The origin of the term “guerrilla marketing” and its basic principles could be explained according to some literature reviews. Generally, the term “guerrilla marketing” is an example of the transfer of military-related and warfare-related terminology to the marketing domain. A popular book explicitly fostering this development – and introducing the term “guerrilla marketing” – was “Marketing Warfare” (Ries and Trout, 1986), in which the authors state that marketing activities are a battle to conquer the customer’s mind.
By explaining different war scenarios and quoting the famous military strategist von Clausewitz (1873) marketing as a battleground is established. In this, the key elements are understood by analogy to an environment of military conflict. In particular the Burger War (McDonalds vs. Burger King) and the Cola War (Coca Cola vs. Pepsi) are used as examples of battles with words and pictures from the artillery.
According to that background, the term “guerrilla marketing” was used by the American Jay Conrad Levinson in the 1980s (Levinson, 1984). Generally, guerrilla marketing adapts the “hit & run” guerrilla warfare tactics “invented” by Mao-Tse Tung (Elliott, 2003): Hit if you can win but run if you can’t. Guerrilla marketing strategies avoid marketing activities, thus wasting marketing budgets, when there is already high-level competition for customer attention. In contrast, guerrilla marketing activities tends to be eye-catching and surprising when used – thus, being highly efficient in terms of gaining customer attention. Guerrilla marketing is expected to come up with unconventional and spectacular activities (Eicher, 2001) and can be more effective, and thus less expensive, when compared with conventional marketing campaigns.
One famous example which illustrates the Ries and Trout (1986) introduction of marketing warfare is the rise of the Austrian soft drink brand Red Bull. While Ries and Trout (1986) describe the Coke war with Pepsi and Coca Cola fighting a war for market leadership, the Red Bull venture, sited at the Fuschl lake near Salzburg, introduced a new category of soft drink – the energy drink – around which a growing market segment developed. Red Bull now dominates this segment globally.
By using guerrilla marketing, Red Bull established the brand through sponsoring relevant sports events. However, as a small start-up they could not afford to sponsor the big main stream events. Red Bull started by sponsoring (as the CEO and founder of Red Bull Mateschitz put it “up to the border of idiocy”) events of niche sports such as, for example, Squad driving and Base Jumping. As there was little media awareness of these events, Red Bull started to produce their own film material and offer it to media channels. The broadcasters welcomed the free material – and Red Bull got what it otherwise could not have afforded - media presence in prime time. The event organizers being aware of the promotional benefit let Red Bull be their main sponsor for a comparatively small sums of money. This made Red Bull sponsor of a rapidly increasing number of events. These days Red Bull goes even further and creates sport events itself, such as, for example, air races, extreme windsurfing and so-forth.
Having outlined this example in detail, further examples can be named to illustrate the categories in which guerrilla marketing is present: Automotive industry (BMW Mini market introduction campaign), Cigarettes, Cultural Events/Services (Operas, Theatres…). Further characteristic examples of guerrilla marketing are the Greenpeace Campaigns which aim to create a maximum amount of public attention with a minimum of financial expenditure, e.g. the attempt to enter the Heiligendamm G8 conference area with a hot air balloon (Greenpeace, 2007).
The Basic Principles of Guerrilla Marketing
Pursuing the analogy with Mao-Tse Tung’s guerrilla warfare tactics seven rules can be identified which illustrate the principles on which guerrilla marketing relies (Levinson, 1994; Elliott, 2003). In this case, there are seven basic principles of guerrilla marketing:
A perfect example to illustrate this is the Greenpeace Brent Spar campaign. Brent Spar was an offshore oil storage and tanker loading facility operated by Shell. Shell planned (with support of the British government) to dispose of this obsolete facility in deep Atlantic waters. Against this, Greenpeace ran a worldwide campaign including boycott of Shell filling stations. They even organized an occupation of Brent Spar for more than three weeks (Greenpeace, 1995). Facing growing public and political opposition, Shell abandoned the plans. Later, it was found that Greenpeace had substantially over-estimated the quantity of harmful chemicals and oil remaining in Brent Spar. Shell’s offshore disposal plan was actually much more reasonable than it seemed. This highlights that selling ideology (environmental protection) had outperformed selling a product (disposal plan).
Another good example is a campaign of the German company Henkel, who has the stain remover SIL in its range of products. During the football World Cup in Germany 2006, Henkel supported the Brazilian football team in an attention-grabbing way –female Brazilian Samba dancers wearing Bra-Sil costumes and posters moved through Berlin and Munich the day the football team played their games. Henkel said that the team that drew people’s attention to Germany’s most popular stain remover should be pleased to get special promotion in return (Henkel, 2006).
Guerrilla marketing is – amongst other things – based on marketing the implicit attributes of products or services rather than their explicit, functional aspects. Rather than introducing the product itself, by introducing the idea that comes with it, it addresses the emotional ideology bound up with the product. This is done with the superiority of attention obtained at least in the very moment of communicating. Thus, guerrilla marketing tries to target the emotional aspects of a buying decision by differentiating a product on an ideological level rather than a functional level.
