# guerilla marketing does it work?



## Blindkolor (Mar 29, 2007)

We are starting a new t shirt co and wanted to know if anybody has any really good marketing strategy? So far our guerilla strat is just that guerilla, stickers everywere from 5x5 to 12x8, from bathrooms to stop signs, so far little has come of it besides a small time graffiti ring.....but i want more effective methods..guerilla or not. and the prob with just starting off is that $$$ is low so we need cost effective stratagies. any ideas? 

thanks all


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## mystysue (Aug 27, 2006)

I really doubt that you want my opinion on this.. altho ill say it anyway..
Putting stickers on others property is wrong..
Graffetti is wrong.. and an eyesore.. and if caught Both methods could get you doing some time in jail and hefty fines..
I really cant understand why people think is ok to deface other peoples property. 

Just my 2 cents .. grumpy as they are..


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## Classic Rat (Feb 28, 2007)

Don't really have any help for you but here is a interesting little article on Gorilla marketing gone bad, pretty funny.
Gorillas gone bad!
Good luck


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## Blindkolor (Mar 29, 2007)

i understand mystysue np, all i really wanted some opinions, i know the whole graff thing is wrong but the thing is that i spent a good time of my child hood with graff and it is still in me, but as far as the marketing i see things like the obey giant every where and am looking to go that route.


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## Classic Rat (Feb 28, 2007)

I always though the story was that Obey started out as a graff "movement" and then someone got the bight Idea to copy write and sell it?


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## zagadka (Jul 6, 2006)

Classic Rat said:


> I always though the story was that Obey started out as a graff "movement" and then someone got the bight Idea to copy write and sell it?


well kind of!

it started because Shepard was kind of obsessed with andre the giant and sticker arts after visiting a college in NYC i do believe.

so he started putting the stuff on shirts and selling it in the skate shop he was working in and it just snowballed from there.

mystysue, while i understand where you are coming from, have you ever considered legalized form of graffiti an eyesore? meaning giant billboards, bus ads, ads in subways, etc to be equally ugly? that's another avenue OBEY goes down, challenging the fact that billboards and other marketing are accepted by the public, but wheatpasting, graffiti, etc isn't.

This is considered graffiti: 





















(I think this one was probably commissioned by the city of Chicago, but it goes to show you that street art can gain mainstream acceptance)

See more about the You Are Beautiful movement at You-are-beautiful.com


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## mystysue (Aug 27, 2006)

I never said. .its ugly.. I actually like some graffetti type art..
I just believe that it is wrong to deface others property.. If you own a building or sign or what ever.. then feel free.. but to put your art on someone elses property.. Is really not cool..


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## Mudskii (May 6, 2008)

I think it depends on _where_ you're putting the stickers, for example where I live there's an alternative shopping centre which is saturated every weekend with teenagers who are into that kind of thing (emo, goth, skater....whatever its called these days - I'm getting old!) Anyway if you were to put your stickers in the bathrooms of somewhere like that its unlikely that anyone will raise a fuss (given that the bathrooms are already plastered with peoples myspace urls and the like) Plus, its very useful if that is your target market.

If you did the same thing in the bathrooms of a local country club or something....well its likely to get traced back to you, I don't know if its exactly _illegal _given that stickers are removable, but then again its probably classed as fly posting in some circumstances. And remember-some poor sod will have to remove it.

Its a bit of a grey area I suppose. 

Ideally you should find out where your target market hangs out and put your stickers there - eg a local skate park, I cant imagine anyone objecting to stickers appearing around there. 

The only other thing I can think of is giving the stickers away to people either face to face or packaged in with the mail orders. This would work best if the sticker was an icon - a face or logo with your company name as part of it, instead of just the company name or web address alone. If its a cool/cute/funny sticker people are more likely to want to stick it somewhere. 

A company I ordered from recently does this, they sent me a small sheet of stickers (about 1x1cm each) with various logos and their website. They had a competition where customers stuck the stickers "somewhere cool" and emailed a pic to the site and the best one would win a prize, though they did advise people to "stick responsibly" lol

I think that's another point, to minimise the chances of there being a problem you should probably make sure you're stickers aren't placed anywhere "obstructive" So don't put stickers on public safety information signs, fire extinguishers and the like. I know it seems unlikely that one little sticker could cause a problem and it probably is, the thing is you don't want to give anyone trying to nail you for it any more "ammo".

Putting one on the post for the Stop sign would be less obstructive than on the sign itself.

