Young Greens - Drive Less

This guerrilla action was apparently part of a ecological awareness campaign conducted by a group called the Young Greens. The promotional stunt involved attaching balloons (imprinted to look like the Earth) to the tailpipes of vehicles, which then fills up with CO2 and explodes releasing promotional bookmarks imprinted with the copy: "Don't destroy our planet. Drive less."

This promotion is similar to a guerrilla promotion stunt conducted by BUND in 2006. We can only hope that the Young Greens also used bio-degradable balloons to stay consistent with the ecological message.

Promotional Coffee - Latte Art

Imprinting a logo on a product's packaging is a very common strategy for maintaining brand visibility nowadays and coffee franchises like Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts are no exception. Usually, the companies just limit their advertising to imprinting on the coffee cups, the insulating sleeve and the promotional coffee mug souvenirs, but apparently that is a little too passé for the guy who came up with this latte printing machine:




Pretty impressive, but unfortunately its a little bit on the slow side -- almost 3 minutes for an imprinting job? Any barista attempting to run one of these machines during the morning rush in NYC would find themselves dealing with an enraged horde of java-deprived zombies in a very short time. Even so, the commercial potentials are pretty high, so I wouldn't be surprised to see these machines popping up at Starbucks if they can speed up the imprinting jobs. Until then, the more traditional latte artists probably don't have to worry about losing their jobs:

Dexter - Bloody Urinals

To promote the July 6th premiere of Dexter's second season on FX channel, agency Torke launched a multi-faceted marketing campaign targeting several different audiences. A promotional kitchen wrap was sent to media outlets with the box painted to look like it's leaking blood. The plastic wrap was imprinted with the copy: “Dexter’s wrapping paper, due to its impermeability and adhesion, keeps the victim well wrapped and the floor free of blood splatter -- avoiding leaving clues and traces of any crimes.”


Additionally, a street team wearing promotional apparel with fake knives stuck in the back performed a bit of street theater in the streets of Lisbon by playing dead on the sidewalks. The marketing team handed out post cards and flyers in evidence bags to interested passersby. However, the most attention-grabbing marketing stunts are probably these urinals in Portugal that appear to gush blood when they are flushed. The promotional posters above the urinals are imprinted with the copy: "Do you see blood everywhere? Then this season is for you!” While not as large scale and ambitious as last year's Red Fountains promotion, those toilets are probably more startling and memorable for anyone not expecting to see the "blood."

(Via: Invisible Red)

K-Swiss - Roland Garros Guerrilla Marketing

K-Swiss a well-known manufacturer of tennis apparel and accessories and marketing agency TriBeCa took advantage of the French Open to launch this guerrilla marketing campaign. The outdoors stunt was a visual gag that involved positioning a damaged car opposite a van featuring a promotional poster of a tennis player in mid-stroke. A giant 1.5 meter polystyrene tennis ball was affixed to the damaged car to give the impression that the tennis player had just launched the tennis ball into the car.

From the reactions in the video, the stunt was very successful at attracting positive attention from the people passing by. A street team garbed in promotional apparel followed up the marketing stunt by handing out promotional frisbees imprinted with the K-Swiss logo. The giveaways will help keep the company brand fresh in their minds long after the marketing stunt.

Ella Baché - Skin Good Enough To Eat

This promotion was part of Ella Baché and agency BMF's integrated marketing campaign that was launched in February. Ella, a giant sculpture of a naked woman, was constructed from a steel frame covered in polystyrene with a skin made with over 24,000 fresh peaches. At 5 meters tall and 12 meters long, the sculpture was a highly visible creative interpretation of the skincare company's brand proposition: "Skin Good Enough To Eat." The art piece was unveiled at First Fleet Park, near Sydney Harbor (Australia being the single largest market for the company) on February 1st and remained up for 10 days.

For those wondering how the sculpture was kept unmolested from the park wildlife and remained pristine after several days of exposure to the elements, Saryn from Diamond n Dud Discoveries reported that the peaches were treated with wax or chemicals to preserve the fruits. While that is a sensible precaution to keep the sculpture intact for the 10 days it was on display, it might have been easier and perhaps a little less wasteful to just use peach-shaped promotional stress balls.

Volkswagen - Parking Sensor

Most advertising for cars that I have seen are elaborate and expensive affairs, but sometimes the simplest promotional products can be the most effective at getting out your message. To promote the serial parking sensor feature of Volkswagen's new Polo, the marketing team in this video hunted out vehicles with rear bumper scratches at one of Brazil's largest shopping malls and covered up the imperfections with color matching promotional stickers. The copy on the stickers read "Polo. With parking sensor as standard."

Zoo York - Roach Department

Can roaches be considered a new advertising medium? The people who put together this viral promotion certainly thought so. To boost Zoo York's brand visibility, the ad agency David & Goliath helped put together this viral campaign, which perfectly captured the skate company's dark and gritty urban attitude. This video was part of the "Spread the word" contest this spring in which individuals and groups were encouraged to post their own video response on YouTube to show how they get themselves out there.

