Guerrilla Marketing Online 1

By Vit Horky
Prague College, BA in Business, 3rd year
August 2009

About the author

Vit is the CEO and founder of Inspiro Solutions - an innovate internet marketing

graphic web design company, focused on providing A-class services to demanding

clients in the Czech republic and internationally. Vit was elected executive officer

of the Young Professionals Forum, the international Prague-based networking

organisation, in 2008.

More information on: www.inspiro-solutions.cz and

www.youngprofessionalsforum.cz
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Copyright © Vit Horky, 2009

All rights reserved. The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Printed and published in Prague, Czech Republic by Vit Horky in 2009. The
publication is free of charge.

This publication is a subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, sold, hired-out, or otherwise circulated without author´s prior
consent in any form of binding or cover than that in which it is published.

Abstract
The purpose of undertaking this study is to explore potential of Guerrilla Marketing
on Internet and to publish comprehensive information of benefits, limits and risks
of this untraditional marketing approach for increasing efficiency of the marketing
activities of small and mid-sized organisations.
The Guerrilla marketing online is a marketing area where creativity, an innovation
and a change enable the business to attract new customers, increase sales and
differentiate the brand from direct competitors. Primary and secondary research is
conducted in order to identify all topics relevant to Guerrilla Marketing usage on
Internet. The primary research shows that professional community understands
that the need of creative and innovate marketing activities and that Internet is one
of the most appropriate medium for that. However appropriate process of
informing and explaining the benefits and potential risks has to be effectively
communicated to the decision makers of the companies in order to be able to
apply the guerrilla marketing on Internet successfully.
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Every guerrilla marketing campaign should be, according to the analysis of

secondary research data, completely unexpected, drastic, humorous, one-shot,
and cheap and should provide goodwill.
Internet is useful for guerrilla marketing campaigns because it is an environment
which is interactive, easy to update, easy to link with other information,
internationally accessible, with low degree of censorship and the content of
Internet can be personalized. Majority of the respondents of the primary research
identified Internet as the most used marketing media for communication with their
customers.
The potential specific use of Guerrilla Marketing online is described and shown on
examples by using selected set of Internet communication channels of: company
website, product website, microsite, e-mail, social networks, instant messengers,
RSS feeds, mobile phones, online games and search engines.
Risks and limits of Guerrilla marketing are identified and described. This is a first
study describing fully the Guerrilla Marketing Online. It is written to be helpful for
avoiding potential risks and exploring the benefits and potentials of the Guerrilla
marketing on Internet for practical use of business organisations.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to take this opportunity to thank first of all to those who I do not know

personally but I would not have a chance to write this study without their

contribution. Thanks to all marketers, creative thinkers and innovators who have

actively helped to create and develop something as interesting as Guerrilla

Marketing is. One of them is my supervisor, Alexander Reidl, whom I thank for his

ideas, recommendations and patience in talking to me like to a child who does not

know about marketing nothing at all... Thirdly, I thank to my parents and to

Kristýna for their endless support. Last, but not least, I thank to my laptop that it

kept this remake of study safely stored until after a hard-drive of my PC broke with

half of my 1st version of the dissertation in...

