carl

The Future of Advertising

2006-12-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-11-11T16:36:00.000-08:00

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?

2006-11-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-04T12:05:00.000-08:00

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)

2006-10-30T18:42:00.000-08:00

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.

In fury I find guerilla marketing

2006-10-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a huge fight. My girlfriend and I were yelling at each other and both of us threatened to walk. I won't detail the experience but I will state that many pictures of us were thrown from a third floor balconey and littered around the yard. I picked most of them up but when one was returned to me the next day it gave me this idea.

Why not put some pictures on the ground that are interesting enough or eye catching to get someone to pick it up. Say for instance the Pepsi decided to put pictures of Fergie or their can. Or anything that can get a person to pick it up. So just random pictures that seem intimate or voyeuristic enough for someone to be interested.

Ethical problems of littering could be an issue and their might have to be a mandatory cleanup after the campaign is over. But I still think that this could be a great idea. I think that this could be something to work off. I think that their could be something here to potentially capitalize on.

That's Cool

2006-10-20T12:03:00.000-07:00

So I just found a possible career choice for myself. The company that I blogged about previously in the year merits some more attention. They are called Alt Terrain and they are an awesome company that manages guerilla marketing campaigns. They cover all the different aspects of guerilla marketing and have some innovative ideas that I found interesting.

They use mobile billboards. This is a truck that pulls up the any busy street, usually in the city, inside the truck are three different compartments with people in them. The example showed women advertising SKY, photography. The images of the event show how people stop and look.

They also use take-away billboards. This type of guerilla advertising puts ads in different places such as the sides of Chinese takeout cartons, pizza boxes, and coffee sleeves. These types of adverting use the customer to promote their brand. Their customers will be walking around and putting their brand name everywhere.

The last type of guerilla advertising that I was impressed with were tear-away billboards. These involve posters being hung all around the city that feature a sign saying free posters. They are meant to be taken by people to hang on their walls. I hadn’t heard about this type of advertising and I thought it was clever.

P.S. Tonight I am going to Atlantic City. Where I go, you will hear about. Talk soon.

IC streakers

2006-10-14T15:49:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about illegal guerilla advertising. I have read some examples about Smirnoff putting up an ad on an overpass before getting the go-ahead with the government. They were later given the cleanup bill for their little campaign.

Another example was Vodafone paying streakers to paint their logo on their backs. The streakers ran around for a while during an international rugby game.

The last example was for Acclaim. They publicized that they were going to be willing to pay for all of the speeding tickets issued on a certain day to sponsor Need For Speed. I am not sure if this was for the entire country or what but it was going to be a lot of money. The dept of transportation found out and they said that their deal was going to encourage reckless driving. The offer was taken back, needless to say.

So is it worth it? Could some companies benefit from defying the laws in order to sponsor their product? I say Yes.

I think that companies like Harley Davidson, or lost could do well to advertise and not care about the repercussions. I think both companies harness that bad boy feeling that their customers would enjoy. They would hear about the violation and laugh or at least not care about it.

Smaller companies might not be capable of paying the fines but I think that the publicity that goes along with such violations and street credit could help a company going for this type of image in the long run.

Very Fresh

2006-10-11T16:39:00.000-07:00

Just found an awesome site. This is the specific page that will bring up a great video. The video shows examples of guerilla marketing around the globe. There are examples of backpacks, mugs and hand bags by Pandol. The bags have faces on them that seem to be interacting with their environment. The mug face is giving a ‘my hair is burning off face’ the backpack seems to be having their face stretched to the limit.

The Canadian Red Cross did an ad showing a real women lying face down on the floor at the bottom of an escalator. The women looks dead and is surround by a large blue circle. The copy next to her says “know what to do.”

One other quick example showed a poster over a brick wall. The picture turns the bricks into a stomach. The copy just says “hard like a brick.” This ad was just for a gym, but the idea was innovative and gets people to laugh.

The slide that really interested me was the reference to Binky. Though I am extremely interested in this subject, I choose not to broach this subject because it deserves an entire post. All I will say is that he is a highly visible guerilla artist.

I don’t think that you ever need to have any amazing idea like these shown. If you can, more power to you, you the forerunner. If you can’t, I think there is room for you in any industry to follow and elaborate of their ideas.

