Guerilla Marketing- Dead or Mainstream?

  

In a stimulating discussion this week with the very bright staff of a thriving, hip, contemporary and much needed company called, Good Clean Love (www.goodcleanlove.com ), we were exploring marketing concepts.  Our discussion was part Marketing, part PR and part Social Media. Basically it was a great information gathering and exchange session.

At one point in the discussion, someone said something like, “Wow - so real guerilla tactics”. I immediately responded, “Oh yeah – any tie in you can create- I recommend you create it.”

Since then I have been contemplating the term, Guerrilla Marketing. I haven’t heard anyone use the term recently and the latest, good, article I read on it goes back to 2006. (I recommend it: http://stateofthebrand.com/?p=49 ) In the article, Jason Voiovich provides a solid and simplistic reason why this tactic works. And, in my experience with my clients, it still works. So why are we not talking about it?

Have we all just switched our terminology to SM or do others disagree with me and think GM is dead? I tend to think that it has just melded into the mainstream tactics so it is not the “buzz word” it once was. Or, as we all saw, did some (bad) agencies go to un-relatable extremes and waste companies valuable marketing dollars on GM so now it is a forbidden term?  Visions of some very pricey tv commercials come to mind that were just horrid and missed the mark. Plus, I would be hard pressed to call tv ads “Guerilla Marketing”, but some agencies “went there” – unfortunately.

Well, regardless of whether some think GM is dead or not, I still use it and I get good results with it. I think a good simple message created or tagged onto another good message evokes emotion. And in marketing, when you get them to emote about whatever you are promoting --- you have their hearts and ears and their wallets and WOM are soon to follow.

So, give it a whirl….dust off your Guerilla Marketing for Dummies (or the equivalent book) and give GM another try. You just might catch yourself catching someone’s emotions……. And then their wallet ;)

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