Using stencils to spraypaint the company logo on cockroaches and then releasing them on the unsuspecting financial district crowds might be considered disturbing by some. But for Zoo York...the promotional stunt, which drew on the company's creative influences of skateboarding, hip-hop and graffiti, is perfectly designed to capture the attention of their primary market. For higher quality videos and the television spots, check out the Zoo York section on the David & Goliath site.

Mini Clubman - The Exhibitionist

Serviceplan, a German agency, came up with this memorable guerrilla marketing campaign introducing the Mini Clubman to the German market. Dressed in promotional apparel, the performers in this marketing stunt drew smiles and laughter by playing against the expectations of the audience. In their state of dress (bare legs and large coats), the performers were perfect stereotypes of street exhibitionists, but rather than performing acts of indecent exposure, they were in fact showing an interior view of the Mini Clubman when they 'flashed' their 'victims.'

Although the promotion only reached a relatively small number of people compared to mass media advertising options, the strength of its impact will likely make up for its limited reach. Memorable, emotion-provoking marketing stunts like this can often be counted on to generate more buzz than your typical television spot and often for much cheaper. It all depends on your execution and judging from the audience reactions, I'd say this one succeed.

Philips - Run, Whisker, Run!

This is one of the strangest marketing campaigns I've witnessed (although far from the most bizzare...that prize will probably go to this Nadal/KIA web viral). Combining marketing and street theater, Synapsys Marketing & Media created this guerrilla/street marketing stunt for Philips shavers.

The promotion had one stunt performer chase another through the streets of São Paulo, with both actors clad in promotional costumes -- one as a gigantic shaver, the other as an oversized whisker. The promotion was targeted to take place in areas with high concentrations of youth in an attempt to build brand recognition and loyalty in an age demographic that's just beginning to shave.

The strategy was apparently very successful, with online sales sharply increasing shortly after the promotions. To capitalize on the success of the event a series of television ads were created. You can watch them here.

Euro 2008 - Soccer Fountain

Association football (soccer to us Americans) might not be biggest sports attraction in the U.S., but it is taken quite seriously elsewhere the world. It's a big enough deal for the city of Geneva to come up with elaborate soccer-themed promotions for Euro 2008.

The promotion involves a giant inflatable promotional soccer ball, which has been tethered above the Jet d'Eau since April and will remain there until the end of the Euro 2008 on June 29th. The publicity stunt creates the impressive illusion that the soccer ball is floating on top of the jet of water, nearly 500 feet in the air.

But, that's not the only balloon promotion for the Euro 2008. The immense Henri Delaunay trophy hot-air balloon (35 meters tall!) has been traveling through the host cities since January and will also continue its tour until the end of June.

Californication - Bra Invasion

Well, this is definitely not what usually comes to my mind when I think about promotional apparel giveaways. This guerrilla marketing campaign was intended to promote the European/Sky Channel launch of the David Duchovny show, Californication and apparently involved blanketing the cities of Rome and Milan with promotional bras. If you look closely, you'll be able to see the attached flyers advertising the show.

Given the shocked looks of the people passing by, we're not sure how successful the campaign was, but a similar promotion involving pasties ended up with every promotional piece stolen as souvenirs. If any readers in Italy have more information about the marketing campaign or the creative agencies involved, we'd be interested in hearing from you.

Lego Indiana Jones - Boulder Chase

Twenty-seven years after the first Indiana Jones movie, Professor Jones is finally back with another movie. As with other major blockbusters it's quickly followed by the inevitable video game tie-in. In this particular case, the video game is also a Lego tie-in, as Lucas Arts and Lego try to capitalize on the success of Lego Star Wars with Lego Indiana Jones.

Now, one of my favorite things about extremely popular works like Star Wars and Indy is seeing what kinds of creative antics the fan base can come up with and the video above initially appeared to be just another example of fans with too much time on their hands. However, the buzz on the net is that it might actually a viral promotion created by Teak Motion Visuals for Lego and Lucasfilm.

If true, it does take a bit of the coolness factor away, but a giant Lego boulder chasing a guy in full Indy costume (complete with the signature fedora!) is still pretty darned cool.

Loctite - Worth Every Penny

You don't often see a guerrilla marketing campaign using an office product to market itself. Lets face it, most office supplies are simply not cool or sexy enough to star in their own guerrilla campaigns. However, ad agency DM9DDB apparently decided that crazy glue is sufficiently cool enough to market itself...and after seeing the reactions to their promotional stunt, we're hard pressed to disagree.

Using just a tube of Loctite super bonder and some coins, DM9DDB created this piece of sidewalk streetvertising that is reminiscent of a popular childhood prank. Many of the pedestrians were lured by the idea of free money and stopped to see if they could pry off some of the coins, but of course the glue was simply too strong.

Below is a video of another street marketing stunt, also featuring Loctite glues. This one is a bit more prank-like: