Big Business Goes Guerrilla
A few weeks back I was walking to a client meeting in the downtown core of Vancouver. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted some funny business. Standing at one of the public newspaper box dispensers were two young women who looked like they were up to no good.
From almost half a block away, their bright red T-shirts stood out as they started to take copies of the Georgia Straight (Vancouver weekly entertainment news) out of the newspaper box while guiltily looking around. As I got closer I witnessed them inserting a red promotional card into each copy. While passing by, I caught a glance of the logo on their T-shirts. It was the logo of Blackberry, the smartphone company.
As a guerrilla marketing strategist who gets my clients the biggest bang for their marketing buck, I was uncertain of Blackberry’s motivation in this case. Would it not have been cheaper to simply pay the Georgia Straight to insert the promotional card into that week’s edition?
To this day I don’t know if the young women were steering away from the original directive by trying to offload the cards instead of handing them out to the public.
What I know is if your company chooses to take a guerrilla approach to its marketing initiatives, you must start by setting a clear objective. Then, devise a tactical plan that is easy to implement and has a high probability of achieving the outcome you desire.