By explaining different war scenarios and quoting the famous military strategist von Clausewitz (1873) marketing as a battleground is established. In this, the key elements are understood by analogy to an environment of military conflict. In particular the Burger War (McDonalds vs. Burger King) and the Cola War (Coca Cola vs. Pepsi) are used as examples of battles with words and pictures from the artillery.
According to that background, the term “guerrilla marketing” was used by the American Jay Conrad Levinson in the 1980s (Levinson, 1984). Generally, guerrilla marketing adapts the “hit & run” guerrilla warfare tactics “invented” by Mao-Tse Tung (Elliott, 2003): Hit if you can win but run if you can’t. Guerrilla marketing strategies avoid marketing activities, thus wasting marketing budgets, when there is already high-level competition for customer attention. In contrast, guerrilla marketing activities tends to be eye-catching and surprising when used – thus, being highly efficient in terms of gaining customer attention. Guerrilla marketing is expected to come up with unconventional and spectacular activities (Eicher, 2001) and can be more effective, and thus less expensive, when compared with conventional marketing campaigns.
One famous example which illustrates the Ries and Trout (1986) introduction of marketing warfare is the rise of the Austrian soft drink brand Red Bull. While Ries and Trout (1986) describe the Coke war with Pepsi and Coca Cola fighting a war for market leadership, the Red Bull venture, sited at the Fuschl lake near Salzburg, introduced a new category of soft drink – the energy drink – around which a growing market segment developed. Red Bull now dominates this segment globally.
By using guerrilla marketing, Red Bull established the brand through sponsoring relevant sports events. However, as a small start-up they could not afford to sponsor the big main stream events. Red Bull started by sponsoring (as the CEO and founder of Red Bull Mateschitz put it “up to the border of idiocy”) events of niche sports such as, for example, Squad driving and Base Jumping. As there was little media awareness of these events, Red Bull started to produce their own film material and offer it to media channels. The broadcasters welcomed the free material – and Red Bull got what it otherwise could not have afforded - media presence in prime time. The event organizers being aware of the promotional benefit let Red Bull be their main sponsor for a comparatively small sums of money. This made Red Bull sponsor of a rapidly increasing number of events. These days Red Bull goes even further and creates sport events itself, such as, for example, air races, extreme windsurfing and so-forth.
Having outlined this example in detail, further examples can be named to illustrate the categories in which guerrilla marketing is present: Automotive industry (BMW Mini market introduction campaign), Cigarettes, Cultural Events/Services (Operas, Theatres…). Further characteristic examples of guerrilla marketing are the Greenpeace Campaigns which aim to create a maximum amount of public attention with a minimum of financial expenditure, e.g. the attempt to enter the Heiligendamm G8 conference area with a hot air balloon (Greenpeace, 2007).
The Basic Principles of Guerrilla Marketing
Pursuing the analogy with Mao-Tse Tung’s guerrilla warfare tactics seven rules can be identified which illustrate the principles on which guerrilla marketing relies (Levinson, 1994; Elliott, 2003). In this case, there are seven basic principles of guerrilla marketing:
- Concentrate your resources (time, place, and topic) to achieve temporary superiority.
- Sell the ideology along with the product, not the product alone.
- Identify established patterns, analyze them and overcome these patterns.
- Search for synergies.
- Try to outsmart any perception filters established in your target group.
- Do not go the direct way; try to find the detours offering alternatives.
- Be flexible and agile instead of building strongholds.
A perfect example to illustrate this is the Greenpeace Brent Spar campaign. Brent Spar was an offshore oil storage and tanker loading facility operated by Shell. Shell planned (with support of the British government) to dispose of this obsolete facility in deep Atlantic waters. Against this, Greenpeace ran a worldwide campaign including boycott of Shell filling stations. They even organized an occupation of Brent Spar for more than three weeks (Greenpeace, 1995). Facing growing public and political opposition, Shell abandoned the plans. Later, it was found that Greenpeace had substantially over-estimated the quantity of harmful chemicals and oil remaining in Brent Spar. Shell’s offshore disposal plan was actually much more reasonable than it seemed. This highlights that selling ideology (environmental protection) had outperformed selling a product (disposal plan).
Another good example is a campaign of the German company Henkel, who has the stain remover SIL in its range of products. During the football World Cup in Germany 2006, Henkel supported the Brazilian football team in an attention-grabbing way –female Brazilian Samba dancers wearing Bra-Sil costumes and posters moved through Berlin and Munich the day the football team played their games. Henkel said that the team that drew people’s attention to Germany’s most popular stain remover should be pleased to get special promotion in return (Henkel, 2006).
Guerrilla marketing is – amongst other things – based on marketing the implicit attributes of products or services rather than their explicit, functional aspects. Rather than introducing the product itself, by introducing the idea that comes with it, it addresses the emotional ideology bound up with the product. This is done with the superiority of attention obtained at least in the very moment of communicating. Thus, guerrilla marketing tries to target the emotional aspects of a buying decision by differentiating a product on an ideological level rather than a functional level.