Tag: guerrilla

Guerrilla Marketing Insights

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Business Insider ran a feature today on guerrilla marketing which included a couple of quotes from yours truly.  Here are my notes from my interview with reporter Bianca Male.

What is the best way to define guerrilla marketing? And what is it most definitely not?

Guerrilla marketing is a state of mind not a particular channel. Guerrilla marketing is about making more out of less, combining innovation and elbow grease to cut through. Guerrilla marketing can also be defined by what it isn’t. It isn’t traditional media like TV and print. Today’s guerrilla marketers capitalize on social media with a vengeance; listening, researching, conversing, engaging, supporting and ultimately selling. That said, just using social media channels like Facebook doesn’t make you a guerrilla. Using Facebook in a fresh way like Burger King did with Whopper Sacrafice is guerrilla. It simply isn’t guerrilla if it isn’t newsworthy.

How can a business decide if a guerilla marketing campaign is right for them?

There are a few highly regulated industries like financial services and insurance that make considering guerrilla approaches a risky proposition. That said, just about every other marketer big or small can benefit from guerrilla, its just a question of risk tolerance. Guerrilla marketing typically carries some risk since it requires a brand to step outside its comfort zone and do something they’ve never done before. Guerrilla marketing done right is newsworthy. As I said earlier, It isn’t guerrilla marketing if it isn’t newsworthy. One of the risks of guerrilla marketing is that it simply won’t cut through as planned simply because it wasn’t original or it was just a dumb idea. Another risk is that the guerrilla idea was a mere moment in time and didn’t include sustaining elements. One of my favorites: Renegade launched the HSBC BankCab in 2003 with a search for the “most knowledgeable cabbie in New York” which got tons of PR and concluded with a one-year contract for Johnnie Morello. Seven years later Johnnie is still on the road providing free rides to delighted HSBC customers in a vintage 1982 Checker Cab.

How does a business develop a guerrilla campaign? Any guidelines?

The article I just wrote for my blog on Fast Company provides several relevant guidelines. Generally, its best to start by setting clear objectives followed quickly by doing your homework, really thinking through your category, brand and consumer. Ideally, this process will yield a true insight that can be transformed into a big idea. Then its time to think 360°, imagining all the ways your idea can come to life, online, offline and in-between. It often helps at this point to imagine the story headline you’d like to see, the tweets you’d like to read, the photos you’d like to be taken and YouTube videos that you’d want to view. Talk to some PR professionals you trust to make sure these story ideas might in fact find purchase in your ideal media outlets. Google your idea to make sure it hasn’t been done the same way you’re planning to do it. Guerrilla programs usually start when a client says to us, “we don’t have any money but we’d really like to get some media attention.”

One of my favorites: A few years ago, Panasonic was introducing a new line of alkaline batteries called Oxyride that were far more powerful than Energizer. Since they didn’t have the budget to compete directly, Renegade came up with a truly guerrilla program called “Neuter your Bunny.” This tongue-in-cheek “public service” effort focused on heightening awareness of the benefits of bunny neutering. Turns out it calms the male bunnies down and prevents female bunnies from getting cervical cancer, a disease that otherwise strikes them with remarkably frequency. So Panasonic Oxyride batteries established Neuter Your Bunny day, donating 5 free neuterings and $10,000 to the House Rabbit Society. And despite the fact that PETA gave Panasonic an award for caring, the American press thought this was veiled yet hilarious competitive campaign writing headlines like “Panasonic Wants to Neuter Energizer” in over 30 publications from Time Magazine to Newsday.

Is there anything a business should NEVER do when it comes to guerrilla marketing?

It is generally not a good idea to do something that will cause someone on the team to go to jail. If you have to break the law to get attention then you probably need a different business model. Try not to annoy your target. A street team performer once shoved a donut in my face in order to get me to stop and go into a bank branch—this was not a fun experience for me or productive for the bank who would never ever get my business after that. Try not to think of guerrilla as a moment in time or as a simple street stunt. This will limit your horizons and the potential impact. And never tell the boss that your guerrilla program is going to be a hit before it becomes one. Its always better to under-promise and over-deliver especially with often unpredictable guerrilla endeavors.

CMO Insights: How A Cosmetics Brand Achieved Beautiful Growth in An Ugly Economy.

Posted on by Drew Neisser

When Ted Rubin grabbed the reins as CMO of e.l.f. cosmetics in 2008, he knew he was going to have to be inventive.  “There’s not a lot of margin in a $1.00 cosmetic,” he noted in my interview with him last week.  “I simply didn’t have a budget for paid media,” he added.  Yet despite this limitation, in just under two years Ted was able to help the company significantly increase its sales in one of the worst recessions in history, providing a textbook case for any aspiring guerrilla marketer.

1. Listen Up

Anyone who’s ever met Ted knows he’s a great talker who prides himself in responding to any query from any person as fast as humanly possible. BUT what they might not know is that he’s also a great listener, and he made listening his first priority when he arrived at e.l.f.  What he learned in his first 90 days provided the foundation for his subsequent success.  Scouring the web, Ted found hundreds of fans across multiple channels, many of whom provided invaluable feedback — feedback that he continued to seek as ideas began to percolate.

