Similarly, we could mention other specific derivatives that grew into communication techniques, by which a company, institution or a firm could speak to new potential customers or to deepen and cultivate a previously established relation with current customers, which is more profitable from the viewpoint of guerilla marketing. Among the guerilla marketing techniques, there are for example the alternative marketing[1], ambush marketing, astroturfing, experiential marketing[2], presume marketing, tissue-packing advertising, undercover marketing, wild posting, and ambient marketing.
As there is a high diversity among ambient forms, we will further look into this type of guerilla marketing. It is necessary to note that the individual types of guerilla marketing and especially the tools of ambient marketing coexist in various symbiotic correlation and it is often impossible to specify a single independent category in a specific application. Besides their interconnectivity, the merging title of guerilla marketing also accounts for the rhizomatic[3] system within marketing mix[4].
Assvertising: By title a controversial form of ambient marketing, presents placing of communiqués on buttocks or on undergarments, for example painting on skin or on short skirts. The first examples of assvertising emerged in 2004. Advertisers opting for this method vary from artists to an e-shop with car tires. Kodak used this approach in 2005 during an expo in Kyiv.
Augmented Reality: A connection between the real world and a computer-generated world, utilizing a special application and images gathered via a camera. Real images registered with the camera are analyzed in real-time on site and the application adds information in form of text, imagery or animation on top of the footage.
Bagvertising: Next time a cashier asks whether you would like a bag for your shopping, look very carefully at the imagery on the bag – as you could easily walk out with a weapon, because you bought a book from a Belgian writer of crime novels. You could also walk out with a bag painted with blood stains. More examples of bagvertising are included in the SlideShare.
Bravertising: In 2003, a Japanese basketball team used bras as placement for their message. Later, the Burger King company did a similar thing. An undergarment-maker company, Triumph Japan, recently created a special bra to promote tourist attractions.
Beach and Trackvertising: Untouched parts of sandy beaches could be ideal as propagation spaces, but that is just one example of using lands as unconventional advertisement carriers.
Beamvertising: Static or animated advertisement projected on walls (animations, imagery, lights, shadows…). The projection mapping method (3D projections) are counted among the beamvertising techniques.
Blackmailing: The anti-messages spread by users via communication channels to demote competing products. Its aim is to ridicule or damage the competitor or their products using hostile email correspondence.
Bluecasting: Connecting to a (not necessarily) external medium via bluetooth allows for transfer of advertisement content. The recipient is allowed to download different sorts of data, maps, information about landmarks, and more. These techniques are controversial, when it comes to the topic of ethics. Propagation via the bluecasting methods often occurs without consent and opens gate for non-requested messages, in this case called the Bluespam[5] (or Bluejacking[6]). The Beacon[7] technology could be misused in a similar fashion.
Blogs: Every institution, company, firm or an individual has the option to choose one of the blogging techniques, or use both of them simultaneously. The first technique is to monitor foreign blogs to follow their content and gain inspiration. The second technique is creation of authored blogs, widening the discussion about chosen problematics. The importance is this case to create such blogs that would also be valuable on their own, not being just more of advertisement content.
Buzz marketing: Synonymously called the Word-of-Mouth, based on spontaneous communication of people discussing a product, service or an idea. Buzz marketing is based on the creation of a situation, in which the contact with the recipient with marketing communiqué has a unique, spontaneous and personal character. The simplest cases for use of this approach are propagations of films, music, books, basically the products that are commonly used as conversation starters. The product itself must contain an element that could be used as a specific conversation starter.
Stealth marketing: Closely related to buzz marketing, a strategy that informs about the product without actually informing about the product’s market availability, especially useful in entry phases when the product is just emerging. The main objective is not to generate revenue instantly, but to gain attraction and pique interest, which would later seep into direct advertisement. Working with the unaware audience poses a possibility to impart a message to which the audience would be more receptive.
Digital storefront (interactive display window): Display windows are able to react to movement or touch of people walking by. Initially, the display windows seem regular, until they are activated by a certain action – walking by, touch, guitar music, solving a puzzle…
Flash mob: A mass of people who had not known each other and communicated via social media gathered at a single (frequented) place with an objective to organize a short (up to 3 minutes) event. Most often it is absurd, inducing commotion and surprise in random people witnessing the event. The advantages of commercial flash mobs lie in ther potential to improve relations with consumers.[8]
Flogo (flying + logo): A logo or a company name made of soap and helium with a technology reminiscent of soap bubbles. Such a flogo is able to float for up to 40 minutes and could potentially reach the flight radius of 48 kilometers.
Grassroots marketing: A certain form of the Word-of-Mouth technique, but in this case, not entirely relies on the consumers. A necessary requirement for its success lies in truthful and transparent informing about activities and plans. Building a good reputation thus motivates the customer to only speak about the company positively.
Mobile tagging: A form of mobile marketing, in which QR codes (QR stands for Quick Response) redirect users to sites with exclusive information or benefits.
Parasitic marketing: A technique stemming from the guerilla marketing approaches that is more aggressive and its use can pose a real reputational risk for the advertiser opting for this approach. The main dimension of this approach is to leech from the known, popular and verified brands by imitating their significant traits. This type of guerilla marketing allows the advertiser to temporarily gain from the success of stronger competitors, and as such resembles ambush marketing.
Pitvertising: A form of ambient media, the advertisement is presented on a small monitor placed in the armpit of a selected person traveling in mass transit.
