Guerrilla tactics

Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — Portable and a little sneaky, a colorful image of a steamy Nescafe drink projected high on a downtown wall enticed the chilly throngs headed for the Olympic medals plaza.

After the ceremony, the same billboard could — in mere seconds — be projected on another wall, this time to catch the crowd going the other way.

"The best thing for the advertisers," said Nescafe representative Craig Singer, "is they don’t have to commit to real estate."

Singer is a co-founder of New York-based GoGorilla, one of a new breed of so-called guerrilla marketers who work the in-your-face angles. Their shtick: figuring out how to bodaciously showcase their clients’ brands while keeping costs down at a time when traditional advertising is in decline.

Already, GoGorilla’s Olympic forays are paying off. Had Nescafe chosen to buy billboard space during the Winter Games from Salt Lake City’s premier company, Reagan Outdoor Advertising, the cost would have been at least $1,000 for the sign space.

Instead, Singer set up his special projector behind his van in a dark parking lot and focused the full-color light image on a brick apartment building — at no extra cost, and with the building owner’s cooperation.

"In New York it’s, ‘Sure you can project on my wall. Where’s my $500?’ " Singer said.

Singer said Nescafe pays $5,000 a night for the projections. The total cost of the Olympic ad campaign "is upward of six figures," he said without being specific.

Other GoGorilla clients include Skyy vodka, the modern dance troupe Pilobolus, MTV and the Guggenheim museum.

Dan Smith, a professor of marketing at Indiana University’s school of business, said guerrilla ads work because they cut through the background noise.

"It’s advertising that shows up in an unexpected place where it’s not surrounded by a lot of competition," Smith said. "Television and magazine advertising get lost in the clutter."

GoGorilla president Alan Wolan, writing in Brandweek magazine, said guerrilla marketers should be prepared to get in trouble. "Don’t be afraid of negative publicity," Wolan said. "It gets people talking about your brand."

GoGorilla’s playful motto, "There is nothing more regrettable than an empty space with no advertising on it," illustrates the guerrilla ad creed of grabbing people’s attention as they go about mundane tasks.

GoGorilla will put a company’s logo in fortune cookies and on condom wrappers, bags, napkins, swizzle sticks, sugar packets and matches.

They’ll even resort to traditional product giveaways.

During Sunday’s bone-cracking cold morning hours, Singer and his crew were downtown handing out free steaming cups of Nescafe to bleary passers-by. The mocha coffee stayed hot in a wearable contraption that looked like an atomic-age jet pack.

When it’s cold outside, Singer said, "the only thing easier to give away than coffee is dollar bills."

While GoGorilla won’t soon hand out greenbacks, they’d like to advertise on them via removable stickers. Their lawyers say that despite a federal currency-defacing law, temporary advertising on them isn’t illegal.

No clients have yet taken up that offer, Singer said.

More palatable to Nescafe during the Olympics are the logo-emblazoned napkins, coasters and city maps Singer has handed out to hotels and clubs. "Twenty-five out of 27 hotels took our maps," Singer said.

He had worried the fearsome Salt Lake Olympic Committee trademark police, or even just regular cops, would find his methods questionable and try to banish him. It’s happened elsewhere, he said.

"Normally, we have to run around, keep moving," Singer said. "But here, it’s worked out fabulously. The police love the coffee."