6. Guerrilla Marketing

As a military concept, guerrilla forces are used by an "aggressor" when the opposing force is overwhelming large. The guerrillas don't try to match the opposing force size-for-size, rather they use "guerilla tactics" such as small groups of attackers targeting weak points in the opposing force, such as attacking at night on an exposed perimeter, or attacking when the opposing force is restricted by geography from moving as a large mass - ie. in mountainous terrain or a narrow river valley.

Guerillas use different weapons, strategies and tactics to make up for having a more limited access to resources. For example, instead of having several soldiers riding in an expensive armoured HUMVEE, they have one man with a LAWs rocket or an RPG, which can "take out" a lightly armoured vehicle.

So the principle is that you have less people and less money for equipment and resources, but by employing particular strategies and tactics, you can have a significant "effect".

The pic to the left shows a soldier in Operation "Desert Shield" using a Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW)

6. Guerrilla Marketing

In the later years of the first decade of the new millennium, some marketing companies have become more extreme in order to spread their message, which has resulted in some strategies and tactics that have been termed "guerrilla" by virtue of the way they exploit a situation to their advantage.

These "Guerrilla" companies are often trying to position a product in a market segment that may be dominated by some well established brands that have zillions of dollars to spend on advertising in well known situations. In order for their message to be "noticed", the "Guerilla" companies exploit weaknesses  in well known situations, and use Viral marketing strategies so that their "activity" has "legs" and the message gets carried on and on and on.

During each Olympic games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will allow several of the wealthiest brands to bid for exclusivity as the "official vehicle of the Olympics", "official camera of the Olympics" etc.

Innovative marketing companies don't have to be "defeated" if their large corporate client doesn't get the bid in a particular year; but by using imagination and Guerilla tactics, they can still have their client's brand exposed to millions of viewers.

Guerrilla Marketing:  Philippines 
 

Contributed by MRK460 student Agustin Jeosef D. L. R. 2021 November, former Marketing Supervisor with  Pepsi-Cola Products Philippines

Example: an annual Mardi Gras event in Iloilo City, the Philippines called Dinagyang Festival where thousands of people Filipinos travel in the city to witness the event.

"Coca-Cola in the Philippines is the most aggressive in terms of sales and marketing and so they were always the major sponsors of most events. Unfortunately, our company doesn't have the budget to be the exclusive sponsor and for that, we can't put up our point of sales materials in public posts especially the route areas."
 

"To overcome the advantage held by our competitor, and being  a proactive employee, what I did was print out Pepsi brand tarpaulins and negotiated our Pepsi exclusive outlets on the nearby routes to put up the tarpaulins the night before the Mardi Gra event in exchange for product support worth Php5,000.00 ($125 CAD) pesos per outlet. As a result, we just spent around Php350,000.00 ($8,750.00 CAD) only instead of Php1,000,000.00 ($25,000 CAD) of sponsorship amount and had a wide audience reach."

"Second, it was just the same run, but the event was the Ironman triathlon wherein thousands of triathletes came to Cebu, Philippines to compete and the exclusive sponsor on that event was Cobra Energy drink and we are not able to do marketing inside the event. What I did was negotiated for our Pepsi products exclusive outlets to paint and dress up the outlet with our Gatorade brand. We painted the outlets that are nearby the event area and the run route area as well. The painting was visible enough to the participants and audiences which are more than inside the event area which entrees are strict."

Two excellent examples of using your imagination to overcome a disadvantageous situation, and do it while spending lesss money. 
Thanks for sharing Agustin, WTGR

Guerrilla Marketing:  FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa
 

NOT the exact  FIFA logo

During the summer of 2010 there were a number of complaints about the restrictions FIFA put in place about the use of its logo and anything to do with the World Cup. A number of innovative marketing companies developed guerilla marketing strategies to get their client's product exposed to the global audience, while exploiting some of the weaknesses inherent in a large public event. Nike, for example, boasted that through savvy marketing, they had achieved better exposure than Adidas or Coke, even though Nike had not paid millions to be an official sponsor.

One of the things that gives a Guerrilla marketing situation "legs" (pun intended) is if newspapers and TV pick up on the story and turn the Guerilla action into a news story, which then helps the action "go viral" as it is passed on and on by people sending people the URL link, or the images through their web connections.

Budweiser paid millions to be the official beer of the FIFA World Cup. However Dutch beer brewer Bavaria found a way to get around that and arranged for models wearing orange miniskirts - the exact tint of orange as used in the company branding, to be seen on TV in the stands when the Dutch team played.