The Future of Advertising

Oh, Guerilla Marketing

Delving into this deceitful and utterly fascinating business has been an eye-opening experience for myself and my faithful reader(s). I have discussed my own ideas for guerilla marketing campaigns as well as critiqued other company’s own ideas. I put a guerilla twist on the dancing in the rain skit and found inspiration for a new flyer campaign with pictures. I admit that I have not been as dutiful as I should have in these last months but none-the-less I shall grace the blog world with my final thoughts on the subject.

The baby boomer generation is having a very hard time these days controlling their children. We have grown up and low-and-behold are NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING like our parents. They can’t understand how to reach us. We are watching less and less TV. We are spending more time searching the internet while talking on the phone and sending while listening to our Ipod. Newspapers are slowly going out of business as more and more of us are getting our news from online sources. When we do watch TV, TiVo is there to save us the agony of watching more ads that try to reach us. Generation Y in one elusive consumer.

Out of the ashes of this marketing turmoil comes Guerilla marketing, the answer to our media conundrum that America is in. Basically, after the conventional media was sufficiently saturated with ads, companies had to find different ways to advertise. Guerilla marketing started at the grassroots level as a solution for smaller companies to gain awareness. Companies that could not afford to pay the rising costs of mainstream media changed their tactics. Just as in real warfare, guerilla marketing catches the big guns off balance, it forces them to change the way they work, and it weakens them. They have adapted in a big way, companies such as Motorola, Disney, Microsoft, Sony, EASports and many others have all embraced Guerilla Marketing.

Rising to meet this demand are a fleet of Guerilla Marketing companies that will work with the companies. Companies such as Alt Terrain, and GoGorilla Media are just a couple of new companies. These companies offer a service but the roots of guerilla marketing were illegal.

Guerilla marketing has historically been borderline illegal. Now with instead of legality issues they are facing moral issues. Now covert consumers are pitching products to consumers in stores, on the streets, and at bars. Fuax consumers are name dropping products to other consumers. I guess the avg. 8,000 ads we see a day wasn’t enough, now they attack us while we are relaxing with a drink. These fake consumers could lean over your shoulder and ask for a name-brand drink, or ask you to try a devise that they seem to just be playing with. For example Sony introduced one of their camera phones by having undercover agents ask tourists to take a picture of them using the camera. This is not an attempt to sell the product, or an invasion of privacy, but it is deception.

I do not think that the future of guerilla marketing will include this new type of devious intrusion in life. I think that the actual recreation of fantastic advertising will be the future. My ideas for the Pepsi ad and my idea for the male models walking the catwalk will be a much more ethical way of promoting a product. It will also take away the space between the advertiser and the consumer. This type of ad will be fully interactive and cheap to produce. They can control what message the consumer gets by highly training the models in how to interact with potential customers.

Basically to sum up where advertising is going in the next ten years I will propose my theory. TV advertising = Gone, with the exception of superbowl or other large events where the ads are part of the event. Radio ads = Hurting, once radio goes digital, satellite radio will become more and more popular and channels that are commercial free will be more appealing. Magazine ads = Good shape. Magazines that are for pleasure and not business will continue to be popular, and to offset prices ads go with them. This will continue in the next ten years, not much will change. Internet = New and more interactive advertising will be created that will be 100% personalized for our convenience. Guerilla marketing = The government will try to regulate it more and larger companies will try to dominate the industry, but the it will persist to be a thorn in corporate sides as smaller companies continue to use their quick adoption and creative minds to gain markets. That is what will happen.

Cruisin with Harpoon

The beer industry has been changing rapidly in the last few years. Import and Micro-brews are controlling a larger portion of the market and the large beer companies are losing business. One of the first companies to start their own micro-brew is Harpoon. Their company is now the largest craft brew in New England. In an effort to thank the customer they have embarked on a guerilla marketing plan.

They travel around in a moving van with a large logo on the side of it and stop at the locations that first sold their product. They make stops at local bars and restaurants that helped enlarge the company. Their stops will increase awareness of their beer and improve people’s perception of the beer. They will see that the company is giving back to the consumer and is truly grateful for the business.

Harpoon also sponsors bicycle teams, the Pan-Mass challenge Jimmy Fund bike race and some road races and festivals. They choose to sponsor these events because they can’t compete with Budweiser or Coors in conventional advertising.

Monsters and Cashmere

In Ithaca these days the freak weather is confusing us all. Currently the perfect apparel is certainly the sweater. I happen to wear my own cashmere sweater that I cherish and in searching for ways to promote my cashmere sweater I happened upon a guerilla marketing campaign.

The Michael Alan Group arranged for models to parade around NYC walking cashmere goats with them. Each model held on to two goats while totting a Saks bag on their shoulder. The models made appearances at the Fashion Week tents in Bryant Park, Wall Street, Union Square, and Central Park. They also appeared at the Saks' Gala event held at their store on Fifth Avenue. The model were all wearing the same outfit as they strolled about the city.