Phew...sorry that this is so long winded. This is by no means gospel truth, its just my thoughts on the matter


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## dirtyjerz (May 6, 2008)

Stickers are solid, you wont get bit for putting up a sticker unless you stick one on a Banksy. I love graffiti when its done well, but who wants to tag the name of a t-shirt company on something? 

Just put out a sick product and it will sell. If you are confident with what you have, then give a grip of them away to your friends and make sure they wear them out a lot. Repetition and the forums like this one will do it.

thats my two cents, take it for what its worth.


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## Xeon (Aug 11, 2007)

LOL, my latest idol is now BlindKolor.


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## MiNGLED (Aug 22, 2007)

The only true way to do guerilla marketing is to do something unique. Stickers, whatever their rights or wrongs, are hardly guerilla marketing as everyone does them and so they hardly achieve standout (sorry, lapsing into marketing speak). Something which was started a couple of years ago (in London anyway) was 'clean media'. This was the reverse of graffiti; by using a stencil, the person created a area of clean space on a dirty wall or floor which showed just the logo (or whatever). This was only used a few times before the idea got old but it was interesting when it was done. Of course it worked best in the context of the advertiser, which is the real key; whatever you do it needs to relate back to the product to make it relevant.


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

I have always understood that the essence of guerilla marketing, and all the 'guerilla' related books, was to simply OUT THINK your competition using creative, imaginative ways to "get your name out". That is the essential core concept. 


So if anyone else is already doing stickers, or public tagging, and youre just doing those same things, that's hardly a 'guerilla concept'. To me, tagging and stickers have been done forever, in a million ways already -- not much originality is left there, so it's little wonder youre not seeing much return on it. 

I suppose taking your tagging and stickers to a higher level, and getting yourself arrested multiple times, and on the front page of the local paper & on the local tv news, might actually be considered Guerilla if that was your plan -- to have 15-23 y.o demographic label you "cool" and a "rebel". But if the plan is to put coin in your pocket right away, even that may not work so well as it's a bit of a long term strategy.

YMMV (your mileage may vary) on the definition, but to me, guerilla marketing takes planning, thought, originality, and insight to come up with a better, craftier plan than anyone else has done, or is currently doing, in your 'hood. It's not easy to do well, and you can NEVER get your ideas from a book on guerilla marketing as those ideas are allready taken by people who read the book before you did.

So if unique, creative & originality is not happening, you're probably not quite getting the essence of 'guerilla'. Start over try again, put some real thought behind it....

...hope that gets ya thinking along the lines of 'new' and 'never been done before' -- instead of tired and overdone already (and illegal).

here's a wiki on the GM concept (note the first sentence, its the important one.):
Guerrilla marketing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

d


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## Blindkolor (Mar 29, 2007)

xeon i think you just made my myspace page...lol..

well mingled I think you know exactly what im talking about. 

we dont pick a spray can and throw up my website of course, we have our mascott/logo on our stickers and are hoping that logo will get recognized and stick to the minds of our demo, 

we dont put stickers up in country clubs either, most of it is going where there is already a bunch of stickers, bars and clubs (depends on the club or bar if it is an upscale bar or a well maintained club the sticker will only be up a few hours so no real impact) we have put some up in public such as the back of stop signs, those big telephone boxes on the side of the road, phone posts..etc...so far every thing that has been put up is still up for the most part and other writers havent gone over it they just paint around it....our demo would be for the most part graff writers, skaters, djs, bboys, mc's, etc....so far we have got a lot of support although it maybe illegal in the graff world people respect others that "get up" every where and that is what we are doing...but enough about stickers any new ideas?


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## Blindkolor (Mar 29, 2007)

just a sample of what im talking about.


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## zagadka (Jul 6, 2006)

Dave is on point.

Is that one sticker you posted, or two?

What is your brand about- what inspires you? From what you have posted, I think I know where you're coming from, but if I were to see your sticker on the street, I don't think I would bother looking it up because it looks so similar to what other sticker artists have done. By no means am I trying to discredit what you're doing or making. But, since you have so much to visually compete with I would go a completely different route than the Mexican wrestler and spray can. I can only speak for myself, but stickers that are completely stark and clean with minimal information always get my attention more so than anything else.

But, I am just one person and one opinion.


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## Comin'OutSwingin (Oct 28, 2005)

Dave has very good points.

Another thing to consider is that brand recognition and/or awareness does not necessarily equal effective marketing.

