Research pick: Guerrilla marketing - "From dancing on the street to dating online: evaluating guerrilla street marketing performance"

How do marketing professionals evaluate the success or otherwise of their guerilla marketing campaigns? That is the question addressed in the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising.

Thérèse Roux of the Department of Marketing, Logistics and Sport Management at Tshwane University of Technology in Pretoria, South Africa and Marcel Saucet of the University of San Diego in California, USA, explain how consumers are exposed to a wide range of advertising and media every day with countless brands vying for attention. Many advertisers have, for several years, incorporated out-of-home media channels such as guerrilla street marketing to try and grab customer attention through surprising, bewildering, and otherwise novel campaigns.

There have been numerous high-profile examples of guerilla marketing in recent years: Japanese vehicle manufacturer Toyota launched its new RAV4 Hybrid car by creating a gigantic outdoor climbing wall in the in the middle of Times Square in New York City and allowed novice climbers to have a go. Swedish home furniture and fittings retailer Ikea opened a pop-up DIY restaurant in London where locals could prepare family dinners under the supervision of celebrity chefs. Commuters in Colombia were encouraged by sportswear and equipment company Reebok to join an exercise session in pop-up-gymnasiums within bus shelters.

The team has reviewed the research literature as well as interviewing marketing communications professionals from large internationally recognised agencies as well as smaller independent guerrilla marketing companies. “Professionals carefully and purposefully select appropriate environments and combine distinctive instruments to track cognitive, affective and behavioural responses,” the team writes. In that context, they have found that the effects of guerrilla street marketing are moving from performance at the street level to acquiring and quantifying online diffusion. They add that their work, which is among the first such investigation, will help improve our understanding of the practices of experienced professionals and identify practical techniques that can be used to evaluate contemporary street guerrilla marketing.

Savvy marketing agencies have already recognized that a guerilla marketing campaign on the street has the potential to “go viral” on social media and extend the reach way beyond those who see it live to the millions who might view videos and photos of such an event captured by the public or even those involved in the campaign. The team suggests that we are now seeing an evolution from asking a limited number of customers to be involved, figuratively speaking, in “dancing in the street” to providing a point of interest and engagement for global, online “socializing” that will hopefully boost brand reach and engagement, and on the bottom line, sales of the product or service being marketed.

Roux, T. and Saucet, M. (2020) ‘From dancing on the street to dating online: evaluating guerrilla street marketing performance’, Int. J. Internet Marketing and Advertising, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.336–359.