Dancing in the Rain Ya Heard

2006-10-07T11:08:00.000-07:00

Many different companies have used the idea of dancing in the rain. Understandably, the idea of dancing in the rain evokes many strong emotions. Pure unbridled joy of just letting of inhibitions can appeal to everyone. Nothing else matters if you find yourself dancing in the rain. Your clothes don’t matter, your hair doesn’t matter. Everything that companies try to tell us is important gets thrown out the window as we regress in years.

Volkswagen did an ad for their new golf using dancing in the rain. They used the classical male figure doing some of the same moves from the movie, but adapting new urban moves.

Recently Pepsi did an ad using Eva Longoria from Desperate Housewives. She walks out of a corner store and opens her Pepsi. Rain starts and she just starts dancing down the street with techno music playing.

Anyways, Guerilla Marketing.

My idea for Pepsi would be to actually recreate this ad. They go to NYC and stake out a block. They either get some water proof speakers that they can put on a car, or rent a house where they can blast the music out of the windows. They would have to choose the time and place very carefully. This would have to have to be middle of the day where there is a lot of foot traffic. The sidewalk would also have to not have a cover so the rain would hit it.

So here is the picture. You are walking down a street when the sky opens up. People start scurrying around looking for cover when this music starts. Everyone on the street start looking around to see what is going on. Then they see this model/dancer/male/female/ whatever going down the street. There could be one on each side of the street and maybe one walking down the center of the street. Either way they will be dancing and drinking Pepsi.

I think this would be a great way for Pepsi or other companies to make ads seem less like fantasy and more associated with their brands.

NYC can't be beat

2006-10-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my girlfriend and I went to her home in northern Jersey. The second day we were there we woke up early, drove to the bus station and barely made the noon bus into the city. We had no agenda, limited resources, and plenty of energy. My goal was to buy a notebook and record the best examples of Guerilla marketing that I could.

I bought my notebook at Borders near Times Square and then headed off for China Town.

The first example of guerilla marketing was at Williams Sonoma. This store featured many cooking tools and fancy dishes. They placed a dish outside their store with free dog biscuits in it. At the same time that I was writing down this example of Guerilla Marketing I watched it in action. A dog walker went by and was forced to stop and look into the windows as their dog ate from the dish. The dish got the potential consumer to stop and pay attention to their store for longer than usual.

As we got closer to China Town I saw the second example. I was standing next to Murray’s which is an upscale deli with meats and cheeses. I was literally on top of the ad before I saw it. They have a Plexiglas window on the sidewalk in front of the store. Under the glass is cave filled with aged cheese. This fun display was entertaining and almost got me to go into the store to find out what exactly cave aged cheese is.

As we walked out of the chaos of China Town I saw the next guerilla marketing display. I think that it was guerilla marketing at least, it was certainly interesting. There was a tea ceremony being conducted on the street. There was a line of people that were able to drink tea with the man. This man was dressed like a Tibetan monk with white paint on his face. I didn’t find what he was trying to promote but there was writing that I couldn’t understand next to him.

I had a great trip to the city and I encourage anyone that is interested in marketing to take a walk down Times Square.

Good to know

2006-09-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

The things people will do to get into the World Record book...

If I asked you to try ot take the top off a beer bottl with a helicopter what do you think? I assume that you presume that they only way to manage this would be to use the propellers to slice the tops off. The video I found was captioned "USA vs Japan in the open a beer bottle with a helicopter contest." I didn't think that this would take long enough for a contest between two bored pilots, let alone two countries.

Well I was wrong. They attached a bottle opener to the right landing pad on the two helicopters. A video camera was mounted behind the opener to give the onlookers a good view of the action away from the blades of the helicopter.

The pilots had to manuever their machines close enough to the bottle to place it on top of the beer bottle to pop the top off. They were forced to hover about three feet off the ground in this stunt.

The announcing and the subtitles were in Japanese so I wasn't agle to hear what was going on. The American got the trophy at the end and said that he had won by three seconds. I hope that this publicity stunt ends that nagging question that has plagued all of us for so long...

Which country is better at opening beer bottles in a helicopter?

