The Net goes guerilla
Published: 29 Nov 1999 09:35 GMT
The millions of Americans who watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade Thursday might have been scratching their heads about a 16-foot-tall sculpture of an impeccably dressed bald man sitting amidst piles of books and surrounded by questions about Thanksgiving.
Who was that bald man? The Ask Jeeves butler, of course.
While Jeeves isn't exactly as well-known as, say, his float-mate Snoopy, the company hopes the parade, broadcast nationally, will help change that. And while it may seem a bit unusual for an Internet startup to be featured in a parade, the float symbolises what some "dotcoms" will do to get noticed.
The Ask Jeeves float is one of a variety of "guerilla marketing" tactics Net firms will use to try to stand out from ad campaigns that will total in the hundreds of millions of dollars this quarter.
"Two years ago, Yahoo! could advertise on TV and it would stand out. Now you watch a half-hour show and you'll see five or six (Internet) ads," said Michele Slack, an analyst at Jupiter Communications in New York. "These companies . . .are looking to guerilla marketing to break through the clutter."
Other guerilla marketing techniques include having teenagers hand out coupons for online music stores at concerts and clubs, and buying ad space on Evander Holyfield's boxing trunks.
Guerilla marketing isn't exactly new. Record companies, for example, have been handing out CDs at clubs and putting up stickers in cabs for years. Other tried-and-true methods, such as papering construction sites with posters, have also gained popularity among the dotcoms.
But some Net companies are trying to make guerilla marketing their main focus. For instance, Ask Jeeves officials say the company has actively sought to hire people who will think beyond traditional advertising.
"There's real value in having individuals in your organisation who instinctively understand breakthrough, grassroots-oriented marketing in contrast to traditional advertising as a sole means of awareness," said Heather Staples, a spokeswoman for Ask Jeeves Inc.
Ask Jeeves is getting what it wanted. Besides the float, the company also has a deal to put stickers on apples in grocery stores, with questions such as "Why is New York called the Big Apple?" and "How do I make homemade applesauce?" (To find the answers, of course, it suggests you head to Ask.com).
Such saturation guerilla marketing may be getting too popular for its own good, Slack said.
"Consumers are getting a little tired of ad messages. The point is not to inundate them everyplace they are, it's to surprise them, but to do it in a way that isn't annoying," Slack said. "With the Ask Jeeves (float) it's surprising that it's Ask Jeeves, it's not surprising that it's a (float). Where it's annoying is when it's mass targeted, but in one more place where people are traditionally left alone."
And, while some stunts generate buzz -- such as Web hosting provider C I Host's buying ad space on Holyfield's trunks in his recent prizefight against Lennox Lewis -- the stunt may end up getting more talk than the company.
Guerilla marketing shouldn't just be unusual; it should also relate to the company being promoted, said Kevin Starace, vice president of business development at Eisnor Interactive, a promotions firm that specialises in Internet firms.
"There are a lot of companies doing things completely irrelevant, and it's done just to create a spectacle and leave an impression," he said. "Those kinds of things don't last."
One of Eisnor's clients, TheStreet.com targeted business travelers at the Atlanta airport this spring by sending specially branded luggage rotating through carousels, distributing news articles and coupons at VIP lounges, and hiring actors to dress like chauffeurs and hold signs reading "TheStreet.com for Bill Gates."
Something to sneeze at Targeting the marketing to likely users is also important. Pets.com has handed out branded tennis balls and biscuits to dog owners at parks in "wired" cities. Another San Francisco, company, Gazoontite, helped launch its allergy and asthma products business by handing out packets of tissues emblazoned with the Gazoontite name and URL.
"People keep the tissue packs and use them for a few weeks. Every time they pull it out -- especially when they're sneezing -- they see the brand and the logo," said Soon-Chart Yu, Gazoontite's CEO. "The key is marketing in areas where it's incidental exposure, so that it almost becomes part of the fabric of their lives. The best guerrilla marketing are ones that have long-term impact," he said.
Tightly focusing the ad also helps to ward off complaints about the growing presence of advertising virtually everywhere in consumer's lives.
But complaints are sure to grow, particularly for consumers who live in high-tech markets like San Francisco or New York. In markets such as those, dotcom ads cover buses and drape subway stops, occupy coffee-cup wrappers and even float on boats in the San Francisco Bay.
Take me to the e-commerce special.
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