What Is Guerrilla Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing is an advertising strategy that focuses on low-cost unconventional marketing tactics that yield maximum results.

The original term was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’. The term guerrilla marketing was inspired by guerrilla warfare which is a form of irregular warfare and relates to the small tactic strategies used by armed civilians. Many of these tactics includes ambushes, sabotage, raids and elements of surprise. Much like guerrilla warfare, guerrilla marketing uses the same sort of tactics in the marketing industry.

This alternative advertising style relies heavily on unconventional marketing strategy, high energy and imagination. Guerrilla Marketing is about taking the consumer by surprise, make an indelible impression and create copious amounts of social buzz. Guerrilla marketing is said to make a far more valuable impression with consumers in comparison to more traditional forms of advertising and marketing. This is due to the fact that most guerrilla marketing campaigns aim to strike the consumer at a more personal and memorable level.

Guerrilla Marketing Principles

By contrasting from the various definitions of guerrilla marketing which only identifies the main elements of guerrilla communications like unexpected, drastic or cheap, the author of this research adopts definition of Guerrilla Marketing of Alexander Reidl, former marketing director of Volvo Cars Middle East. According to his thoughts there is a set of six characteristics that every guerrilla campaign has to fulfil. Not every innovate or shocking campaign means that it is guerrilla marketing campaign. Following diagram identifies the inseparable elements of guerrilla marketing campaigns and further explanation is provided after.