Video

Guerillad Out

2006-09-21T18:46:00.000-07:00

A site a recently found asked me a good question, "Is guerilla marketing still good for small business?" Now that big business are using guerilla marketing does take away the grassroots effectiveness of it? No

I think that the effectiveness of guerilla marketing will never lose its power. As long as people keep being creative and thinking of something that consumers haven't seen before, guerilla marketing is still the answer for anyone who can do it.

Guerilla advertising allows us to use all five senses unlike other mediums of advertising and this freedom in limitless.

Now this isn't claiming that the best form of advertising will always be peer to peer, because I believe that this is true. I think that the product speaks for its self and having something that pleases the consumer enough to talk about it with their friends will eventually be the best selling product.

It was good for me

2006-09-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

I am sure that everyone on facebook these days is part of some type of group. I recently joined, though I am ashamed, the group that was going to help a guy have a threesome. The story behind the group was that if this guy named Brody Ruckus could put together a group that managed to gain over 100,000 member before the semester ended then he would get to have a threesome with his girlfriend.

Somehow a stupid idea became a facebook phenomenon. Within three days the group already had the requested 100,000 members. The group became a viral marketers dream. The group was passed peer to peer faster than news. The history of the group goes like this.

Basically, the group was created on 9/5/06 and was deleted by Facebook on 9/13/06. In 8 days the group reached 428,944 members. There are now over 400 groups on facebook using the word threesome in it. Most are related to the original group. There are now doubts as to what Brody Ruckus' motives were. The obvious explanation and honest one might not be the true reason.

Some believe that it was all a guerilla marketing sham. He is now well known and has made money from the shirts that he sell through his new website. He still maintains that he plans to release photos and a video of the threesome that has not yet occurred.

I think that this kid had an idea that worked, nothing more. He thought of something original that hadn't been done on facebook and somehow the word was sent out. Every guy that heard of the group felt that it was his matriarchal duty to help. I joined the ranks after seeing how fast the group had sprang from nothing. Like a match it burned brightly and disappeared.

NYC innovators

2006-09-14T17:18:00.000-07:00

"Excuse me, but you are not allowed to carry drinks into the Rockefeller plaza. I am going to have to take those and give you a fine. You can either pay me now in cash or pay twice the fine that I am giving you now later at the Court House. So what do you think?"

I thought this was bogus, but because I was new to NYC I decided to play along.

"Ok, I guess I will just throw away the drinks then and then go in."

"Ok but seriously, if you pay the fine now, I'll throw in one of these NYC hats, pink for your girl."

AAAAAhhhhhh, now it is making sense, just another attempt of a street vendor on the streets of New York.

I was ready to give him money to get rid of him up to this point. But now I am just annoyed with myself for wasting so much time with someone trying to sell me something. But at the same time I am pretty impressed with this guy's approach at selling. He was confident and had a great line to get the consumer invested in him. I left him talking to the back of my head, but in the back of my head I was still thinking about his approach.

Guerilla marketing may be the future of advertising. With innovations such as TiVo and the internet that allow the consumer to avert most forms of advertising companies are surely looking for alternative means to reach the consumer. Companies such as ALT Terrain are specializing in alternative marketing.

One ad that I was especially fond of was put out back in 2004 by Volkswagen. They created an entire car made out of ice and had it generate publicity for the whole 12 hrs that it existed on Belvedere road in London.

Guerilla Marketing

2006-09-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

Guerilla marketing has unlimited potential. The only limiting factor is your own imagination.

Guerilla marketing is loosely defined as unconventional marketing designed to get maximum results from limited rescources. This definition leaves the world of unconventionanal marketing wide open for interpretation. This could mean using the sidewalk as a medium in an alternative manner that is expected. There are literally thousands of different ways to show a message that should be discussed, analyzed for effectiveness and built on for future use.

While this type of marketing has ties to grass roots organizations and smaller companies with very limited resources that is now changing. Larger companies such as Coke and and Red Bull use guerilla marketing to sell their product. There are companies that specialize specifically in this type of marketing.

The term guerilla marketing could also be used to describe the new types of advertising within video games.

Anyone who wants to know more about GM should check out my links because they have much more info than I do at the moment.

2006-08-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

this is the first of many