Projection mapping: One of the technically most advanced forms of beavertising, animated imagery from a projector shines on a building, but also utilizes all of the architectural and decorative elements of the building, thanks to which the projected imagery seems to be three-dimensional.
Water projection: A form of beamvertising, the film material is projected on a foamy surface created by water sprinkled in the air.
Poovertising: One of the most controversial forms of ambient media, utilizes real excrements (most often dog excrements) or artificial silicone excrements that seem very real.
Skyvertising: One of the most visible forms of ambient media, a logo or a brand name is painted on the sky with condensed fumes emitted from planes, most commonly using diffusion jets placed on the plane’s wings.
Trashvertising: A form using trash bins and garbage tracks as placement spots. In western Europe, this approach is often used for promotion of social issues, connected for example to homelessness, pregnancy or ecology.
Street Art: Street Art techniques use several methods.
A stencil is a spray-painted cartoon box placed on a sidewalk or on a wall, carrying a certain message, most often used by lobbying groups. It is characteristic for its illegality. This tool found use in marketing by bringing imagery to sidewalks, buildings and other public spaces.
Graffitti[9] in its wildly ranging forms is most useful for promotion of products meant for specific subcultures. The aforementioned stickering is closely related to this approach.
The reverse graffiti[10] are an interesting technique (also called clean tagging, dust tagging, grime writing, green graffiti or the clean advertising), similar to stencil[11], but instead of paint, water emitted under a high-pressure through valves is used. This water removes dirt and thus creates imagery contrasting with its dirty surroundings – thus the term clean advertising[12].
Wild posting[13]: Wild posting, also called the guerilla postering or flyposting, is a cheap form of advertisement with a high measure of gained exposition, as the communiqués are placed in high numbers at several places in order to gain as much attention as possible. Most commonly, the posters are placed in underpasses, on bridge pillars, fences, facades of buildings and on other, visible, consistent and spacious enough surfaces[14]. The technique itself is not new, but guerilla marketing has modernized it, making its visual principle more creative and seductive.
Animalvertising and advertising person: Both forms utilize the identical principle in which the medium for the communiqué is a living body. In case of animalvertising, it is necessary to consider the risk of using animals for such purposes, and this approach can potentially result in disapproval from the viewers, as it might be considered unethical. The advertising person uses the human body as a medium for the communiqué.
In connection to the animalvertising and advertising person forms, it is reasonable to mention that similar creation of new names for various marketing forms is common – the names are based solely on the materials used for the medium (or the carrier of the communiqués). This causes a needless divergence in terminology, as many of such cases are limited only by the used material instead of looking for a suitable exact term. (For example, there are names like the sandvertising, eyevertising, drone-vertising, snowvertising, foamvertising, nanovertising, wipervertising, handvertising, wristvertising, headvertising, eggvertising, bugvertising, mohawkvertising…).
Currently, it is not possible to adequately and precisely categorize these forms. They are to be counted among the techniques of ambient marketing, even though their realizations fully utilize new possibilities and more creative ways of pre-definition for subjects, shapes and forms, and other associated characteristics.
[1] HORKY, V. (2009). Dostupné na internete: <http://www.guerrillaonline.com/cs/Alternative-marketing-73.htm>
[2] HORKY, V. (2009). Dostupné na internete: <http://www.guerrillaonline.com/cs/Alternative-marketing-73.htm>
[3] Rhizome – a term and a metaphor, by which Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in their book A Thousand Plateaus (2020) explain their departure from the traditional dualistic school of thought, using the term rhizome from botany. Rhizome marks a non-hierarchical, non-centrists organization, distribution and communication of occurrences, ideas, knowledge and information. Deleuze Gilles, Guattari Félix. 2020. Tisíc plošin. Praha : Herrmann & synové, 592 s.
ISBN 978-80-8-705-46-35
[4] The following division is a deppend version of text we previously published in WOJCIECHOWSKI, L. (2016). Ambient marketing: + case studies in V4.
[5] MARCHINI, R., TEBBUTT, K. (2007). Security and Surveillance, Bluespam: Is it legal?
[6] Bluejacking is using the Bluetooth technology to send unrequested messages, for example name cards or imagery to other people’s devices. The recipients are unable to identify where the content came from..
[7] Beacons are micro-computers which, thanks to the Bluetooth Low Energy technology, could connect to our smartphones. In a radius of kilometers, beacons are able to deliver dedicated communiqués or activate specific functions in hijacked devices.
[8] KUBACKI, K. (2014). Ideas in Marketing: Finding the New and Polishing the Old.
[9] The mural form is related. A wall painting put on a wall, the ceiling or another huge area. The distinctive trait of the mural is that the architectural traits of the placement space are harmonically included in the image. During socialist times, this form of advertisement was used for companies and institutions of the state, even though it did not have need for marketing, as it had monopolies on all industries. Currently, there are cases in which the murals not only promote products or institutions, but also ideas (for example Banksy, ABOVE, Os Gêmeos, Blek le Rat, Diego Rivera, Knox Martin, Keith Haring, and others) and art.
[10] An English artist, Paul Curtis donning the moniker Moose, is one of the first street artists who created an image with the reverse graffiti technique – later, it was labeled as clean advertising or clean graffiti.
[11] Stencilling creates images and patterns by applying pigments through a template.
[12] EAGLE, L., DAHL, S., CZARNECKA, B., LLOYD, J. (2014). Marketing Communications.
[13] HORKY, V. (2009). Available at: <http://www.guerrillaonline.com/cs/Wild-posting-70.htm>
[14] KROUŠEK, J. (2011). Právne aspekty guerilla marketingu.