Guerrilla marketing, known for its bold and unconventional approach, has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses to break through the noise and leave a lasting impression on their target market. In this article, we delve into five guerrilla marketing tactics that have proven to be highly effective in yielding success. From sidewalk chalk art to kidnapping customers (consensually of course), here are five impactful guerrilla marketing tactics that yielded success.

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Contents

1 Sidewalk Chalk Art
2 Promotional Full-Vehicle Wrap
3 Host a Free Virtual Summit
4 The “Fearless Girl” Statue
5 Fiji Water’s Fiji Girls Campaign
6 Consensually Kipnap Customers

Sidewalk Chalk Art

I remember this local café that used guerrilla marketing brilliantly. They didn’t have a big budget, so they got creative. They started leaving chalk art messages on sidewalks and in parks around the city. These weren’t just ads; they were witty, coffee-themed quotes and playful drawings that connected with their target audience’s love for coffee. The impact? People started sharing pictures of these chalk arts on social media, tagging the café, and it created a buzz. Foot traffic increased, and the café gained a reputation for being fun and engaging. This approach worked because it was unexpected, interactive, and built a community feel. It’s a classic example of how thinking outside the box can create a big impact, even with limited resources.

1634904348931 6 Impactful Guerrilla Marketing Tactics That Yielded Success

Anup Kayastha, Founder, Serpnest

Promotional Full-Vehicle Wrap

When it comes to local guerrilla marketing, a full-vehicle wrap can be an incredibly powerful marketing tactic for businesses that have cars, trucks, or vans that are frequently on the road.

Given that vehicle wraps can receive as much as 12 million views per year and have a 97% brand recall rate, a new guerilla marketing trend emerged in 2023: swarming. Swarming is where businesses wrap their vehicle fleet with hyper-relevant messaging and head-turning designs, then drive their fleet of vehicles around major events in their service area, such as concerts and NFL games.

More than 90% of business owners who have used vehicle marketing tactics stated that it was the most effective form of local advertising.

1516527522759 6 Impactful Guerrilla Marketing Tactics That Yielded Success

Doug Bondon, CEO & President, Artisan Colour

Host a Free Virtual Summit

At ProActuary, our most successful guerrilla marketing tactic was to put on a free-to-attend global 3-day virtual summit event. Putting on our first event, The Digital Actuary, resulted in 4,257 attendees from 63 countries and increased our brand exponentially across the globe as well as building our email list by thousands.

1689441939614 6 Impactful Guerrilla Marketing Tactics That Yielded Success

Dr Mark Farrell (FIA), CEO, Associate Professor & Actuary, ProActuary Jobs

The “Fearless Girl” Statue

The “Fearless Girl” statue campaign by State Street Global Advisors is one of the most famous examples of successful guerrilla marketing. In 2017, the investment firm installed a bronze statue of a young girl facing the iconic Charging Bull statue near Wall Street in New York City.

The campaign wanted to symbolize gender diversity and challenge the lack of women in leadership roles in finance. The impact was immediate and profound. The Fearless Girl statue got widespread media coverage and went viral on social media.

It sparked conversations about gender equality, corporate governance, and the need for more women in leadership. State Street Global Advisors also noted positive effects on their own businesses, emphasizing their commitment to gender diversity in investment companies.

Perry Zheng Featured 6 Impactful Guerrilla Marketing Tactics That Yielded Success

Perry Zheng, Founder and CEO, Pallas

Fiji Water’s Fiji Girls Campaign

Fiji Water’s Fiji Girls campaign is a successful instance of guerrilla marketing. The concept was deceptively simple. They hired beautiful women to hand out free water bottles at red-carpet events. The trick is that these women would dress in blue, distinguishing themselves from the sea of people wearing black. The advantage? They got featured in many high-profile photographs, turning those water servers into brand ambassadors.

It had two benefits, one obvious and the other not. The obvious benefit was the increased brand visibility through numerous appearances. People began recognizing the brand, and the unusual tactic created a buzz. The not-so-obvious benefit was the association with high-profile events and celebrities. It created a luxurious image in the market, drawing customers from across the aisle. It shows that you can market any product, simple or complex if you are willing to think outside the box.

Faizan Khan Featured 7 6 Impactful Guerrilla Marketing Tactics That Yielded Success

Faizan Khan, Public Relation and Content Marketing Specialist, Ubuy Australia

Consensually Kipnap Customers

A few years back we did something called Gym Napping. We have a white van that we use to deliver supplements to our brick-and-mortar retail stores so we’d pull up to a gym, go inside and kidnap someone, bring them back to our office, have them try and review various supplements. With their permission of course we weren’t actually kidnapping people against their will. It was kind of a fun thing, it helped us to make content and it kind of became something which was known locally so people would know what was going on when our van pulled up. The Youtube Channel we used to post these to wind up being taken down so I don’t have any videos to share but we’ve considered starting it up again on our current channel.