Guerrillas & Subliminal Messages: Are We Talking About Advertising?
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Surprise them. Evoke their senses. Invite them to play. This is how you can capture your audience. Stand out from the rest with these innovative forms of advertising.
Table of Contents
Guerrilla Marketing
Time, energy and imagination, that’s what is necessary in today’s advertising world. Jay Conrad Levinson, the father of the term guerrilla marketing describes it as: achieving conventional goals with unconventional methods. It’s investing energy in lieu of money to find profit and joy. While it can sneak up on the consumer like a flash mob at a shopping mall, a guerrilla marketing campaign is typically unexpected and often bizarre. Generating buzz through engaging and thought-provoking concepts creates a memorable brand experience.
Guerrilla marketing has its advantageous for small business owners to stand out in a cost-effective way. One example you may remember: In the early 2000s, Goldenpalace.com had an original marketing campaign creating “body billboards” on famous athletes. USA Today reports that Bernard Hopkins was paid about $100,000 to adorn the company’s Internet address on his back during televised boxing matches. Also, after “Celebrity Boxing,” a reality TV show aired, starring Todd Bridges, Danny Bonaduce and Tonya Harding (whom all sported the same Golden Palace henna tattoo), the Golden Palace website saw a 200 percent rise in web traffic.
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Inventive Print Collateral
Along with online marketing campaigns and visual and mental advertising, it’s important to have a tangible expression of design. Communicating through print literature is an important piece to your overall marketing puzzle. Captivating images on clear, concise and compelling copy can tell a visual story that gives a customer a more personal experience with a company. Door hangers, business magnets, folded business cards, memo pads and plastic card printing offer greater shelf life, especially if offering the customer some sort of reward or incentive to try your product or service.
Subliminal Marketing
It’s that moment when the television does a little twitch during a show or commercial that we joke about subliminal messages. You might be surprised to know there’s something very real about it, reports the Business Insider. Viewers are consciously unaware that they’ve been exposed to a very brief advertisement, and some scientists believe these ads have the power to affect your thoughts and feelings. This type of advertising can evoke any of the senses.
Some examples include:
- Smell: Homeowners or realtor’s selling a home often bake cookies before an open house to give the feeling of “home.”
- Sound: Retail stores embed hidden phrases in music in hopes that customers will stay in the store longer and, in turn, purchase more items.
- Mental: Car salesmen often have a set of questions lined up to convince a shopper to buy, even if they can’t afford it or don’t need it.
- Visual: Product placement is a mental and visual form of subliminal marketing. Movies hide product labels in the background of certain scenes hoping the viewer will see them and be interested in buying it. Former Bond movies have included such product placement as Smirnoff, Calvin Klein and Kodak, to name a few.
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