This case study of guerilla marketing was creative, interactive, and timed perfectly.

Another stunt for AMC involved 50 werewolves and zombies invading Manhattan. They roving band of monsters wandered the city handing out branded buckets of candy corn to interested men and women.

The Hip-Hop Project commands respect.

Last night I went to see a free showing of The Hip-Hop Project. The movie was about a group of African-Americans that were lured into a meeting for the purpose of getting signed to a record deal. They were not signed but they did end up putting out a record. They all went through a transformation of their own and became something better. They told their lives and their trials through lyrics and verse.

I got the ‘tingles’ many times throughout the movie thinking about what they have gone through and fought to obtain and what I have had handed to me. I was nothing less than inspired. They asked us to tell five people about their music and if this is a way I can help them then I will do my best.

I can’t rap, and this post can’t just be one big ad for their band so I will throw out some ideas for them that they might be able to use. Guerilla marketing ideas. They are the perfect candidates to use such a method. They are underground, small and dynamic and clean of corporations. I will give what I can.

First, the idea to come to a small white college far away from any city was genius. I think that more of that will surely help your cause. Actually talking with us made all the difference and I think that all of us were impressed with your performance.

Second, using myspace is a great idea. This is another way to use viral marketing to promote your product, I am going to check and see if you actually respond as you said you did.

Third, when you blow up, and you will blow up, stay true to where you came from. Give back to kids. I know you have heard this but that is a great way to attract positive press, giving back to the poor community.

Four, develop some type of logo or insignia. Use this logo all over cities, as graffiti. It will help spread your word. Just don’t get caught and have to pay for the clean up as some companies do.

http://www.art-start.org/programs_hiphop.php

Need a light?

I just read about how Freedom cigarettes is paying celebrities to smoke their cancer sticks. These celebs get to go to any local bar, smoke their free butts, and then get paid!! How is this possible. Ok, ok, let me try not to get carried away with ethical jargon, this could be a good idea. I guess if the logo was printed on the side of the cigarette and the celebrity was viciously chain smoking trying to do their job. I don’t think that most cigs are very notable without serious scrutiny, I could be wrong, I am not an avid smoker. I know that Marlboros are all white and the Camels have the brown filters. If the celebrity made a show of pulling out the box of Freedoms when ever getting another and then waited for someone to offer them a light, this could be a viable form of Guerilla marketing.

Ethically, this is a little disgusting. I think that the celebrity should be fined and the company sued. But it does raise notice to a new trend in Guerilla Marketing, real life product placement.

This new trend pays people to go out and chat up certain products. They don’t have to just be a town wailer and scream about their products all the time. In normal conversations they are supposed to bring up their product and push it on the unsuspecting men and women. This is very interesting and though it might be worse than the free cigs in the long run, I feel that it does have potential and is still growing.

Billboardzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Just found some awesome sites for Guerilla marketing. billboardom.blogspot.com focuses mainly on billboard ads and has some very creative ones. There are examples from Europe and China. The ads for molsen dry were especially fun me. The separate billboards seem to interact by shooting each other with supersoakers that are filling with beer. The people are jumping around or just getting hit in the chest from the beer and having fun. Making different ads interact gets the eye to travel to both ads.

The most important thing to remember for billboards is that if selling is the focus of the ad, it will fail. I feel that billboards shouldn’t have a call to action or put any type of pressure on the consumer. Billboards should leave the consumer with a smile on their face, a laugh in their voice, and the products name in the back of their mind or on the tip of their tongue.

Through Billboardom I found a link to another fun site worth checking. adsoftheworld.com

Model (blank)

So I was sitting in class this afternoon dosing off as usual when I was struck with an idea for guerilla marketing. I was thinking about models and I was wearing a pair of shorts from quicksilver that I bought in NYC, this triggered the thought. Models are everywhere in NYC, they are on billboards, magazine covers, any available wall. Using the idea that I first broached with the Pepsi girl ad I was thinking that using models for guerilla marketing could be easier and cheaper than the elaborate setup of the proposed Pepsi ad.

I figure Times Square is a great place to try out this idea. Male models get dressed up and just walk down the street as if it was a runway. They don’t look left or right and they do their model walk down one side then the other, when the finish their walk they are done for the day because I don’t want the ad to become stale after one day. I would pay about ten different male models to do the walk every day. They would get their check as long as they documented their walk of glamour.

They could be advertising for anything. To advertise clothing I would put the logo on the front on the model on a t-shirt, or on his back in someway. For cars I would put a picture of the car on the model’s white t-shirt. Advertising food could be especially fun. I could have the model have some type of oil that smells like the food on his skin and a picture of the company’s logo on the front. I could also have them eating the food with the wrapper visible in their hand. I could have the model give a free sample to someone on the street. If a destination wanted to advertise, for example Tahiti, I could put that name on the model or have him talk to three random people about his trip and how much fun he had last time he was there.