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Marketing Lesson #47:

The subtleties of Guerilla marketing

Marketing is a tricky thing. You have to consider what you're advertising, how you're advertising it, and to who; and then, you have to get your message out to those people. It requires a good understanding of how people think, and where people go.

At the moment, I'm doing a marketing campaign for the Youngcuts Film Festival in Toronto. With a combination of internet/E-mail blasts, large posters and small hand-out cards, we're trying to draw an audience for the August 26th screening at the Bloor Cinema. If you care to come downtown sometime this week, you'll probably find me along the major routes putting up posters with stapler and tape gun in hand.

Last night, Geoff Meech came down, and we hit the Bloor street stretch between Spadina and Bathurst. I'm calling it the Battlefield now, because that's where the Bloor cinema is, and hence, the Youngcuts screenings. We put posters up along the way and handed out lots of cards to folks in the area. I'd approach them (politely) and ask if they might be interested in "Film festivals that have short independent films". A lot of people seem to respond to that. In fact, I'm rather surprised at the number of people who approach me while I'm posting, and ask for a hand-out.

Today I went down to King street, Queen street, John street and Richmond street; in other words, the Entertainment District of Toronto. There were a lot of high-profile targets- The Toronto Film School/CBC Building, the King street theatres, King & John (where TIFF HQ will be built) , and City TV/Speakers Corner. I also asked some local shops and they let me post in their foyers and such.

Here's a couple tips I learned from the Macbeth 3000 Premiere Campaign, as far as posters go.

You have 2-3 seconds to get their attention - Keep it simple, keep it short. Whether it's a poster, or a hand-out card, or a road-side pitch you have few precious seconds to explain what you are marketing, and get the person interested. Otherwise, they keep walking past the poster, or put the hand-out in their pocket (to end up in the wash), or go right past you as you blabber on.

High Concept

Hand-outs make great mini-posters - There are many types of poles, but for the sake of clarity, we'll categorize them as fat and skinny. Now, when you're putting posters on city poles, chances are they'll be gone the next morning. But here's the catch- the guys who go around taking down posters concentrate on the fat poles. Granted, they're the prime real estate in poster-marketing, but they're also a target for tear-downs. But remember those little hand-out cards? They sure do come in handy when you find skinny poles- after the Macbeth 3000 premiere, the mini-cards remained on the skinny poles for months.

Get High - From my experience, the people who take down posters usually don't like their job. They're also usually kind of short. So post as high as you possibly can, and make their job difficult. Chances are, if they don't have the tools to reach, they'll move on. Granted, eye level is what you want to go for most of the time, but a good combination of high, low and level posters should be able to tackle all types of people's gazes as they walk. Not everyone looks straight ahead- a sad reality when you realize the people you smile to as you pass them aren't smiling back- they're looking at the ground. But that's society's problem- not yours! Just put up those damn posters everywhere.
Give them something to take home - How many times has someone told you to go to a website and you forgot? In this day and age, where everyone lives off their Google Calendars and schedules, people need reminders. If you can't be there to give out your cards, leave some sticking out of the sides of your posters, so people walking by can take one home. Stick them in there so you can see them coming out on the side that will garner the most traffic. Just make sure your hand-outs and your posters have matching color schemes!

Target your audience - For Macbeth 3000, Geoff and I must have wasted countless posters in areas that were just not important. We had wanted to cover Younge street, as well as the financial district (because that's the money, yo). In the end, you just have to realize that the guy in the three piece suit just isn't interested in your high-school/spoof/action/comedy/spy/Shakespeare movie. So why bother telling them? Tell the people you KNOW will come. I've had the fortune of living downtown for another year, so I've become familiar with the personalities and people from all over town. In Toronto, there are a LOT of art communities, and "trendy" places. I targeted them, and poster in rotation between. All the while, I find people who look they might be interested (anyone who looks at you as you post and hesitates) or fit the target demographic. That way, you save a hell of a lot of money on posters and hand-outs.

So there's a few tips to get you started. If I think of any more, I'll post them in the Superblog. But keep them in mind next time you're advertising things on a Guerilla scale. Between Geoff and myself we covered a MAJOR part of Toronto, this time, I'm targeting communities and able to do most of the work myself. Other than the obvious bonuses for the festival, I'm getting a lot of good "outside time" in my life (as opposed to checking E-mail every 5 minutes) and the exercise is raising my energy level. This will be good, because next week the hand-outs will come into full bloom as I'll be approaching people at events and on the street and pitching the festival to them- and if you don't seem excited (and polite), no one else is going to care.

Article by: Denis Logan

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