A special poster for a chain of motorway restaurant.
It's a sultry evening in a small town in Northern India. In a middle income group residential colony, children are playing. In saunters a mini van painted yellow with the words Maggi painted across in a squiggly-hand font. Two young men set up a cooking device and begin cooking the noodles. The strong smell of 'masala' wafts in the air. Curious children assemble and watch, mouths watering. Soon the children get a plateful of the wonder squiggles, all for free, with mini samplers thrown in. Mono sodium glutamate notwithstanding, the Maggi Noodle snack arrives in a traditional small town. Those were the pre-INSAT days when print advertisements ruled the roost and life was relatively free of eyeball catching frenzies of the ad world. What a way to attack the target directly! Rewind still further back in time, to the days of the jingle.
A jingle for a particular brand of men's inner-wear would pierce eardrums and crouch into the temporal, lingering on with the sheer strength of its irritability - so irritable that the brand name keeps pounding in your memory - brand recall at its irritable best."VIP"becomes a name synonymous with undergarments and at the point of purchase,the point of purchase, rings a loud bell.
Not too far beyond was the mascot- touted branding, iconising a product or service. The Air-India Maharaja held the promise of royalty. Ah well, there were no non-frill Y classes then and those who came close to royalty and people earning in foreign currency, flew with the Maharaja. Ultimately, the mascot proved better than the brand, helped weave dreams that the brand could not live up to. The Maharaja's creator, Bobby Kooka, also created the 'little Lotta- lookalike', the utterly, butterly, mascot for Amul Butter. The mascot combined with contemporar y topics laced with humour became a signature line for the brand. Hoardings with catchy captions invited attention, catapulting the Amul girl into a household name. While Amul lives on and so does Bibendium, the Michelin Man born in 1908 and some Some 'timely' promotions for Amul Butter.
international names, many mascots have since scooted.These are some of the tactics that has caught the attention of the public - out of the box advertising ideas that digressed tottaly from the trodden path. In 1984, Jay conrad Levison coined the word 'guerrilla marketing' to denote creative, compelling, low budget marketing strategies.
Guerrilla marketing is an unconfined, unplugged 'monkeying' around to get the message accross. The basic Ingredients of guerrilla arketing are a high level of creativity and passion for the product or service. However bizarre the idea, however high the brand recall, the brand does need to deliver on the implied promises made to customers with every campaign.The guru of guerrilla marketing has authored the "Guerrilla Marketing" series of books that sold over 14 million copies and is currently available in 42 languages.
The question of ethics also comes to play. Guerrilla Marketing may appear to be some kind of rogue advertising but not quite. Its existence is at stake if unethical means are adopted and laws of the land are broken. Microsoft's MSN butterflies stuck over store w i ndows , walls and subway stations in New York city lasted 24 hours. It was an illegal campaign and Microsoft issued an apology to the City of New York. The controversy and deliberations however, gave enough publicity, and perhaps helped move away from a 'nerdy' perception of the brand.
Case of the guerrilla merchants
A New York Times' magazine in 2004 repor ted a ver y successful case of undercover pedalling. In the wake of t h e m o b i le phone in vasion , a mobile phone maker hired actors and let them play out their role on the streets, with a live audience. An actor would place the mobile phone in the hands of a passerby and request him to take a picture of himself - and rest his case! This is reality advertising at its best. Product demo, brand experience, customer contact and feedback and live platform for customer psychology data.
Similarly, a leading digital camera maker sent their sales representatives as tourists to corner people on the street to take a picture of him. The customer experiences first hand, the ease with which a picture can be taken and with minimum fuss. Of course, this works only if the product and its features have a strong ground to stand on.
Yet another twist to the guerrilla movement is the anonymity and reach offered by the world wide web. Consider the problem of a digital gaming product marketer. The audience age is approximately 10 to 30 years, predominantly male. The range is wide, attention span is minimal and lifestyles varied.
The common grounds for pitching are the chat room sand digital online communities. What better way to market a product than to hire a salesman who uses the product and is passionate about it? Participation in the chats will yield prospective gamers who can be hired to pitch for the product directly to the consumer at minimal cost through blogs, chat rooms and other online game zones.
The salesman understands the product and the consumer, and, is making easy money for doing something he loves. There's a lot happening out there in a wired world. People are hired, products are marketed, the buzz is created, public relations built, views noticed - no costs, no noise.
is the marketing campaign of James the Magician. Chennai city suddenly got abuzz with the magical Mr James. James Senior was a magician too. The Senior's junior, Kennedy, continued to use his father's name to tout his services. In a burgeoning
middle class society, entertainment for private events, children's birthday parties, etc., gained momentum and hey presto, P James with a few tricks under his hat got into business.
The need came first or the service is hard to gauge. P James, launched his guerrilla marketing campaign by painting the words, 'P James Magician, Phone no 98410725 7 1 ' all over the walls, on bridges, etc., around the city of Chennai. His scrawl on the walls have become a par t and parcel of Chennai's graffiti. The graffiti also evolved with technological advents. His message with the phone number got upgraded with a mobile number once this handy walky-talky hit the world. Now P James is reachable directly, instantly. There are an estimated 30,000 instances o f his advertisement. He has,spent about 14 years painting the graffiti,by himself in the night.
He uses a mixture of black oxide and Fevicol adhesive for the paint, as this is cheap, and rain proof. Aggressively contested for wall-space by politica parties, commercial products and cinema posters, James, managed to achieve a very high 'graffiti-density'. His campaign was fast gaining eyeballs and resulting in winning deals but the magic campaign soon came to an end. Chennai city authorities came down heavily on huge hoardings and illegal banners that choked the city's skyline. P James' graffiti sales pitch came down as the Commissioner of Police instructed him to call off his campaign.
Yet, he is the local, 'mom- and-pop' entertainment outfit that the whole city talks and blogs about. Blogs are the shortest cut to the other side of the world. P James and his marketing are discussed even in the US and has got listed in Wikipedia. There are some electronic versions of newsletters featuring the smart magician.
In a data driven world, the prospective customer base is huge and the venues for marketing are numerous.Amidst this constant bombardment of sales pitches, there is too much noise and nothing is heard at all . The customeral so has technology tools to block out marketing efforts.
It is the occasional P James' of the world that are heard. If Microsoft can, can't James or any body else? A little bit of chutzpah, a little bit of ingenuity and very little money - a guerrilla campaign engulfs you and you hardly realize. Spoof, you're hooked!
James' Nemesis
On an electrical junction box on the roadside, one would expect to see a helpline or emergency telephone number. But some junction boxes and visible areas in Chennai sport a n e w m e s s a g e f r o m Ja c k t h e magician. Is it James' nemesis or is it a campaign variation strategy to retain market share? A simple call to that number would solve the puzzle. But beware, you would fall prey to the shadow marketing tactics of the undercover marketer!