Have you ever played tennis? If so you can identify the packaging virtually every tennis ball comes in. Ok, another question: Have you ever had Pringles before? Yes, the delicious potato chip snack who’s packaging mimics - that’s right - the kind of case containing tennis balls (see where this is headed?).
Wanna take a wild guess what kind of guerrilla marketing Proctor & Gamble did with its line of Pringles at Wimbledon this week???
(Special note: Guerrilla marketing is when a person or company takes its promotions to the street to directly interact with an audience. The interaction leaves a positive impression on people to enhance a brand’s perception among certain audiences.)
You guessed it. Proctor & Gamble handed out tubes of its Pringles Crisps with labeling that read “These are NOT tennis balls!” and offered them to street patrons making their way onto the Wimbledon grounds to watch a day of tennis. As mentioned in The Telegraph, the Wimbledon licensing police couldn’t do anything about it since they deemed no competitive foul against Proctor & Gamble’s Pringles.
The idea actually scored some pretty good kudos from members of the media for this guerrilla marketing tactic.
Guerrilla marketing is tactical in nature but relies heavily on some good old fashioned creative strategy. It is dependent on time, energy and the ability to think outside of the box. Many large companies like Proctor & Gamble and Burger King often leverage the powers of guerrilla marketing. But it’s also a great tool for the small business owner since, when done right, can be highly effective and low-budget.
The key to guerrilla marketing is in testing out a number of different ideas. Maybe you’ll get lucky and the most brilliant idea in the world will hit you early on in the process. But never be intimidated (or discouraged) to test a number of different ideas. And don’t forget to capture your guerrilla marketing tactic on film or video and then share via social marketing (like Twitter) so it can spread virally all over the world.
For some interesting guerrilla marketing ideas for your business, check out Pam Hawk’s blog post that offers 151 of these guerrilla marketing goodies, listed by different categories.
Here are a few more great resources for guerrilla marketing ideas:
Guerrilla Marketing: Easy and Inexpensive Strategies for Making Big Profits from Your SmallBusiness
Guerrilla Marketing Weapons: 100 Affordable Marketing Methods (Plume)
Have you done any guerrilla marketing for your small business? Tell us about it here.
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Brilliant. I think that leveraging something that already exists and is known to work is one of the best guerrilla marketing tactics that exists. I’ve also seen this done with other products like detergent bottles, etc.
Personally, I love the opportunities to add some guerilla marketing tactics to a complete marketing plan. When I have been lucky enough to be marketing a ‘fun’ product/concept/event… the viral enthusiasm created by guerilla ideas… has created the buzz our team was hoping for.
While not all of us have products or budgets like P&G’s Pringles, I’d still be in the camp to say… “being ‘creative’ and ‘outside-of-the-box’ in our thinking will make the results better… and also make our jobs/careers more fun.”
Thanks for the post and the reminder to add some ‘fun’ to the mix of things.
Joanne Maly, Lincoln Maly Marketing, Cincinnati, Ohio
Thank you for the mention!
Excellent blog, by the way. I’ve added it to my blogroll…
Cheers -
Pam Hawk
Good ideas to get the creative juices flowing, and the ball rolling. For me, Guerrilla Marketing is a launchpad for proverbial rockets: Each has a specified purpose and, when launched, continue to do their own thing. What’s important isn’t to wait around to see how the mission goes. You need to immediately begin preparing that next rocket, with a new mission. And – if you’re really adept – I believe that traditional marketing, in the long term, can sometimes be avoided entirely.
- Heath D. Alberts, C.E.O. – Digital Ninjas Media, Inc.