The Rise of Guerrilla Marketing: A Shift from Traditional Advertising

In recent years, guerrilla marketing has become the clever solution to the creative crisis faced by the advertising industry. As consumers grow increasingly indifferent to traditional ads—like pop-ups, pre-rolls, and billboards—they often ignore or skip these messages altogether. This saturation of advertising has led to a more overwhelmed consumer, less receptive to what we know as conventional marketing tactics. Due to this rising issue, guerrilla marketing was born in the last century to keep consumers engaged through creative advertising, without them particularly realizing it.

Although the term guerrilla might seem confusing, it makes a lot of sense. Like a common guerrilla that hides its weapons and tactics from governments, the purpose of this marketing style is to work on projects that invisibly target the consumer while trying to remain undetected (Serazio, 2023). This type of marketing is all about trying to catch the target off-guard by actions that won’t be perceived as an exercise of power, and that therefore won’t overwhelm the consumer like most traditional ads out in the world. A browse through the classic Guerrilla Warfare, holds this instructive parallel: “Guerrilla fighters must have a degree of adaptability that allows them to identify themselves with the environment in which they live, to become a part of it, and to take advantage of it” (Guevara, 1961). This type of advertising succeeds at camouflaging, by being extremely creative and stepping away from the common, and many times boring ads. 

For years it has been proven that creative advertising is great at brand building, and I admire how guerrilla marketing takes advantage of it. In 2000, a study found that creative advertisements were the most enjoyable and well-received among the public (Baack et al., 2008), and similarly, in 2002 multiple studies concluded creative ads were the ones that people most remembered and recognized (Baack et al., 2008). This proves that guerrilla marketing is effective because of its creativity.

A great example of guerrilla marketing worth discussing is the famous Dirty Water campaign, installed by UNICEF in Union Square, NYC. Through a clever idea that allowed the consumer to engage with the ad, UNICEF installed several vending machines that sold dirty bottled water to raise awareness of the people suffering in developing countries of Africa. With the help of the explanatory text on the vending machine that read “Just a dollar provides a child with 40 days of clean drinking water”, UNICEF managed to raise thousands of donations that came from curious people walking by. You don’t have to be an expert to know that a regular billboard, or a website pop-up, would have never been as successful. Instead of overwhelming the consumer through uninteresting pop-ups, this campaign attracted them to participate through innovation and creativity.

Fig 1. Screenshot taken from the video Guerrilla Marketing Example - UNICEF Dirty Water Vending Machine Campaign

Fig 2. Screenshot taken from the video Guerrilla Marketing Example - UNICEF Dirty Water Vending Machine Campaign 

Looking ahead, we must reevaluate traditional advertising strategies and embrace guerrilla marketing. Society is becoming weary of constant ad interruptions, leading to increasing resistance to conventional methods. As marketers, we need to focus on collaborating with our audience rather than alienating them. Creativity and excitement are essential, and we must aim to inspire and amaze.

REFERENCES

Baack, D.W., et al., 2008. Creativity and memory effects: Recall, recognition, and an exploration of nontraditional media. Journal of Advertising, 37(4), pp. 85–94. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20460869 [Accessed 5 November 2024].

Creative Guerrilla Marketing, 2010. Guerrilla Marketing Example - UNICEF Dirty Water Vending Machine Campaign. [Video online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug5OdN3QpJI&t=86s [Accessed 13 November 2024]. Two screenshots by the author.

Guevara, C., 1961. Guerrilla Warfare. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Serazio, M., 2013. Your ad here: The cool sell of guerrilla marketing. New York: New York University Press. Chapter 1, ‘Buying into the cool sell’.