Communicating with Guerillas

Came across this article on CBC and it just goes to show you that guerilla, grassroots or any other type of marketing takes just as much coordination as putting together a mailing campaign or radio advertisement. It talks about a new campaign that Ikea has been trying throughout Canada where they spray paint "Any space can be beautiful" on a bland, high-trafficked area around the city. These spaces send people to the http://www.anyspacecanbebeautiful.ca/ website which allows consumers to post photos of the rooms they need a makeover on. Other people that go to the website can vote on which space they think deserves to win a $15,000 makeover. Seems like a pretty well thought out concept.

Just one problem.....it was not communicated/coordinated well between the parties involved.

The ads were spraypainted on city property without city approval, okay no problem that is part of guerilla marketing.

But then they painted them on the storefronts of other businesses, why would another business allow you to get away with advertising on it???? Not well executed. There definately needed to be more direction or more hands on supervision from the creative agency over the painting company. Now they have to power wash all the ads off at their own cost, while losing some of the impact of the campaign.

Now some of the points of the article are completely irrelevant such as the business owners claim that Ikea can afford billboards and tv so they shouldn't be using such a tactic. As a small owner it's understandable that he was frustrated with them advertising on his space but they probably paid a good chunk of money for this campaign. And just because you are a large corporation does not mean you are excluded from using different/inventive marketing tactics.