagement and dissemination of information" - under the broader umbrella of experiential marketing, which in turn takes into account that buying decisions are both rational and emotional. "We make buying decisions based on a feeling about something, using our senses of smell, sound, touch, things like that," says Hauser. He notes that experiential marketing is seen as an especially effective way to reach GenY, young people in their late teens and early 20s who have grown up so bombarded by messages it's difficult to get their attention.

However, the same audience will see through advertising that doesn't ring true, cautions Levine. For example, an auto firm shouldn't portray itself as something other than a large corporation in its effort to be considered hip. Like most consumers, Gen Y-ers want to know that when they buy a car, there's an infrastructure in place to support such a large investment. "They want to hear, 'Hey, we're not cool and we're not going to pretend to be. But we want you as our customer, so we have this car in all black with a great stereo.' That's honest, not condescending," says Levine.

Consumer Contact Crucial
Most important, says Hauser, is that all marketing, guerilla or other, should focus on connecting with the consumer. It's a strategy Reebok used this past February, when it conducted a two-part campaign to coincide with the NBA All-Star Game in Denver. The objective wasn't to promote a new pair of sneakers or running shorts, but to connect the brand to the NBA by letting sports fans know it had just become the league's official uniform supplier. The game presented Reebok with an event that would be overrun with its target consumer. The weekend of the game, it took out a full-page ad in USA Today listing all the players in the NBA. The copy: "One day, these men dreamed their names would be on a jersey. We dreamed ours would be right there next to them." Street teams organized by Zoom Media, an experiential marketing firm in New York, handed out copies of the newspaper in Denver and New York. The papers bore a sticker that said "Courtesy of Reebok and the NBA" and included a special section on the All-Star Game.

At the same time, Reebok began running a series of TV ads with the NBA called "NBA Industries," featuring retired players wearing "Inspector in Training" T-shirts. After a day of handing out newspapers, the street teams started giving out the shirts featured in the ads. "The gifts were very integrated into the overall ad campaign," says Megan Trask, the marketing specialist at Reebok who worked on the promotion. "A lot of times, a viral sense of marketing is a better way for us to get our message out and into the hands of consumers in a fun, creative way that really promotes the brand."

Patrick West, Zoom's general manager of experiential marketing, says feedback from the street teams was extremely positive and showed people saw the giveaways as having value, something he feels many companies take for granted. "It's not always the case that what's given to consumers is perceived as being valuable to them; stickers or coupons are good examples," he says. "But here, the items had a connection to the brand and what the company was trying to achieve. That's important because you don't want to have to connect the dots all the time for consumers. You want to give away something that's truly integrated. They won't turn a newspaper down, but may wonder, 'Why am I getting this?' But here the connection was clear; it had this big sticker on it, a full-page ad, a pull-out sports section and it says Reebok and NBA."

On a smaller scale but just as well-integrated was a promotion run by Flying Fingers Yarn Shop (Irvington, New York). Flying Fingers owner Elise Goldschlag with the help of Peter Shankman, CEO of New York PR firm Geek Factory, decided to capitalize on the Republican National Convention, held in New York City in 2004. Flying Fingers wanted to both boost in-store and Internet sales of its knitting supplies. Goldschlag put together Learn-To-Knit Kits, consisting of 50 yards of soy yarn ("made of the squishy stuff left over from making tofu. It's spun like cotton but softer and stronger"), a pattern for a "skinny" scarf, purple logoed kitting needles, a how-to-knit brochure and a pattern of a donkey and elephant that could be knitted into a sweater or scarf. Goldschlag backed the kit with cardboard and shrink-wrapped it to avoid security hassles. The whole thing cost under $10.

Shankman put together teams of students from New York University, paying them $100 a day for three days. He outfitted them in T-shirts reading "Donkeys and Elephants and Yarn, Oh My!" a play on the Wizard of Oz's "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!", and stationed them where convention traffic was gridlocked, between 42nd and 34th streets along Ninth Avenue. The students went up to drivers, said, "As long as you're sitting there, why don't you learn how to knit?" and gave them a kit.

"We started on Monday," recalls Goldschlag, "and Tuesday morning in the store I was getting calls asking where our teams would be so people could get the kits. Within a few weeks I started getting calls from [people] all over the country who wanted more soy yarn. Our Web site went from being visited occasionally to being busy. It kicked things off and really jump-started things for us."

In February, Goldschlag embarked on a more expensive guerilla endeavor, purchasing a 15-passenger van and turning it into the Yarn Bus by attaching three giant balls of yarn - actually fiberglass tubing - to the roof. The bus picks up Manhattan customers and provides free round-trip service to the store in Irvington; passengers are given yarn and needles to play with during the ride. While it generates positive PR, the main purpose of the bus is a marketing tool. "It's been on television, in the newspapers, even in the New Yorker," says Goldschlag. "We've gotten tons of Internet orders from people who have heard about it but haven't ridden on it. People call all the time to ask if we're the ones with the bus."

Planning Required
Overall, while going guerilla isn't limited to larger distributorships, it can be somewhat different for them, and does require a certain amount of planning. "More than anything else, you need to invest time to create a relationship with clients that goes beyond just merchandise," says Steve Avanessian, vice president of marketing for Bensussen-Deutsch & Associates Inc. (asi/137616)."

You also need access to whatever service is required. You can pitch an idea and get a client to participate in it, but it's not easy to execute, especially if it's something that needs to happen in several areas around the country in a short period of time. There's typically a lot of coordination involved and personnel to manage. For smaller distributors, this can involve hooking up with a fulfillment/distribution service, event planner, marketing agency or anything else that can make it happen. The most important thing is that whatever item you use, it needs to be very recognizable for that client and that campaign. That's what guerilla marketing involves to a large extent. Know what you need to promote."

Eilene Zimmerman is a freelance writer based in San Diego.

Used with permission of The Advertising Specialty Institute copyright 2005