Guerrilla Marketing

Marketing messages are often overlooked in today’s markets due to the increased amount of messages that are being disseminated. This is the forte of guerrilla marketing. Lastly, a creative approach and nonconventional methods of advertising allow for a brand’s message to be remembered by the consumers, all while not having to spend a great deal of money on the actual campaign. 

In this article, I will be sharing the basic understanding of what guerrilla marketing entails, the rationale behind why it is so effective and how one can duplicate the success that this approach offers to the marketing of products and brands. Thus, guerrilla marketing is especially appealing to small businesses but also represents an effective possibility for any company. Let’s dive in! 

 

 

The Psychology Behind Guerrilla Marketing: How It Engages Consumers

Guerrilla marketing mainly relies heavily on bringing into bear factors to consider concerning human psychology. It is, therefore, able to appeal to deeper feelings and the psychological aspect of surprise to ensure that it can elicit tangible responses that the ordinary rational appeal to reason cannot achieve, all of which makes the campaign stick in the mind of the consumer long after the campaign is over. Here’s how guerrilla marketing uses psychology to engage and influence consumers: 

 

Understanding Consumer Behavior:  Emotions Drive Actions

People are emotional beings and that’s exactly why marketers have to consider this. Thus, guerrilla marketing tends to involve provoking a very fast and powerful reaction, ranging from shock to joy or contempt or fear. Such feelings make a long-term impression, compared to the one that typical commercial messages produce. 

For instance, an innovative promotional street act creates awareness of the event by making onlookers laugh or wince; they would later discuss it. This taps into an emotional feeling that ensures people are compelled to take to their social media platforms or word-of-mouth and talk about it. This word-of-mouth element is a very important factor in the expansion of a guerrilla campaign. 

 

 

The Element of Surprise:  Capturing Attention Instantly

At the same time, the main advantage of guerrilla marketing is rooted in the fact that it is unplanned. Consumers receive hundreds of marketing messages daily and this makes traditional ads blend in with the clutter. By working in such a manner, guerrilla marketing directly interferes with this process and could be placed at locations that the consumers do not anticipate.

this makes the stakeholders alert as they are not expecting the information that they are about to be presented. 

A sculpture or murmur in an area of high traffic or an appealing event on the streets can see people arrested within seconds. This abrupt switch from the status quo helps the message to be delivered to the people with influence and conviction. Guerrilla marketing is different from the traditional approaches, which makes people have no choice but to focus on the message, respond to it and possibly, remember it. 

 

Creating Personal Connections: Interactivity as an Effective Multimodal Resource 

The other psychological outlook that guerrilla marketing relies on is the feeling of shareholders’ interest. Participation in campaigns where the consumer is engaged to be part of it makes him/her feel that he/she is part of the brand. These concepts whether as a surprise dance or a product tasting spree kind of event help in the development of a social bond that is very fruitful in building a strong link with a certain brand. 

 For instance, a company has adopted augmented reality installations through which the consumer directly engages with the brand as a person and not as a marketer. That is, when a consumer has a perception that is somewhere along that line, the consumer is likely to develop brand loyalty toward the brand. 

 

 

Case Studies: Brands That Mastered Psychological Triggers

There are brands to which consumers are unconsciously loyal since those brands use certain triggers ingrained in consumers’ minds. 

• Coca-Cola’s Happiness Machine: This awesome guerrilla marketing strategy was to use a vending machine on a college campus and instead of canning sodas it offered flowers, pizzas, and giant sandwiches. 
• Due to the element of surprise that triggered the call to action as well as the happiness gimmick which has the characteristics of inspiring the viewers to spread the message. It developed a fun, unique occasion that reminded consumers of Coca-Cola’s brand message of happiness.
• ALS Ice Bucket Challenge: Even though this wasn’t thought to be a guerrilla marketing strategy, the Ice Bucket Challenge became a worldwide phenomenon which resulted in millions of dollars being donated to ALS Research. 
• Two primary reasons that people believed in it were – the word-of-mouth effect; where people saw friends and celebrities taking part in it and the DOMS effect, whereby people did not want to be left out of the trend. People were also appealing to emotions by asking them to make donations towards a certain charitable cause, denting further engagement. 

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Conclusion:

Guerrilla marketing has the power and potential to be one of the most highly effective and creative strategies to get your message heard. If you can appeal to consumers’ emotions, ambush your audience at an opportune moment, or influence their behavior through social pressure, you’re going to make campaigns that are not only iconic but impactful. 

It spans big corporations that are in search of new ideas and small businesses which have a small amount of capital to spend. When used creatively and responsibly it is one of the most effective advertising tactics attracting people’s attention and engaging them in a way that cannot be achieved with conventional advertising.