Name: Leveraging laughter with guerrilla marketing
Uploaded: 2024-03-25T11:27:57.543Z
Duration: 480.6

Guerrilla Marketing V4.mp4

Guerrilla Marketing V4.vtt

English

{{00:00:00}}
I'm Peter Friedman.

{{00:00:02}}
I'm the founder of Think Inc, a creative
PR and guerrilla marketing agency.

{{00:00:09}}
And I'm the author of a new book
called How Calm Whipped Up a Storm.

{{00:00:15}}
How one small app won a ton
of PR and buzz that helped it

{{00:00:19}}
grow big and how you can too.

{{00:00:32}}
People use terms like creative or
guerrilla or viral marketing, and to

{{00:00:38}}
some extent, they're all interchangeable.

{{00:00:41}}
I would define guerrilla marketing as
more broadly as marketing where the

{{00:00:47}}
key ingredient, the secret sauce is not
money and who has the biggest budget

{{00:00:53}}
as it is with traditional advertising,
but it's ideas and creativity and

{{00:00:58}}
who comes up with the best ideas.

{{00:01:00}}
My particular variety or flavor
of guerrilla marketing, I'm trying

{{00:01:05}}
to make people smile or laugh.

{{00:01:07}}
In an age of information overload,
And when attention is the scarcest

{{00:01:12}}
resource, one good way to get people's
attention, which is incredibly

{{00:01:17}}
hard, is to entertain or amuse them.

{{00:01:28}}
Guerrilla marketing is not appropriate
for every brand, but it is appropriate for

{{00:01:33}}
far more brands than realize to try and
get a more buzz for your marketing buck.

{{00:01:40}}
When I started working for Calm, it
was then largely a meditation app.

{{00:01:45}}
It's become a Asleep and meditation
and a mental health brand, but there

{{00:01:49}}
were literally thousands of other
meditation apps even then, and every

{{00:01:54}}
other rival of comms was doing things in
a traditional, serious, conventional way.

{{00:02:01}}
The traditional product led approach
often works best when you launch, and

{{00:02:06}}
it especially works if you are doing
something genuinely new and interesting.

{{00:02:10}}
But the problem is what do you
do when the launch is over?

{{00:02:14}}
What do you do for an encore?

{{00:02:16}}
And how do you avoid
becoming last week's news?

{{00:02:19}}
Brands today need to be
constantly in front of people.

{{00:02:22}}
The half life of any given idea is
shorter and shorter and the attention

{{00:02:27}}
spans are shorter and shorter.

{{00:02:28}}
So you have to produce a conveyor
belt or a production line of ideas.

{{00:02:34}}
Most brands take themselves.

{{00:02:36}}
seriously, which is fair enough,
but they sometimes take themselves

{{00:02:40}}
too seriously for their own good.

{{00:02:43}}
They're nervous of doing something that
appears silly or light hearted because

{{00:02:47}}
they think what they're doing is important
and worthwhile, but they could benefit

{{00:02:50}}
by embracing their inner silliness and
lightening up a bit and being willing

{{00:02:57}}
to do things that are lighthearted.

{{00:03:07}}
The key ingredient in guerrilla
marketing is the idea.

{{00:03:10}}
So it is a kind of magic.

{{00:03:12}}
It's a kind of alchemy.

{{00:03:13}}
A good way often to start is by
asking what problem is our brand or

{{00:03:19}}
our business solving and what would
be a surprising or left field or out

{{00:03:26}}
of the box solution to that problem.

{{00:03:28}}
When.

{{00:03:29}}
Calm was pivoting from being a
strictly a meditation app to becoming

{{00:03:33}}
a meditation and a sleep app.

{{00:03:36}}
We started by saying, well,
insomnia is a modern epidemic.

{{00:03:40}}
What would be the ultimate
cure for that epidemic?

{{00:03:43}}
And the answer we came up with was an
eight hour slow motion movie about Sheep

{{00:03:49}}
standing in a field called Baba Land.

{{00:03:53}}
We started by creating a poster, which
was a pastiche of the La La Land poster.

{{00:03:58}}
And instead of Ryan Gosling and Emma
Stone, we had two very good looking

{{00:04:03}}
sheep canoodling with each other.

{{00:04:04}}
And we released an 80
second trailer of the movie.

