Create a Guerrilla Marketing Campaign for a Fictional Product

What is Guerrilla Marketing?

Come Up With an Idea For a Fictional Product

This week, you'll be submitting the idea for your fictional product As a reminder, you're taking a b
- This week, you'll be submitting the idea for your fictional product
- As a reminder, you're taking a blank sheet of paper and using your imagination to turn that into a fictional product. Note - you don't actually have to physically turn a piece of paper into anything (though you're welcome to if you'd like). This can absolutely be theortical/in your imagination.
- This isn't meant to be serious or take too long (as a guideline, I used to give students 10-15 minutes to do this in my in-person Skillshare workshops that I did)
- You are encouraged to be as creative (and/or silly) as you'd like. In the past, students have come up with products as out there as weapons that heretofore don't exist (and likely aren't scientifically possible) and ultra-thin TVs with all-white screens.
- Your submission doesn't need to be anything more than a written description (though you're welcome to post drawings, images, or anything else that you'd like!)
- Submit your project idea here by Tuesday, October 16th.
- For more on what this first project milestone is all about, please review Week 1's Office Hours here (if you haven't already). If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to post them in the discussions!
- OPTIONAL: Come up with a brand for your product as well (brand name, position in the market, etc.)
Share Your Fictional Product
Share the name and description of your fictional product (i.e. what you re-imagined your sheet of paper as).

Feel free to share it via whatever means you feel appropriate - written, visual (drawing, photos, etc.), video, interactive, or even a prototype!

Create Your Guerrilla Campaign

This week, you'll be submitting your final project - an idea for a Guerrilla Marketing campaign to m
This week, you'll be submitting your final project - an idea for a Guerrilla Marketing campaign to market your product!

a) If you missed the livestream and haven't done so already, please check out the Office Hours session from last week here, as I go over the project in-depth.

b) If you didn't come up with a product idea for last week, feel free to select one of the existing submissions and complete the project for that product!

c) As the focus of this course isn't on branding, we're not going to spend too much time on this. That said, I would like you to at least do the following:
1. Come up with a name for your product.
2. Think about what need your product fills (even if it's just providing entertainment), and how your product substantiates that need (does it have the best technology? Is it something completely new to the market? etc)
d) Think about the following as you come up with the idea for your Guerrilla campaign:
- Define Your Market - who are you selling this to (who is your audience)? Who's going to buy this, and why?
- Where is your audience - Where are you going to reach your market?
- What's the one message you want to convey to your audience?
- What do you want people to do? Ultimately, you want them to buy your product, but there are many paths to buying. You may want people to go to a website for more information. You may want them to share it via social networks. Or perhaps you simply want them to talk about it with their friends.
e) To follow up on the above, your final idea should do three things:
1. Get Attention - How do you cut through the media clutter that exists in people's lives?
2. Engagement - We not only want to get someone's attention, we want them to engage with the idea, to get a dialogue going.
3. Have a Call to Action - What do you want people to do as a result of your communication?
Two final notes:
- a) Your idea should not use paid media (television ads, billboards, etc.)
- b) Think about white space. Where is their white space for your market? Where are your competitors NOT marketing? (think back to the Syfy laundromat campaign. None of Syfy's competitors were marketing in laundromats.)
Share your Guerrilla Campaign
Share your final campaign for your project. Feel free to share it via whatever means you feel appropriate - written, visual (photos, drawings, etc.), or even video.

Class Wrap-Up / Feedback

Additional Resources

1) What is Guerrilla Marketing?

