The Irony of Guerrilla Ads

Kaiser Guerrilla Ad Image
Guerrilla advertisements was a concept that was covered in the movie that we watched in class, "The Persuaders." For anyone who is forgetful, guerrilla ads are ads that pop up in random and unexpected places. Places where one would not expect to see an ad, as they would on TV or in the newspaper. This description is vague, so some examples of guerrilla advertisements are ads that you see on a closing elevator door, ads that are plastered on a bench, and even ads that cover the inside of a bathroom stall.

This weekend, I noticed guerrilla advertising, and for the first time in my life, I was able to put a name on it. I saw an ad for Kaiser Permanente on the side of a bus station. On top of being a guerrilla advertisement, it was also high concept. It depicted a women stretching, looking relaxed and put together. The clever caption to accompany it read, "Don't just stand there." Kaiser is a health care company and they are not literally selling the feeling of being calm and confident. However, the picture that they displayed communicated exactly this, attempting to make viewers feel this way about Kaiser health care.

While the content of the high-concept ad made sense, the method marketing, the guerrilla technique, confuses me. The purpose of guerrilla ads is to catch you off guard. They are supposed to be unexpected and refreshing, leaving an imprint on viewers. No one will remember the ads that they saw on TV last night because they muted out the noise or changed the channel. However, the ads that they saw on the side of the bus were supposed to surprise them and therefore be memorable. While this logic in theory should be affective on consumers, in my opinion, it is flawed.

The sole purpose of guerrilla ads is to break through the clutter and get you to remember them at the end of the day. Guerrilla ads, though, have become so abundant and constant that they just end up adding to the clutter of ads that I see everyday. In fact, not a day goes by when I don't see a guerrilla ad. On the bus stop, on the side of trash cans, inside my grocery cart. Hopefully these are ringing a bell to those who are reading this. Guerrilla ads have gotten so frequent that they have defeated their own purpose of being unusual and attention grabbing. I gotten so used to ignoring them that now they are just another layer of the clutter of ads that I see everyday, making it even harder for marketers to find a way to reach myself and other consumers that have gone numb to guerrilla ads.

you know you love me, xoxo,
Maeve