{{00:04:09}}
We got so much attention for it then
about three or four months later we came

{{00:04:13}}
back for a second swing at bat and we
staged the world premiere of Baba Land

{{00:04:20}}
where we had sheep wearing tuxedos and
ball gowns walking down the red carpet.

{{00:04:39}}
Another idea that I did for Calm that
was very successful is when GDPR, the

{{00:04:46}}
EU's new privacy legislation, came out.

{{00:04:50}}
And one of the most important content
strands on Calm were  bedtime stories

{{00:04:57}}
for grownups called sleep stories.

{{00:04:59}}
So we decided, we turned GDPR, which
was I think a 512 page document of

{{00:05:07}}
dense legal jargon, into a bedtime story
for grown ups called Once Upon a GDPR,

{{00:05:13}}
which comprised a particularly long
and, , sleep inducing extract from GDPR.

{{00:05:21}}
, and we got it narrated by the
man who used to read the shipping

{{00:05:25}}
forecast on the BBC for 40 years.

{{00:05:28}}
A lot of the ideas that I've worked on
over the years have been for B2C brands.

{{00:05:34}}
But I've also done work for
B2B brands, did a lot of work

{{00:05:38}}
for a translation agency.

{{00:05:40}}
And at the time there was endless
buzz and talk about emojis.

{{00:05:45}}
And we realised that this
translation agency had translators

{{00:05:50}}
and interpreters on their books
in over 200 languages worldwide.

{{00:05:55}}
But the world's fastest growing
language were, at the time, were emojis.

{{00:06:00}}
We placed an ad both on the website
of the translation company and on

{{00:06:07}}
a leading employment board for the
world's first emoji translator.

{{00:06:12}}
For a few days that got
no attention at all.

{{00:06:14}}
And then the BBC,  news website,
covered it saying London firm

{{00:06:20}}
seeks emoji translator, and then
it really just exploded and it

{{00:06:24}}
went viral around the world.

{{00:06:26}}
And then three months later, we got
another load of attention when we hired

{{00:06:31}}
the world's first emoji translator,
which was an, it was an Irishman who'd

{{00:06:35}}
recently completed a PhD on emojis and
was hugely expert and knowledgeable.

{{00:06:49}}
The truth is nothing is ever guaranteed
with guerrilla marketing or PR.

{{00:06:56}}
And that's one of the reasons it's more
cost effective, because if you want

{{00:06:59}}
a guarantee, you have to pay for it.

{{00:07:01}}
The best you can aim for and hope for
is a batting average, a good batting

{{00:07:07}}
average, or what I call in my book,
the Picasso principle, because it

{{00:07:13}}
was the approach taken by Picasso.

{{00:07:16}}
He had so many times at bat, he
turned out so many works of art.

{{00:07:24}}
That he ended up with a kind of
dazzlingly high number of home runs.

{{00:07:28}}
To some extent that was also the approach
of Shakespeare and Bob Dylan and, , Dolly

{{00:07:34}}
Parton and a whole list of people.

{{00:07:37}}
Yeah, just relying on  a huge
volume of output and undimmed

{{00:07:44}}
creative confidence and just keep
coming with the ideas knowing that

{{00:07:48}}
not everyone is going to work.

{{00:07:50}}
But the better you get at it, the
better your batting average will be.

{{00:07:54}}
Yeah.

I'm the founder of Think Inc, a creative
PR and guerrilla marketing agency.

And I'm the author of a new book
called How Calm Whipped Up a Storm.

How one small app won a ton
of PR and buzz that helped it

People use terms like creative or
guerrilla or viral marketing, and to

some extent, they're all interchangeable.

I would define guerrilla marketing as
more broadly as marketing where the

key ingredient, the secret sauce is not
money and who has the biggest budget

as it is with traditional advertising,
but it's ideas and creativity and

My particular variety or flavor
of guerrilla marketing, I'm trying

In an age of information overload,
And when attention is the scarcest

resource, one good way to get people's
attention, which is incredibly

Guerrilla marketing is not appropriate
for every brand, but it is appropriate for

far more brands than realize to try and
get a more buzz for your marketing buck.

When I started working for Calm, it
was then largely a meditation app.

It's become a Asleep and meditation
and a mental health brand, but there

were literally thousands of other
meditation apps even then, and every

other rival of comms was doing things in
a traditional, serious, conventional way.