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Table of Contents
About the author...................................................................................................2
Abstract....................................................................................................................3
Acknowledgments....................................................................................................4
List of Figures...........................................................................................................6
List of Images...........................................................................................................7
Introduction..............................................................................................................9
Rationale.............................................................................................................10
Aim......................................................................................................................10
Methodology...........................................................................................................14
Research design..................................................................................................14
Secondary research............................................................................................15
Primary research.................................................................................................16
Methods of analysis.............................................................................................18
Ethical considerations............................................................................................20
Literature Review...................................................................................................20
Questionnaire.........................................................................................................37
Findings..................................................................................................................47
Conclusion.........................................................................................................101
Recommendations............................................................................................103
Self Reflection......................................................................................................104
Learning Experience..........................................................................................105
Personal Development......................................................................................106
Positives & Negatives........................................................................................107
Improvements...................................................................................................108
Opportunity for Future Work.............................................................................108
Summary...........................................................................................................108
References...........................................................................................................109
Bibliography.........................................................................................................115
Appendices...........................................................................................................116
Questionnaire....................................................................................................116
Personal Record of Dissertation Development..................................................121
Communication log with supervisor..................................................................122
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List of Figures
Table 1 Research objectives of the study...............................................................12
Table 2 the selected clients of guerrilla marketing campaigns..............................19
Table 3 An explanation of Guerrilla Marketing principles on an example...............53
Table 4 Guerrilla Marketing types assessment, created by Vit Horky....................56
Table 5 Top Czech corporate website of 2008, Internet Info a.s., visited on August
7, 2009 on http://www.webtop100.cz/zebricky/archiv-2008...................................60
Table 6 Top Czech product websites of 2008, Internet Info a.s., visited on August 7,
2009 on http://www.webtop100.cz/zebricky/archiv-2008.......................................65
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List of Images
Image 1 Resource: bloguerrilla - Guerrilla Marketing, YouTube, visited on July 22,
2009.......................................................................................................................21
Image 2 Resource: Delana, WebUrbanist, 2008, visited on: July 26, 2009.............25
Image 3 Resource: (Marketing AD Ventures, 2003), visited on July
26,2009Grasroots marketing, WOM.......................................................................26
Image 4 Resource: (Blog On Travel, 2007) visited on July 26, 2009.......................27
Image 5 Resource: (Delana, 2008) visited on July 26, 2009...................................28
Image 6 Resource: (Mercedes-Benz International, 2009) visited on July 26, 2009. 31
Image 7 YouTube, Heineken Ambush marketing, visited on August 7, 2009 on
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3RQXua0w5U................................................32
Image 8- Internet Penetration in Europe, Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2009..........33
Image 9 AIDA model in Internet marketing, Vit Horky............................................48
Image 10 Fake live cam in the office of modern art gallery - a visualisation of the
web page containing the video file, Designed by Vit Horky...................................62
Image 11 A personal live exhibitions on a museum´s website - a visualisation of
the homepage with user-generated contact, designed by Vit Horky......................64
Image 12 The New Skoda Octavia microsite, Skoda Company, visited on August 8,
2009 on http://new.skoda-auto.com/cze/model/newoctavia/look/microsite/..........67
Image 13 Video email - a print screen of a page containing You Tube video
invitation from the co-organizer of the YPF event, created by Vit Horky................71
Image 14 Video email - a web page of YPF containing YouTube video invitation to
an upcoming event, created by Vit Horky..............................................................72
Image 15 Audience Utilities, Video and Social Media, The Nielsen Company, 2009
...............................................................................................................................74
Image 16 Social Networking is Big, The Nielsen Company, 2009 (right); Social
Networks ranking, Compete.com, 2009 (Compete.com, 2009)..............................75
Image 17 An example of guerrilla marketing with use of Facebook, Alison, 2009. 76
Image 18 Guerrilla Marketing campaign on Facebook for Italian Film, Facebook
Group, Feisbum Film, Facebook, 2009...................................................................77
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Image 19 Tagged in the game, Print screen of the Facebook page containing the
photo with tagged persons, the photo created by Inspiro Solutions, Vit Horky, print
screened on Facebook, 2009..................................................................................78
Image 20 Tagged in the game, Guerrilla Marketing on Facebook, The campaign
objectives, created by Vit Horky.............................................................................79
Image 21 Tagged in the game, Google Analytics statistics of the webpage;
captured in Google Analytics in August 8, 2009 for the period from May 4, 2009 to
May 11, 2009 with comparison to (green colour) period from April 29, 2009 to May
3, 2009. Statistics of the page: http://www.knihovna4u.cz/cs/hra/polozka:8/........80
Image 22 RSS in Guerrilla marketing, Example of RSS feed captured in Google
Reader, the message created by the server CIO.com with no particular relevance
to the study............................................................................................................84
Image 23 RSS in Guerrilla marketing, Example of RSS feed with reverse text
graphically edited by Vit Horky for the client Hastens Beds, www.postele-
hastens.czprovided by Google Reader, graphically edited by Vit Horky for Hästens
beds.......................................................................................................................84
Image 24 Mobile phones usage in Guerrilla Marketing, Invitations sent to mobile
phones, designed by Vit Horky, photo by Istockphoto: Photo by Istockphoto.com,
graphically edited by Vit Horky..............................................................................87
Image 25 Using mobile phones in Guerrilla marketing online, The process of a
model campaign for Bata company, created by Vit Horky, photo by Istockphoto. .88
Image 26 Online games for Social networks, The Librarian game on K4U, created
by Inspiro Solutions, The Municipal Library in Prague, 2009..................................91
Image 27 Search Engines usage in 2008, Nielsen Online, MegaView Search,
(Johnson, 2009)......................................................................................................92
Image 28 The margin progress of search engines in the Czech Republic
NAVRCHOLU.cz, the margin is presented in percentage points, translated from
Czech language; CZE (Antos, 2007).......................................................................92
Image 29 Rules for creating a PPC ad, Viktor Sevcik, Lupa.cz,
http://www.lupa.cz/clanky/co-nabizeji-dnesni-ppc-systemy/, CZE, Designed by Vit
Horky......................................................................................................................94
Image 30 Ambush PPC Advertising for Hastens beds, Campaign objectives, created
by Vit Horky............................................................................................................97
Image 31 Ambush PPC advertising for Hastens beds, visualisation of the PPC
model, print screens of Google Search, Google Inc. And Hastens beds websites,
designed by Vit Horky............................................................................................98
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Image 32 Experiential Learning model, Ministry of Education, Wellington, New