If your marketing efforts, guerrilla or traditional, does not translate to sales then your efforts are in vain.

I recently read a book called "Your Marketing Sucks" by Mark Stevens. He addresses this in his book. Just because you're spending money, and getting your name out there doesn't mean what you're doing is effective. This is especially true if you're going the guerrilla way, because you don't have the same budget as the big boys, and therefore need to focus on low-cost ways to market that are *effective*.

The only way for marketing to be effective is for that marketing to lead to sales.

The basic premise of Mark Stevens' book is that for every marketing dollar you spend, you should reap at least those dollars back in sales, plus some. If you spend $200 on stickers and that leads to $100 in sales, then in the words of Mr. Stevens: "Your marketing sucks".

So, yes, guerrilla marketing works if you do the guerrilla tactics that are effective.

Anybody interested in the "Your Marketing Sucks" book, can check out their site:

MSCO - Your Marketing Sucks

Your Marketing Sucks


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Blindkolor said:


> just a sample of what im talking about.


not to slag you in any way, the design is cool and all, but if I saw your stuff up on Fairey's site I would just assume it was totally his. I would never guess that another artist designed it, made it, owned it. The concept, the colors. the style. To me, none of that is at all original since SF made it famous over 15 years ago.

*Concept:*
So clearly, your "wrestler's bust" idea as your central piece is a direct lift from SF's same concept using andre the giant. Youre slight twist on it is that it is a lucha libre instead of a wwf guy. Nothing new there at all. Honestly, if im going to drop coin on a tee why shouldnt I just go to SF's site and get the same concept but done by a famous artist? He did it before you, and yours looks like a concept knock off to me. 

So your concept has already been done by someone more famous than you selling the same product you are. (tees, posters, etc)

*style:*
Again, I see incredible similarity to what SF was doing earlier in his career to the logo you posted. Sure now SF has moved on and his style now is more refine and complex using patterns and such. (aside: sadly SF is basically now doing celebrity/personality portaits since the masses will buy them up quicker. funny too-- he's exactly mirroing what warhol did once he became famous with his celebrity portaits.)

So your style has already been done by someone more famous than you selling the same product you are.


*marketing technique:*
how did SF get his start? Graf, stickers. In fact his initial goal wasn't to sell shirts or merchandise his art at all, just get his stuff to his skater buds. 

So your marketing tech has already been done by someone more famous than you selling the same product you are.


CONCLUSION:
Your art that youve posted isnt really original, frankly, it's very derivative. If people can go to a famous persons site, I.e. Shepard Fairey's, and buy essetially the same thing, a tee, for essentially the same price, but from someone famous with the original art -- where do you think they are going to go?

Try this: Ask all the 16 year olds in your hood that you can get your hands on (NOT YOUR FRIENDS OR CURRENT CUSTOMERS!) : "Would you rather have a tee designed by SF and autographed by him, OR one by Blindkolor?

Their answer will speak volumes to you... 

...but to relate this all back to the topic you started with your OP:

How can your friends, homies, potential customers get totally behind you when your competing almost directly with SF's concept, style, marketing technique to sell your tees? Your concept is frightningly similar. Your style is almost indistingusable from his early works. And you are trying to use his exact same method to sell your stuff -- street cred, graf, stickers.

So from an outsider's perspective, there's very, very little originality going on with the art -- and that's where you need to apply your guerilla marketing strategy.

to put it another way: your arts cool and all, but if i got a couple of Jacksons to drop on a tee or two, Im heading over to SF's site to get the original innovation-- not to buy the knock offs.


d


PS -- Again, Im not trying to bust on you in anyway, Im sure you have far more artistic talent in one fingernail than I have in my entire family tree. Just trying to point out that you really have to have something unique going on to move to the top of the heap in marketing.

Just to show you Im a stand up guy-- I'll give you your first real guerilla marketing tip. Ok, so kill me, technically it's a guerilla 'direct sales' tip. You can use it to make some easy coin while keeping the "cool street cred" image for your biz without becoming a hopeless sellout like me--- making tees to youth soccer teams.

here's the tip:
Try to get get some art worked up in your style on a tee -- a portrait of britney spears somehow mocking her. Get that on a black tshirt. Now head over to all the online gossip websites selling tshirts in their sidebar columns. There are hundreds of these sites! 

Try to wrangle a deal with a several of them to use of your art on their tees for $1 per tee sold. They have MILLIONS and millions of hits per day. If you can work that kind of deal I guarantee you'll be pulling six figures within one year. 