The traditional product led approach
often works best when you launch, and

it especially works if you are doing
something genuinely new and interesting.

But the problem is what do you
do when the launch is over?

And how do you avoid
becoming last week's news?

Brands today need to be
constantly in front of people.

The half life of any given idea is
shorter and shorter and the attention

So you have to produce a conveyor
belt or a production line of ideas.

seriously, which is fair enough,
but they sometimes take themselves

They're nervous of doing something that
appears silly or light hearted because

they think what they're doing is important
and worthwhile, but they could benefit

by embracing their inner silliness and
lightening up a bit and being willing

The key ingredient in guerrilla
marketing is the idea.

A good way often to start is by
asking what problem is our brand or

our business solving and what would
be a surprising or left field or out

Calm was pivoting from being a
strictly a meditation app to becoming

We started by saying, well,
insomnia is a modern epidemic.

What would be the ultimate
cure for that epidemic?

And the answer we came up with was an
eight hour slow motion movie about Sheep

We started by creating a poster, which
was a pastiche of the La La Land poster.

And instead of Ryan Gosling and Emma
Stone, we had two very good looking

And we released an 80
second trailer of the movie.

We got so much attention for it then
about three or four months later we came

back for a second swing at bat and we
staged the world premiere of Baba Land

where we had sheep wearing tuxedos and
ball gowns walking down the red carpet.

Another idea that I did for Calm that
was very successful is when GDPR, the

And one of the most important content
strands on Calm were  bedtime stories

So we decided, we turned GDPR, which
was I think a 512 page document of

dense legal jargon, into a bedtime story
for grown ups called Once Upon a GDPR,

which comprised a particularly long
and, , sleep inducing extract from GDPR.

, and we got it narrated by the
man who used to read the shipping

A lot of the ideas that I've worked on
over the years have been for B2C brands.

But I've also done work for
B2B brands, did a lot of work

And at the time there was endless
buzz and talk about emojis.

And we realised that this
translation agency had translators

and interpreters on their books
in over 200 languages worldwide.

But the world's fastest growing
language were, at the time, were emojis.

We placed an ad both on the website
of the translation company and on

a leading employment board for the
world's first emoji translator.

For a few days that got
no attention at all.

And then the BBC,  news website,
covered it saying London firm

seeks emoji translator, and then
it really just exploded and it

And then three months later, we got
another load of attention when we hired

the world's first emoji translator,
which was an, it was an Irishman who'd

recently completed a PhD on emojis and
was hugely expert and knowledgeable.

The truth is nothing is ever guaranteed
with guerrilla marketing or PR.

And that's one of the reasons it's more
cost effective, because if you want

The best you can aim for and hope for
is a batting average, a good batting

average, or what I call in my book,
the Picasso principle, because it

He had so many times at bat, he
turned out so many works of art.

That he ended up with a kind of
dazzlingly high number of home runs.

To some extent that was also the approach
of Shakespeare and Bob Dylan and, , Dolly

Yeah, just relying on  a huge
volume of output and undimmed

creative confidence and just keep
coming with the ideas knowing that

But the better you get at it, the
better your batting average will be.

Expert Insight

In an age of information overload and dwindling attention spans, how can marketers best engage their customers?

Guerrilla marketing steers away from traditional marketing techniques to find fresh new ways to captivate an audience. Peter Freedman’s creative PR agency Think Inc. helps companies form these campaigns, and in this video he shares his insights into why and how you should use guerrilla marketing to grow a consistent following.

Guerrilla Marketing

thumbnail_peter freedman.jpeg

xsmall_peter freedman.jpeg

peter freedman.jpeg

Peter Freedman

Founder

Freedman shines a light on guerrilla marketing and his ‘flavour’ of it.

Unpacking guerrilla marketing

Many more brands could and should use guerrilla marketing, as Peter explains.

Who should use guerrilla marketing

Find out where you can get going with guerrilla marketing and how Peter did with the now infamous wellness app Calm.

Get started with guerrilla marketing

From a emoji translator job posting to a GDPR bedtime story, learn from some of Peter’s past success stories in guerrilla marketing.

Case studies

Peter shares his advice when it comes to securing success and virality in a guerrilla marketing campaign.