Steal These Guerrilla Marketing Moves

Credit: Marcia Macomber, Photoshop

Guerrilla marketing is all about getting noticed without blowing your budget—using creative, unexpected tactics that stop people in their tracks and make your brand memorable. From projection ads to reverse graffiti and interactive experiences, the goal isn’t more marketing—it’s smarter visibility in the right places. Because if people don’t see you, they can’t choose you… so you might as well give them something they can’t ignore.

1st rule of marketing

You need visibility! If they don’t know your business exists, they can’t buy from you.

2nd rule of marketing

Not all visibility marketing (aka branding) and outreach have to cost a fortune.

3rd rule

(which is actually the second rule, but I wanted to see if you were really paying attention! 🤪 ):

Your visibility must be in front of the audience that matters—those most likely to buy from you.

Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of terrific guerrilla marketing tactics employed. Maybe they’ll inspire you!

Get Creative with Guerrilla Marketing

What is it? It got its name from highly successful, quickly executed military tactics. It is NOT traditional advertising, such as a display ad in a magazine or newspaper.

Guerrilla Marketing is comparatively small in budget (yea!) and fast on execution. No giant marketing team to spend months planning. Just. Do. It!

The goal is to grab attention, stop the scroll, and execute outside-the-box tactics, often in locations where advertising hasn’t existed before.

Is It Legal?

Whoa, Nelly! Most cities and towns have loads of regulations regarding where advertising can and cannot appear. So before busting out a box of chalk to advertise your latest on the sidewalk, ensure you won’t incur a fat fine or the wrath of someone you’d rather get business from than an angry rebuke.

Speed Date Guerrilla Marketing Success Stories

Let’s get your grey cells churning through the output of previous marketeers’ creative minds. Then you’ll be able to jot down a few inspiring ideas to mold into your own. Fast hits:

Light Projected Logo or Ad

You’ve seen ‘em. From some angle you weren’t looking for you see an ad or a logo projected in the dark (and sometimes under daylight conditions) onto a wall or floor. (I simulated one up top—scroll up!) In essence, your message is projected through a steel, laser-cut gobo. You message appears shining on a surface. My MiniCooper shines its logo on the ground in front of my car door at night when I click on the key fob. Clever!

Ad Space Where It Didn’t Exist

I mentioned this a few weeks ago. A guy on Instagram sold ad space on his dogs’ bodies since he had a massive audience on the platform. And it worked. Where could you run ads that your audience would see them?

Reverse Graffiti

Instead of a projecting your ad through laser-cut metal via lighting, you’re doing the same thing with full-size laser-cut templates that go on a building wall or sidewalk. As most outdoor elements build up a layer of grime or mold, a quick power washing over your template delivers your message AND cleans the surface. Over time it fades but does no harm.

Match the Shape

Does an everyday object match your product’s physical shape? KitKat turned outdoor benches into KitKat bars. On an airport shuttle bus, a watchmaker made the “stand-only” hold straps look like their watches, targeted at pilots and flyers.

Make It Interactive

Volkswagen famously created an interactive campaign (and test) by converting a subway staircase into a piano keyboard, which generated 66% more people using the stairs instead of the adjacent escalator. More recently, Frontline made a splash with their pest control product for pets ad that was painted over a large floor area. Seen from above, folks walking over the “dog” looked like ticks. While unwitting, it made people stop to understand the interaction.

More Options for Guerrilla Marketing

For your business, guerrilla marketing ideas may be more conventional:

Creating an event week/festival locally, including putting your logo and business on lightpole flags, chalk art on sidewalks, and keynote speaking to your audience to cap off your conference.
Other businesses are advertising with large, floating barge billboards on the Hudson River in New York. (So far, no one’s tried that in San Francisco Bay.)
Speaking of billboards, I’ve also seen advertisers make ad artwork look as if they’re hanging their own ad over someone else’s paid billboard ad. (It’s all faked, of course.) This gives the impression of taking over another’s ad space and truly grabs a viewer’s attention!
Create a playlist on Spotify for your audience that represents your brand vision.

Visibility isn’t optional. Memorable is the goal. Go make some noise.

Have a guerrilla marketing idea but not sure how to execute? Call me. I’ve got a few resources below for inspiration.

Resources

15 Guerilla Marketing Campaigns that went Viral [YouTube]

12 guerrilla marketing examples to learn from [Wix]

35 Bold Examples of Guerrilla Marketing [Bizzabo]

Analog Marketing Platforms Appeal to Tech-Weary Consumers [US Chamber/Good Company]

About the Author: Marcia Macomber

Bringing a cornucopia of services to her clients, Marcia provides graphic design, market strategy, social media, copywriting, website, video and many other services. Too impatient to wait for others to deliver the goods, Marcia prefers to usher projects from the twinkle in a client's eye to the finishing touches on a big stage. What are you dreaming you need to market your business?