Zealand, accessible on
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/health/cia/make_meaning/img/diagram4.gif....................104
Guerrilla Marketing Online 10

Introduction
Guerrilla Marketing is called by marketers often as a „top of the marketing“. Lot of
companies is trying to apply guerrilla marketing thought to their promotion
activities but only few of them achieve considerable success. Guerrilla Marketing
Online is a creative and innovate marketing approach applied in Internet. This
study overviews not only the origins of the Guerrilla Marketing and its application
to Internet but also comprehensively define and describe different types of
guerrilla marketing and examples of potentially efficient campaigns. By identifying
the basic principles, benefits, limits and potential risk of such creative marketing
this study can be used as a practical study of when, where (if) and how the
Guerrilla Marketing Online has the chance to become the top of the company´s
marketing plans. As a managing director of web design studio focused on creative
internet solutions, the researcher has worked on this study in order to bring a first
comprehensive study of Guerrilla Marketing applied on Internet Marketing. With
focus to practical use of this study, the document will be published online on a
special website www.guerrillaonline.com by using appropriate creative tools and
techniques to enable interested readers to fully experience the possibilities the
Guerrilla Marketing can have for demanding businesses.

How to read this study

The Guerrilla Marketing Online study is written with maximum effort to make the
reading as easy as possible. Therefore, selected types of special formatting are
applied. Every chapter starts with large headline and it is finished by conclusion or
summary of key points. Interesting quotes given by secondary research are
published in yellow boxes. Blue boxes indicate description of chosen existing
campaigns or examples of practical use. Finally, green boxes include description
and visualisation of 10 examples of specific guerrilla marketing online campaign
created for purpose of this study. Any secondary research resources are recorded
and published in the References and Bibliography section by respecting the rules
of Referencing system given by Teesside University, GB.

Rationale
Expect a lot of marketing messaging related to the recession. Don’t be
surprised to see lots of offers that “save you money” throughout the
year. With fewer purchasing dollars available, how will your marketing
message be distinctive and stand out? [StartupNation, LLC, 2009]
Guerrilla Marketing Online 11

The consensus behind this study is largely based on combining thoughts of

guerrilla marketing in Internet environment. The Guerrilla marketing online is a
marketing area where creativity, an innovation and a change enable the business
to attract new customers, increase sales and differentiate the brand from direct
competitors. The topic relating to Internet marketing was chosen on personal level
lead by individual interest to examine currently existing and new ways how to
communicate effectively online. From the very beginning of working on the study,
it became apparent that any detailed study of Guerrilla marketing online has not
been conducted so far and therefore this project can help not only to describe
theory but also provide practical information to professional marketers, business
owners or internet marketers.

Aim
The purpose of undertaking this study is to explore potential of Guerrilla Marketing
on Internet and to publish comprehensive information of benefits, limits and risks
of this untraditional marketing approach for increasing efficiency of the marketing
activities of small and mid-sized organisations, mainly from the Czech Republic
and other continental European states. Guerrilla marketing is attractive for
particular businesses who want to differentiate their business from their
competitors and attract attention in unexpected and original way. Business
professionals and marketers are becoming more aware of the potential of guerrilla
marketing however its principles are usually not applied on Internet marketing in
spite of the fact that marketing budgets have been moving often from traditional
media to the new media, including Internet most of all. The Guerrilla Marketing
Online is written to be used by professional marketers, SME1 business owners and
marketing consultants as a comprehensive survey of guerrilla marketing
background, guerrilla marketing principles and specific examples of how guerrilla
marketing may be used online, meaning on Internet.

Research questions
In order to gain a wider insight into guerrilla marketing and internet marketing a
number of research questions are designed to show the currently known
information about the topic, to explore advantages and disadvantages, risks and
potential that guerrilla marketing online may mean for business organisations.
Combination of secondary and primary research ensures that the wide scope of
the topic will be research thoroughly and the conclusive recommendations will be
trustworthy, reliable and useful. The research objectives are chosen as follows:

1. What is guerrilla marketing and what is the relation with traditional marketing?

2. What types of guerrilla marketing already exist?

3. What is Internet Marketing and what is the context between Internet Marketing and

Guerrilla Marketing?

1 Small Business Enterprise

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4. What are the benefits, limits and risks of Guerrilla Marketing Online for businesses?

5. What are the principles of Guerrilla Marketing?

6. What is the opinion of businesses on Guerrilla Marketing and usefulness for their

organization?

7. Is there a potential in Guerrilla Marketing Online?

The research objectives will be answered based on comprehensive secondary and

primary research with combination of personal findings of the author, which
publishes examples of guerrilla marketing online campaigns created especially for
purposes of this study.

Find the full version on

www.guerrillaonline.com!
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