McDonalds also goes to the “guerrilla”.

Lately an updated marketing strategy is acquiring new followers, the so-called “Guerrilla Marketing”.

The reason of its spreading is obvious. It makes an outstanding idea inside the consumers about what and how the products are, at the same time it does not imply high and unaffordable costs to the entrepreneurs who are tending to use it. Enormous effects at bargain prices, the success recipe.

For all of that, the American fast-food burger giant, McDonals, has not been able to reject its use and they initiated in 2009 two interesting guerrilla marketing activities for promoting two weeks of free coffee in their establishments:

• 1) First of all, they decided to install machines in some bus stops and advertising panels in order to create an attractive smoke inside. When sporadically some smoke began to pour out of the cup of coffee from the McDonalds brand, which was the poster inside of them, immediately appeared the core sentence; “Your free coffee is ready”

• 2) Also in the same direction, the redesigned some streetlights as huge carafes pouring a cup of coffee, which, by the way, was decorated with the same phrase; “Your free coffee is ready”.

Image source: http://gutenver.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/mcdonald%C2%B4s-cafe-gratis-free-coffee/

• 3) Finally, during the development of this strategy, they created some human size cups of coffee, where the same phrase was again highlighted. What makes it special? The fact that they, as the panels did, were sporadically pouring out some smoke from the McDonald´s cup of coffee. 

Image source: http://timekiller.cz/reklama/top10-guerillovych-kampani-od-mcdonalds/

This campaign was created by the Canadian Cossette company, helped by Dyna Graphics, achieving what McDonalds desired, an original and high effective way of being noticed, as all the guerrilla marketing campaigns try.

The purposes of guerrilla marketing

As soon as people hear "marketing" they are expecting big corporations trying to sell them stuff they don't need. Well that can be true but not only. Guerrilla marketing can be used for a good cause.

Guerrilla marketing is a way to get people to react at low cost and is used by many organisations.

And if it might not have a direct effect on your daily habits, as long as it gets your attention, it was worth it and is the start of something new.

Examples?

WWF changed the color of a football field during a game with big audience between Brasil and Denmark.
The message was: every 4 minutes the equivalent of a football field disapears in brasilian forests. The operation lasted  4 minutes and was a success. It raised the numbers of visits on the website by 73%.

And this is one of the many examples.

Guerrilla marketing was also used to warn about global warming: 

Unicef used it to raise funds to provide africans with clean drinking water:

And Israel cancer association conducted a campaign in Tel Aviv to raise awareness:

So now you know that guerrilla marketing can have a positive impact and serve non lucrative purposes.
Look around you, it can be everywhere!

Diet Coca-Cola and Tiny Distributor

Coca-Cola, and the slimmest drink automatic distributor. 
The best idea to make an impression on the consumers, Coca-Cola found it ! What is better than the finnest automatic distributor in the street: this distributor measures 7 inches in width.

"Oh, hey there, ladies. Feeling fat? Of course you are. Don't worry. I've got some advice ... Get delicious, trimming diet soda from me!" writes Adfreak.


The Huffington Post also reacted: "Thanks, Diet Coke, for reminding us all that it's always better to be thin — even if you're a vending machine."

What's Guerrilla Marketing ?

Guerrilla marketing is defined as a marketing concept in which an organization uses unconventional interaction to promote a product or service. 

The name ‘Guerrilla marketing’ is derived from the Spanish word guerrilla that is used to describe a small group of fighters that effectively fights a big army. 

This concept of marketing differs from the conventional marketing since it is focused to generate a lot of attention in a short period of time. 

The costs of Guerrilla marketing are often a small percentage of the conventional expensive marketing campaigns. The unconventional design of guerrilla marketing can result in actions that are prohibited by law and could damage the image of an organization.