Once you get that first foot in the door and that concept working, do the exact same thing for shirts with those creepy american idols kids on them every season. New kids new shirts. then do paris hilton, perez hilton, simon cowell, etc, etc, etc --- youre well on your way to your first $ mil. (dont forget to cut me a check for 10% for the idea, mmm,k? ) 

The only thing stopping you is your sales skillz to those website owners. I know the concept would sell like hotcakes to all the poeple who like to see d-list celebs mocked -- basically 50% of those visiting online gossip sites.

FYI, "britney spears" is always in the top 5 highest 'googled' phrases-- that why the sites get such an outrageously huge volume of visitors and sales.
Google Zeitgeist 2007

act fast. others on this forum are already seeing lightbulbs pop, and huge dollar signs in front of the computer screen. And unlike me, they can mimic SF's art just as well as you can.


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## Fedo (Apr 28, 2008)

I agree with you zagadka


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## krylonking (Aug 28, 2007)

read DaveM's post... wash rinse repeat..


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## mystysue (Aug 27, 2006)

Yups I too am with DaveM on this one..


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## Blindkolor (Mar 29, 2007)

dave thanks,

i appreciate the contsturctive crticizm, although i do like the whole giant brand i really want to develop my own brand, i see your point very similar (back to the drawing board). but the whole celeb idea is a cash cow i dont think i want to head that route. I am trying to build a brand built on one of a kind art. i know the stickers are very simple (find pic of blue demon, cut, paste, black, white, vuallllllllaaaaaaah) but most of the stuff actually being printed on the shirt is nothing like that, at most the maskara is going to be used inside the shirt as the tag. 

I do appreciate all the feed back it has me thinking again!


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Blindkolor said:


> dave thanks,
> 
> i appreciate the contsturctive crticizm, although i do like the whole giant brand i really want to develop my own brand, i see your point very similar (back to the drawing board). but the whole celeb idea is a cash cow i dont think i want to head that route. I am trying to build a brand built on one of a kind art. i know the stickers are very simple (find pic of blue demon, cut, paste, black, white, vuallllllllaaaaaaah) but most of the stuff actually being printed on the shirt is nothing like that, at most the maskara is going to be used inside the shirt as the tag.
> 
> I do appreciate all the feed back it has me thinking again!


 np. 

cool. glad I didnt piss you off -- not my intent at all. no slight meant on you, your art, or your biz in any way. 

You can still do the hokey celeb shirts while your working your brand for take off. I think a sort of knock off tees of Fairey's stuff would be kind of funny. Sorta like uncool celebutants done in his style, mocking them. I pictured a headshot of britney with a cig hanging from her mouth and a starbucks near her lips. you could push the irony a bit farther by saying "Britney has a posse" under that -- and show a few paps with camera's following her around.

Or another idea, show her dad & his lawyer in one frame and in the frame next to it show her. then under it, the text "OBEY", etc, etc, etc. So much stuff you can riff off and do. And because they would be kinda clever and hip with the street graphics, it would totally appeal to hipsters, shemos, and haters everywhere.

I certainly understand if that's crap youre not the least bit interested in. Sometimes ya gotta make art that appeals to you or you're only in for the coin. 

You could always just use a different name if you dont want that type of thing associated with or tied into or diluting your brand. Quick money can be a good thing sometimes to pump into marketing for your brand instead of havinf to 'guerilla' it on the no budget plan.


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## daveM (Mar 29, 2008)

Blindkolor said:


> ...i do like the whole giant brand...


Yeah, I dig fairey's stuff too. Have liked it since I lived in NYC where those 'posse' flyers would be posted all over dead buildings, phone boxes, etc. Cool shiznit then, and I like his current stuff alot too -- except those skater boy portraits. Those dont do much for me.

SF is a great brand to emulate though. He's really got his brand's biz act together as an outsider looking in at him. 

What his art has evolved into, I actually enjoy more than the early renegade stuff. I love the clean style, and some of his pattern work around the subjects is great.

If I remember right his whole rise to popular fame beyond his cultlike fans evolved from a few chance/lucky breaks involving film or tv:

-a film about his work by one of his RISD pals that made it into sundance festival got him national exposure.

-somehow getting MTV to shoot some footage of kids posting his flyers and run it ad nauseum as a promo, like they are know to do sometimes got him international exposure.

So from a guerilla marketing analysis:
Basically without those two key mass media exposure events, he's simply a skate culture guy doing his art, most people would have never heard of him.


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