Best Guerilla Advertisements in India

If you assume that marketing communications are limited to the virtual world in the 21st century then you couldn’t be any more wrong. Even though influencer marketing and ads on social media are important and have great potential for growth, traditional marketing still consumes most of the marketing budget. This is due to the fact that marketing strategies in the real world seem to connect better with people. Direct sales, Networking, Print media, Referral marketing are all part of the day to day offline marketing strategies, but once in a while companies go above and beyond for promotion. This out of the blue marketing campaign is an example of offline Guerrilla marketing. Which can be defined as “an advertisement strategy in which a company uses surprise and/or unconventional interactions in order to promote a product or service.“

The term was popularized by Jay Conrad Levinson’s 1984 book Guerrilla Marketing and is now a popular trend in the business world. Companies come up with new and bizarre guerilla marketing ideas every day, though the trend is not so prevalent in our country. There have been some companies that reaped the benefits of guerilla marketing in India, let us explore some of the best examples of guerilla marketing in India.

Small World Machines – Coca-Cola

Coca Cola used vending machines to bring people of India and Pakistan closer. This was executed by installing two vending machines in Lahore and New Delhi. These machines used the first-of-its-kind 3D technology to live video stream on the touchscreen, thereby facilitating an exchange of emotions between the people in Pakistan and India.

Chai carts – Amazon

When Foreign Brands come to India they have to adapt, like how Mc Donald did with McAloo Tikki. The e-commerce leader did a little more than introducing a product, Amazon introduced Chai carts to spread awareness about the company among local entrepreneurs and sellers in small cities and towns. This guerilla marketing campaign in Bengaluru was extremely popular and considered a huge turning point in the establishing the roots of the company in India.

Strong Child – Anando Milk

Anando Milk increased milk consumption among children through a creative ad placed on one of Mumbai’s buildings. The creative isn’t ordinary, it displays a child moving a part of the building due to his super strength. This guerilla marketing campaign was a huge success in promoting dairy products among children.

Yahan se Kharido – Snapdeal

After Flipkart launched its #AchaKiya campaigns, Snapdeal trolled it by putting banners just below their poster. This guerilla campaign was a straight dig at a competitor and became so successful that other brands started photoshopping their banners and putting it in the picture.

Guerilla Marketing has a long way to go in our country, but these examples show us that they can be used to get the best results. If any of the above ideas inspired you to try your own marketing campaign, let us know in the comments. We will love to hear your ideas.