No Need for CDs

Heart 104.9 FM, a radio station in Cape Town, South Africa, was sure its listeners were so satisfied by its programming that they didn't need to buy or own CDs anymore. Fans were asked to bring their old albums in for an interactive billboard display - in return, they would receive a number that could be randomly selected to win a prize later. The CDs the station collected were used to create an eye-catching mosaic reading "104.9," which was placed in a high-traffic area in the center of town.

While the 1930 CDs the station collected represent an impressive showing from listeners, I have to wonder if maybe they don't need CDs anymore because everyone listens to music on personal MP3 players these days. It's a lot more convenient than carrying around bulky customized CD cases, and the fact that no one tried to steal any of the discs after the billboard was set up makes me think everyone in Cape Town just downloads their music.

[via IBelieveinAdvertising]

Surprisingly Subtle

Usually, guerrilla marketing promotions are anything but subtle. In-your-face promotion has long been seen as the best way to reach those markets that have become jaded and almost immune to traditional advertising. But some subjects require a degree of subtlety. Dignity in Death, an organization that supports the rights of terminally-ill individuals to choose euthanasia rather than suffer unnecessarily under prolonged, expensive hospital treatment, understood the extreme sensitivity surrounding the issue of voluntary euthanasia. However, they wanted to raise awareness about living wills as a means of making one's wishes known to loved ones and healthcare professionals in case of mental incapacitation. As this is a very difficult subject to broach normally, they decided to go the guerrilla marketing route.

These "memorial" customized plaque benches - simple, subtle, yet chillingly effective - treat their subjects with respect while highlighting the horrible suffering that voluntary euthanasia has the ability to prevent. This unconventional promotion allowed the organization to treat a sensitive subject with respect while making sure it was noticed.

Quotations Everywhere

Talk 1410, a Vancouver radio station, wanted to publicize its coverage of controversial topics and position itself in the market as being opinionated, informational, and memorable. To create brand awareness on a small budget, they had giant quotation mark customized posters created to reflect their new tagline: "Be quotable." These promotional signs were placed in pairs around "controversial" sites in Vancouver, turning these sites into de facto (and extremely budget-friendly!) advertisements for Talk 1410's radio programming.

Coffin Towels

Friends of Cancer Patients wanted to raise awareness about the dangers of overexposure to the sun. Of course, the beach is a hotspot (no pun intended...) of sun exposure, so they decided this was the best location for their promotion. Black custom beach towels shaped like coffins, featuring an inscription warning of the link between sun overexposure and skin cancer, were handed out to beach-goers and displayed prominently all over the beach area. The promotion was a success, with plenty of beach-goers approaching the distributors for free personal sunscreen and informational flyers - proving that a relatively somber awareness promotion doesn't have to ruin a fun day at the beach.

Domestic Violence on Display

The Intervention Center Against Domestic Violence, an internet-based German nonprofit that offers to help domestic violence victims and perpetrators alike free of charge on its website, wanted to promote awareness of what it saw as an "invisible social problem." Despite their estimate that 20% of women had been in some sort of abusive relationship, they felt that not enough people were speaking out or acknowledging the reality of abuse.

Custom window decals depicting scenes of domestic violence were placed in the windows of high-visibility homes, drawing morbidly curious pedestrians, who two windows later were rebuked for their voyeurism and non-action with a second promotional sticker reminding them that "looking away supports violence." Appropriately chastised, passersby were directed to the organization's website.

I wonder how many concerned neighbors called the cops after seeing these windows and failing to read, two windows later, that it was only a guerrilla marketing promotion . That would make for some extremely awkward meetings in apartment hallways...

Tramp Stamp Rampage

Wouldn't it be nice if you could try out a tattoo design before getting it permanently inked into your skin? Dermagraphic, a New Zealand tattoo studio, provided a very narrow opportunity to do just that with this guerrilla marketing promotion. Custom stickers featuring generic "tribal"-type tattoos were strategically placed on wall mirrors in public restrooms and in the changing rooms of apparel shops.

Ideally, the curious consumer would line up his or her body so that the tattoo made sense and be inspired to have the real thing done, but the logical flaws in the execution of this promotion are numerous. Most people seeking tattoos are looking for something, if not unique, at least more unusual than the meaningless squigglies shown here. Though the decal below the mirror-tattoo does offer a website address and the tagline "Try before you buy," there's no clear indication of how exactly a customer is supposed to be able to try before buying. The most the average consumer will get out of this campaign is a misplaced tramp stamp on their face while they're washing their hands, which--while funny--is probably not what Dermagraphic was going for.

Twilight Bites Ads

As if the teen vampire romance series Twilight wasn't insanely popular enough, its publishers staged an ultra-low-budget, high visibility guerilla market campaign on the streets of Sydney. Using little red circular promotional stickers in the shape of vampire bite-marks, they appropriated advertising space on the necks of models on billboards, posters, and bus shelters all over the city. The promotional decals, printed only with the words "Twilight" and "Get Bitten," would be instantly familiar to anyone (practically the entire world, at this point) who had heard of the series, perhaps inspiring them to buy one of the books themselves and find out what all the fuss was about.