2. Sniff Out an Insight

Up until recently, e.l.f. cosmetics were sold mainly online, direct to consumers at an unbelievably low price point. Therein lay the challenge.  Even bargain hunters asked, “How could a one dollar cosmetic be any good?”  Ted realized that this rampant skepticism could not be overcome by any company messaging, and in fact would require extensive word of mouth in which one consumer reassured another that e.l.f. is indeed a high quality product.  Fortunately, during Ted’s listening period, he had found hundreds of delightfully chatty fans dispersed all over the web.

3. Hug Your Fans

Though e.l.f. had been early to the blogosphere, in late 2008 they had almost no presence on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.  So this is where Ted started, zealously responding to any mention of e.l.f. and engaging customers with instructional content that emphasized conversation over sales pitches.  In the process, Ted discovered hundreds of consumer-generated videos that featured e.l.f. products and consolidated these on a branded YouTube channel and created a hub for them on the distinct AskELF.com url.  During the course of 2009, e.l.f. became a social media powerhouse, accumulating in excess of 50,000 Facebook fans, over 50,000 Twitter followers (including Ted’s presence), and an astonishing 2.3 million+ views of user-generated videos!

4. Hold the Right Hands

Lots of brands pay lip service to the influential blogging/micro-blogging community by parsing out chunks of content they hope will be repurposed.  Ted took a far more personal approach, “nurturing each relationship” to the point that many became his close friends.  They also became a sounding board for ideas, one of which became the “Make Up at Home Parties,” a program that delighted the targeted bloggers so much that after 70 such parties, there is a waiting list of 250, and a galaxy of party-related content including text, pictures, Whrrls, and video that has been shared and shared again by thousands upon thousands of e.l.f. fans.

5. Tap into Metrics

As e.l.f.’s social media efforts were starting to take hold, Ted realized that “just building a large base of fans was insufficient.”  He needed to understand who was really engaged and if/how this was affecting sales.  Fortunately, the news was good.  As the fan base grew, so too did traffic to their online commerce site from social media sites, 75% of whom ended up being new visitors.  These new visitors demonstrated their commitment by buying product and signing up for the e.l.f. newsletter.  In fact, the e.l.f. database nearly doubled to 2.3 million by the end of 2009, a metric that was music to the ears of the company’s owners AND prospective marketing partners.

6. Reach for Partners

One of the ways Ted was able to stretch every precious marketing penny was by partnering with a host of brands with shared interests.  Conde Nast’s Allure Magazine provided content and gifts for the House Parties while the SheSpeaks.com network of product testers and bloggers helped find party hosts that would spread the word.  ExploreModeling.com was the perfect partner for a marketing contest called the “New Face of e.l.f” which sought out 4 models of various ages. Viral by design, contestants garnered over 800,000 votes supported by 40,000 pictures that in turn gained 35,000 comments.  With results like these, it is little wonder marketers like Virgin Mobile and Warner’s Bra along with J.C. Penney reached out to e.l.f. for more cross-promotions, most of which cost e.l.f. next to nothing.

7. Kiss and Tell

In the 4th quarter of 2009, e.l.f. was suddenly in 1700+ Target stores with a 4 foot end-cap. For a primarily online brand this was a huge retail expansion. “Target was totally enamored with our social media presence,” noted Ted, who suddenly had a “currency” he could exchange not just with other marketers but also retailers eager to share e.l.f.’s social media cache.  Marveling at how quickly the product sold once in Target, Ted noted, “A good part of what we built in social media enabled that to happen.”  With over 400 blog posts about e.l.f. entering Target, 2000 retweets of the new retail presence and customers snapping photos of product flying off the shelf, Target was so thrilled with the results it helped e.l.f. secure a permanent in-line presence in a significantly larger percentage of stores in early 2010 than originally planned.

Final Note: Early in his career, Ted worked for “America’s Greatest Marketer” Seth Godin, who by then had already co-authored The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook. Clearly Ted learned at the feet of a master, one who instilled the guerrilla credo that inventiveness and elbow grease can make up for a small budget every time.  Ted is taking that same spirit of inventiveness to OpenSky, introducing Relationship Commerce, and something he says “will change the face of e-tailing.” Ted is also a proud member of The CMO Club.

Viral Videos at Your Service

Posted on by Drew Neisser

It might be a stretch to call blatantly un-PC videos Marketing as Service but considering the target, I’m prepared to do just that. The videos, which can be completely customized at Enlist4hell.com, are meant to provide entertainment for grown-up gamers, particularly the ones that feast upon WW11 action video games. The service, if you will, is the ability to “ream out your buddy” in an anything but subtle manner.

It’s all in good fun unless you don’t think this kind of thing is fun in which case you’re definitely not in the target. If you are game and over 18, have some fun and make your own or at least watch the relatively tame video I created that stars Pinky (the French bulldog) by clicking here.


The marketer behind this service is Ubisoft, whose Brother in Arms: Hell’s Highway video game is one of the most anticipated games in its genre this year. Here’s what they say about it on Wikipedia:

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series of video games which follow a squad of men, of the 101st Airborne Division (502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment) led by the player-character Matt Baker. This game once again puts players in the role of Staff-Sergeant Matt Baker during Operation Market Garden in the later stages of WWII.

The game will be released on Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 3 on September 23, 2008.

Becky Ebenkamp has a nice write-up on the whole guerrilla/viral program on BRANDWEEK’s EX Files blog.