Guerrilla Gardening: Street Cred for Foliage

While all would make great band names, "Seed Bombings," "Elicit Cultivations," and "Nocturnal Plantings" refer to an environmentally friendly graffiti of sorts: Guerrilla Gardening. Nature lovers in NYC have been doing this technically illegal community beautification since the '70s, but recent pop-up gardens have us inspired to head to the nearest nursery and get to beautifying. Whether taking over a street corner or introducing a single leafy friend to your neighborhood (as seen here), we're always happy to see guerrilla tactics showing their green side.

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Stairwell Smells Soon to be a Thing of the Past

UK parking company National Car Parks (NCP) recently developed technology capable of replacing less than desirable smells in parking garage stairwells with more favorable scents (think roses, fresh bread and roast chicken). Trial garages in four English cities are featuring the different smells and asking consumers to visit their website to vote for their favorite. The winning scent will take over stairwells at these garages, and, if the campaign is successful enough, could go nationwide. Fingers crossed a stateside expansion won't be too far behind.

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Airborne Advertising

Bubbly liquid+helium= bubble advertising? Called "flogos" for flying logos, this playful medium is gaining popularity amongst a variety of U.S. marketers. A handful of variables (heat? wind?) to consider, but a fun contribution to guerrilla techniques regardless. Bubbles aren't just for babies anymore.

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Not your Granny's Floor Vinyls

If the first few months of this year are any indication of things to come, 2009 is going to be the "Year of the Floor Vinyl". The level of creativity seen so far has been downright impressive. Both Frontline and SwissSkydive.com managed to take this non-traditional advertising to a stomach churning level with clever design and location selection. In Jakarta, mall-goers played the part of infesting fleas for shoppers on higher levels as they walked over the massive Yellow Lab image. The bird's eye view found in Netherlands' elevators had to have inspired many a stomach flip-flop. We always have to give props to those that can make our insides do a little dance.






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College students will do anything for coffee

CoffeeCompany, a cafe chain in the Netherlands, has turned cash-strapped, caffeine dependent college students into their most effective brand ambassadors. The company recently began offering free coffee to those willing to add a CoffeeCompany branded Powerpoint slide to their classroom presentations.

Captive audiences, comprised of the company's target demographic, receiving brand information through one of their peers... does it get any better than this!?


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Let it Snow: Taking advantage of Mother Nature's ad-space

In a matter of hours a London based media solutions agency was able to create one of the winter's coolest street marketing campaigns. After an unexpected storm blanketed London, over 2,000 Extreme Group logos were stamped into the fresh snow. The teams used laser cut stencils to stamp parked cars, post office boxes and busy downtown areas. Cost-effective, environmentally friendly, and eye-catching. Nice.

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Legal Graffiti, brought to you by Sharpie

Sharpie's new ad campaign is drawing in young consumers by allowing them to (legally) doodle whatever their hearts' desire on billboards in various cities across the country. The interactive e-cast boards allow you to choose from a multitude of colors, as well work through your desire to deface public property. If you happen to see one of these interactive boards in your city, make sure to leave your mark. Perhaps "I love you, Attack!. You fill the marketing hole in my life."

(Guest Contributor: Valeri, Primo Intern)

How do you say "Balloon-enabled pizza picnics" in French?

That's right ya'll. Here's another thing France can take credit for! The Parisian restaurant Pink Flamingo Pizza now allows patrons to order their pizzas for delivery to the picnic spot of their choice through the help of a distinctive pink balloon, a pretty cute location spotter for Pink Flamingo's delivery squad (traveling by foot or bicycle). Customers simply order the pizza for delivery to a picnic spot of their choice such as "the banks of the nearby Seine," and are given a pink helium balloon, which acts as a mobile marketing tool, a sweet souvenir, and an eye-catching map marker!

With locations in Canal St. Martin and Marais, it's notorious in the city for its cleverly named pizza options including "The Bjork," which includes smoked salmon; "The Ghandi," topped with spinach saag and Baba Ganoush; and a paella themed pizza called "The Almodovar." Pizzas are reasonably priced starting at 10.50 Euros a pop, which is just under 15 U.S. dollars. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

(Guest Contributor: Tracy, Primo Intern)

Lexicon: "Fauxmotions"

Sometimes the English language doesn't provide you with the proper word to describe a person, place, thought, action or thing and you need to make one up. At Guerrilla Sushi, we embrace the invention of new words and make them up as often as possible.

A "Fauxmotion" is the act of creating a television commercial that looks like it was guerrilla/street marketing "caught on tape." It was made popular by the always thought provoking TheTruth.com TV ads and now a handful of other companies, including the Kleenex's "Couch", General Mills "Cereal Box Aisle" and more recently Kashi's "Steal a Cookie" have been airing similar ads.

Don't get us wrong, we're not against this form of advertising, some of our best friends make TV commercials, we just felt the act deserved a word.

That said, we'd like to see more "real" execution of those ideas in several cities, either leading up to or following the commercials. It would add even more buzz to the campaign with people excited that they got to see the real thing.
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Top Model

British fashion giant TopShop knows exactly what their customers want to see more of: themselves.

In select U.K. stores, fitting rooms were turned into self-shoot photo studios, allowing shoppers the opportunity to play dress-up, stylist and photographer all in one go. The event was positioned as a tribute to Helmut Newton's 'Newton Machine', the controversial photographer's take on self-shot and styled photography.

Photos were printed out for customers to take home as souvenirs, as well as posted online for all to admire. Word of the day: Gravanity.

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