O marketing camuflado

: uma visão sobre o fenómeno do marketing de guerrilha

Abstract

The term “guerrilla” emerged from the Peninsular War (napoleonic invasion to Portugal and Spain), however it was Che Guevara who made it popular. Che Guevara was a famous guerrilla leader who belonged to a small military militia. His main goal was to take his political concepts forward, but the resources he had were poorer and limited compared to those of the massive military strength. Due to this, his attack operations and strategies were based on surprise and ambush tactics, as well as sabotage actions, using non-conventional weapons that clearly took the opponents by surprise. The reduced size of Che Guevara’s military militia of was not taken as a weakness by his opponents but, on the contrary, it was seen as a virtue because it allowed him greater flexibility and faster coordination in the movements. In 1983, Jay Levinson used the concept of “military guerrilla” in the marketing context and coined the term “guerrilla marketing”. Based on the idea that smaller companies are not a minor version of bigger companies and therefore should explore their methods, guerrilla marketing appears as the solution for smaller companies to survive and prosper in a market ruled by big companies with high investments in marketing strategies. Guerrilla marketing allows companies to promote their products, their services and their brand through non-conventional marketing strategies, once their limited resources don’t let them invest in the conventional media. The use of these new marketing channels permits the creation of creative and surprising actions which stand out and end in a much more committed involvement between the client and the brand. Nowadays, guerrilla marketing is followed by all sorts of companies, big or small with high or low budgets. The main reasons for this to happen were the saturation and the lack of efficiency by the traditional media as well as the change in habits and behaviours by consumers, these altogether led to the proliferation of the Internet. Smaller companies still use this strategy due to the good results between cost-effectiveness, while bigger companies are still looking for an additional complement, in guerrilla marketing, for their communication techniques, such as placing their brand closer to the consumer in an innovative way. Every company, whether it is small, medium or big, should, therefore, be ready for the new ways of communication. Specialized agencies were now created, worldwide seminars on the matter are being held, assuring this is not just a tendency, but a change in the way we communicate and this changing process came to stay. This dissertation has three main goals around which the whole work is about. Firstly, this dissertation intends to be a contribution in the acquisition and knowledge of fundamental concepts of guerrilla marketing and its main principles. Secondly, the addition of the traineeship final report in this dissertation intends to be the contribution to a more practical overview of the theoretical concepts previously presented. Finally, a proposal for guerrilla marketing to be implemented as an academic subject, intends to be seen as a contribution to the enrichment of the marketing curriculum in this new area and still little explored in academic literature and research.

Date of Award	2010
Original language	Portuguese
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Paulo de Lencastre (Supervisor)