2) A companion video to go with the case study explained in the above resource (once you've read through it)

For This Week:
This week is about introducing you to Guerrilla Marketing and the project for this class.
1. Tune in to the live Office Hours here on Tuesday, October 9th at 7 pm EST. Don’t worry if you can’t make the live stream - we’ll be posting a recording of it the next day. In this first office hours, I’ll be introducing the class, explaining the first project milestone, and answering any questions that you have.
2. Check out this week’s resources above.
3. I encourage you to create or join an online group (if you haven’t already) to work through your projects! You can do so here.
4. Begin working on the first stage of your project - brainstorming a new product:
- Take a blank sheet of white paper. Using creativity and your imagination, turn that sheet of paper into a new product that doesn’t yet exist in the market. Be as fantastical as you wish. This doesn’t need to be anything more than a written description, but you can feel free to go above and beyond if you wish!
- You'll be presenting this next week as your first project milestone (this is the product for which you'll be coming up with the idea for a Guerrilla campaign.) A simple written description will suffice, though you're more than welcome to present it any way you wish!
- OPTIONAL - Create a brand around this product (the brand name, its personality, its positioning in the market, etc.).
1) Guerrilla and Commercial Art

I saw this article today. It's certainly "guerrilla" in execution and tone. The question is, is it marketing or art? Remains to be seen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19858746

The art/marketing issue is an interesting one. I'm a long term fan of Banksy. I used to live in Dalston, London back when he was still a bit of a mystery. His work always delighted, shocked and got you thinking.

He's not much of a fan of advertising, take a look at this manifesto:

http://adverveblog.com/post/18489328890/banksy-on-advertising

This is coming from the producer of the world's best selling art book and owner of his own trademarked name, Banksy(TM)

So is this art or marketing. His he a hypocrite? Discuss!

2) Guerrilla Musicians

Musicians have long used stunts and guerrilla tactics to further their commercial aims. Here is a list of some stunts (not all guerrilla but thought it may inspire):

http://www.virginmedia.com/music/features/shameless-publicity-stunts.php?page=1

Here are more musician stunts:

http://www.nme.com/photos/musics-25-wildest-publicity-stunts/210470/5/1

I just happened to see the Snoop/Adidas/Star Wars stunt in Soho. Typically for NYC, no one took the blindest bit of notice! Shows how far you need to go to get attention if a phalanx of Adidas wearing story troopers being lead by Snoop doesn't do it!

3) Guerrilla Brands - http://www.applevisualgraphics.com/blog/2011/05/its-a-jungle-out-there/

Folgers coffee with the help from Saatchi and Saatchi created this campaign which I recall caused a bit of a stir (pun intended) when it was covered by various blogs (mostly trade). I don't believe it's guerrilla marketing, I'd term this ambient marketing.

In the end, as long as the communication works in meeting it's objective at a price you can afford, media channel names don't really matter. However, I can all but guarantee the client would be paying big agency prices for this campaign, which to my mind, is counter to the guerrilla ethos.

It's still a good use of environmental items. Mind you, I wouldn't want to be close enough to smell it...
As you come up with the ideas for your Guerrilla Marketing campaigns, here are some links that may help inspire.

Past Campaigns:

1) Ikea Manhattan Guerrilla Blitz

2) An academic look at the (in)famous Sony Ericsson Guerrilla stunt, with an emphasis on ethics

3) With Akaash's "snow product" in mind , check out two of my personal case studies for both Dockers and British Airways

4) What I would call a "stunt for stunts" sale - Mentos Gum

Three blogs for general inspiration with a slight bias towards brands and marketing:

1) PSFK

2) Faris Yakob's Blog

3) Brand Twist's Blog

Lastly, we didn't get into Branding in much detail, so here are some book (22 Laws in particular is pretty good), and a few more here.
Please check out the books that I've recommended for further reading!

Lastly, we didn't get into Branding in much detail, so here are some book (22 Laws in particular is pretty good), and a few more here.

Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson Written by the "godfather of guerrilla". Frankly, it's a bit dull, but it does give you a solid grounding in guerrilla marketing.

45 by Bill Drummond Bill Drummond was one half of seminal British rave group The KLF. The KLF gave me much inspiration when I was in bands back I the early 90s. They got me into guerrilla thinking and spurred most of my early PR Stunt work.

Cosmic Trigger Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson Self-described Guerrilla Ontologist, the late, great Robert Anton Wilson will blow your mind and put it back together in a completely different shape. If you want to learn how to think sideways, this trilogy will do the trick. Be warned, you won't be the same again.

The Artist's Way by Julie Cameron

Abe Lincoln

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