Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo perhaps the ancient Greeks can be credited for creating the first guerilla marketing campaign. The prostitutes in those days would call the words alami into the base of their wooden sandals and walk past ovens catch the eye of men, the men could look down and see the message and printed in the sand or dust, enabling them to follow them at a discreet distance to the boardwalk. Moving forward in time, from the ancient Greeks, I want you to imagine yourself in a bar in Dublin in 1791. In the corner of the room sets which daily a local theater owner he was making a bet with his best friend, and the bet was that he could introduce a nonsense word into the town vocabulary overnight. His friend didn't think it could be done.

But that night Richard went to his theater and gave all his staff a stick of chalk and instructed them Write a nonsense word on every surface wall and floor around Dublin. The nonsense word was the word quit. Sure enough, the next day the townsfolk woke up to see this mysterious word written on every surface, and they were puzzled. Everyone was talking about it, and Richard won his bed, and through time the word quiz became synonymous with the word question or puzzle. In 1905, marketing becomes a matter of life and death when Harry Houdini performs a number of high profile publicity stunts, including escaping from the prison cell that held the assassin of President James Garfield, escaping from a straitjacket while hanging upside down and breaking free from a packing crate that would be nailed shut and immersed underwater. Let's go to the roaring 1920s Edward Bernays is considered the father of public relations.

He pioneered the concept of manipulating public opinion using third party authorities. One of his great stunts was to hire society women to stroll up and down Fifth Avenue in New York, puffing Lucky Strike cigarettes back Then it was taboo for ladies to smoke in public. So we've got a ton of attention and he's tobacco client was thrilled. James Sterling Moran was an imaginative publicist who was active as a press agent for various clients, film studios, manufacturers, retailers, and even Washington politicians in a career that spanned five decades from the 1930s to the 1980s. In 1989, time ranked him as the Supreme Master of that most singular marketing device the publicity stunt to publicize the 1947 movie the egg and die by Ryan satin a nostalgic for 19 days, four hours and 32 minutes. In 1959, for the premiere of the mouse that roared he opened an Embassy in Washington from mythical country to publicize a candy bar he planned to fly a midget across Central Park in a kite.

The police squelch the stunt, prompting Moran to remark it's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can fly a midget on a kite over Central Park in 1959, the Guinness Brewing Company was wondering how to build a global identity. Its solution was to drop 150,000 bottles of Guinness export into the Atlantic Caribbean. Each bottle contain the message from King Neptune and instructions for how to convert the bottle into a lamp. The brewery intended that Beachcombers would discover them and spread the word. In 1969, The Beatles final life performance was an unannounced rooftop concert. The gig which took place on top of the Apple Records Office in London attracted a lot of attention from passers by was eventually closed down by the police.

Getting the attention of the authorities can be a great way of drumming up even more publicity, but it can backfire as we'll find out later on. free thinking marketing techniques like we've seen so far can be used for lots of different purposes, including raising awareness for good causes. Hands across America on May 26. In 1986, more than 7 million people including ronald reagan joined hands and a human chain across 16 states to raise money for the hungry and homeless in the United States. Participate Paid $10 to reserve their place in line. One of the most notorious and successful campaigns of all time was for The Blair Witch Project.

The producers succeeded in creating huge pre hype their low budget horror flick, which centered on students being murdered in a forest. blurring the boundaries between fact and fiction was key to the early buzz that surrounded the movie. Allegedly, the filmmakers had circulated tapes to colleges, which were presented as real video diary footage. clips that were presented as documentary rather than fiction was shown on the independent film channel. This was one of the first feature films to use online and viral PR to build hype. The resulting buzz helped the film gain 150 million dollars at the box office.

Perhaps the most notorious and controversial PR stunt of all time, was staged by the Kay foundation when they burned a million quid. The money represented a large chunk of the cash they had raised as early 90s rave supergroup the K lf it was both an act of stupidity An act of cruelty, but also a piece of marketing genius. I was a young impressionable teenager at the time, and this really left an impact on me. As a mysterious kid, I thought it was amazing. It really inspired me to get involved in the PR stunt and guerilla marketing world, which in turn led to a career spanning 15 years. So thanks for that.

I hope you found those examples inspiring and thought provoking. They all have something in common. And each instance, they could have used the traditional media of the day. The Greek prostitutes, for example, could have just used the notice boards that existed. Robert Daly, who invented quiz could have put that word in the newspaper. Indeed, the K lF could have spent that money on traditional advertising.

But all these people employed free thinking, starting with a blank sheet of paper, and applying this thinking to guerilla marketing and PR stunts. The effect is they punched well above their weight and generated tons more coverage than they would have done if it spent that money and resources on something more traditional by breaking free of the traditional framework Work, all of these people met and exceeded their objectives, which of course is the point to most of commercial communication. But more than that, they've added a lot of color, entertainment, debate and excitement to the world. This is very key. The amount of money that the advertising industry spends in trying to persuade you to buy their objects is phenomenal. So why not spend that money in a way which is both entertaining, engaging, exciting and effective.