The Business Risk of Guerrilla Marketing. A guerrilla program is probably not right for your business if you can’t take a risk.
While guerrilla marketing is great for small businesses, there are certain industries and clientele for which a guerrilla campaign might not be appropriate.
Neisser suggests that “highly regulated industries like financial services and insurance . . . make considering guerrilla approaches a risky proposition.”
And you should consider the fact that a guerrilla campaign, by nature, “could ruffle the feathers of cities and some consumers,” Salacuse adds.
If that thought worries you, guerrilla marketing might not be a good fit for your business.
Because of the nature of guerrilla marketing, the message and objective must be clearly defined in order to avoid being misunderstood. Misinterpretation by the targeted audience of the message intended to be promoted is a risk. Word-of-mouth advertising does not always stay focused enough to present the intended message. The rumor-like spread of word-of-mouth marketing is uncontrollable once released, and can result in a misrepresentation of the message or confusion about a brand.
Another risk involves wrongly timed (or wrongly placed) events, which may actually be perceived to be against the interests of the consumer. For instance, in an ill-conceived promotion which took place on January 31, 2007, several magnetic circuit boards—each with an flashing LED cartoon figure—were attached to metal surfaces in and around Boston, Massachusetts to promote the animated series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The circuit boards were mistakenly taken for explosive devices. Several subway stations; bridges; and a portion of Interstate 93 were closed as police examined, removed, and (in some cases) destroyed the devices.
Some guerrilla marketing may incite the ire of local authorities. Then risks are assessed and may still be considered worthwhile. Such was the case in Houston, Texas, when BMW Auto’s ad agency, Street Factory Media, attached a replica of a Mini-Cooper (made of Styrofoam), to the side of a downtown building in January 2013. For the small cost of a city-issued fine, the company received front page advertising in the Houston Chronicle.
Another problem presents itself if marketers fail to properly execute an undercover campaign. They run considerable risk of backlash. An example of this can be found in Sony Entertainment’s on-line debacle with Zipatoni. The company attempted to promote Zipatoni through a stealth marketing campaign, which was quickly detected by the internet community, resulting in Sony immediately experiencing a backlash from video game enthusiasts.
Street art is thus a subversive activity, hijacking public places and inventing rather paradoxical forms of expression that reformulate ways of communicating,all of which inform street marketing practices. Thus marketing in the street, given that it is inspired by the work of such artists, brings with it constraints and statutory risks for which agencies and advertisers are generally not prepared.The main problem is that, by definition, street mobilization campaigns require the use of public space, and that use must be authorized by government authorities to be legal. This is just as true for simple operations like distributing flyers as it is for mobilizing products or people and, of course, for a disguised campaign.
The authorizations necessary to carry out such a campaign are often very difficult to obtain within the time allotted for bringing the plan to fruition. Numerous potential operations have failed to obtain authorization for safety reasons, and in certain urban areas it is even expressly forbidden to undertake a guerrilla marketing campaign. In such cases, many agencies and advertisers will simply go ahead with the operation, meaning that they choose to act without authorization.How is such a choice reached, and on what bases? How is it justified? What impact does this choice have on the performance and costs of the operation? What transformations does this choice bring to the agency–advertiser relationship? These are the main questions posed in the development of street marketing operations today.
The Business Risk of Guerrilla Marketing