Street marketing

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Street marketing is marketing or promoting products or services in an unconventional way in public places.[1][2] The main point of street marketing is that the activities are done exclusively on the streets or other public places, such as shopping centers.[3] Unlike typical public marketing campaigns that utilize billboards, street marketing involves the application of multiple techniques and practices in order to establish direct contact with the customers.[3][4] One of the goals of this interaction is to cause an emotional reaction in the clients.[3] The final goal of street marketing is to get people to remember brands in a different way than they are used to.[1]


This marketing technique started by the need of businesses,especially small businesses,[1] to attract customers rather than wait for them to come, using alternative methods for the diffusion of their brand names. As a result, the concept of street marketing was born. It has evolved from being only the application of activities on the streets, to be the development of innovative practices of promotion.[4] For example, one method used by many enterprises to promote their products or services on the streets is the distribution of fliers.[5] This activity does not focus on creativity, but on making publicity on the streets.[6] However, with the passage of time, companies have developed more unconventional techniques to catch the attention of the clients.[4]

Small businesses cannot spend so much money in marketing campaigns. One of the reasons why they apply street marketing techniques is that, as stated by Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the book "Guerrilla marketing", street marketing and other guerrilla methods do not spend a big amount of money. Instead, they spend energy, imagination and time in creating new strategies to enter or to stay in a specific market.[1][2]

Also, the majority of the companies have the major goal of generating profits. To reach that goal, they develop plans in which they take into account the marketing approach. Most of those plans are based on acknowledging different kinds of methods to persuade the customers. In addition, they focus on making sure that the brand stays in their minds. There are many strategies that most organizations put into action, even though some of them do not work on certain companies. Once the strategies have been chosen, the enterprises analyze the results and decide if the marketing plan is working.[1]

Street marketing vs. guerrilla marketing[edit]

Street marketing is a subset of guerrilla marketing. Like guerrilla marketing, street marketing has the characteristic of being non conventional. However, it is limited to the streets or public places. Other forms of guerrilla marketing use other media and processes, such as the Internet, to establish communication with the customers. Some other examples of guerrilla marketing are viral marketing and experiential marketing.[1]

Typical procedure[edit]

First, enterprises identify the public places where the campaign can be developed such as beaches, cultural events, places close to schools,[3] sporting events and recreation centers for children.[7] Next, companies have to develop a plan to get close to different media and the target market.[3][8] In order to attract attention, street marketing events not only involve unusual activities,[1][2][3] but use technology as part of the events. The purpose is to increase the value of the campaigns and get potential consumers' attention.[9]

Besides, the plans that companies develop take into account that street marketing involves global communication and interaction not only with the customers or the media.[3] They are also developed to identify opportunities and collect enough information about products, markets and competitors.[10] For example, for business it is important that customers stay with them, instead of choosing the competitors’ offers. They implement innovative strategies with which they will not lose position in the market,[11] and they consider supplementation with other advertisement through other mediums, such as radio and television, when using street marketing.[3]



Some street marketing examples[edit]

There are various organizations who have implemented the street marketing strategies. The majority of them are small companies,[1] but there are also big companies that have involved in the street marketing environment.[12][13][14] Most of the examples of the strategies that both small and big enterprises have put into action include costumed persons, the distribution of tickets, people providing samples, among others.[12][13]

As stated before, one street marketing conventional method that is used by many businesses is to provide fliers. The goal is to create awareness on the customers about what the enterprise is doing.[15] One example of this took place in Montpelier, Vermont, where the New England Culinary Institute (NECI) sent a group of students to a movie theater to hand out 400 fliers. Those fliers had coupons in which NECI was inviting people to go to its monthly Theme Dinners. Another company, which name is Boston's Kung-Fu Tai Chi Club, chose the option of disseminating fliers instead of placing its advertisements on the newspapers. The purpose of the fliers was to promote the company's self-defense classes for women.[5]


There are enterprises that disseminate passes or tickets to different events. For example, Sony invests on joining promoters and tells them that they have to infiltrate in public meetings. What they have to do is to distribute free tickets to concerts and other musical events sponsored by the company.[13] Another instance is the Spanish company Clickair (an extension of Iberia airlines), that developed a campaign in which a group of five people had to walk through Barcelona streets dressed as Euros. The group was supplying approximately 3,000 tickets to promote different Clickair destinations. The people who first sent a SMS message with the required information would get free tickets to go on a trip. In the end, the company received a total of 3,390 messages.[12]

Along with these examples, there are other street marketing techniques that are even more unusual. Lee Jeans, a French company dedicated to the selling of jeans, promoted the opening of their new store in rue des Rosiers in Paris. The method they applied consisted of distributing denims, as well as denim accessories, on the different streets of the neighbourhood.[12] Furthermore, in Italy, the members of the company Nintendo put into action a campaign in which they used post-its to promote the Wii console. They pasted several post-its with the shapes of some characters from different video games. Those images were placed as if they were billboards on the streets. “Wii not forget”, the name of the campaign, and a brief explanation of it, were the words written on the post-its.[14]

In some cases, some street marketing may incite the ire of local authorities, such was the case in Houston, Texas, when BMW's ad agency (Street Factory Media in Minneapolis)[16] attached a replication, made from Styrofoam, of a Mini-Cooper to the side of a downtown building.[17] For the cost of a small city-issued fine, the company received front page advertising on the Houston Chronicle.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Levinson, Jay. Guerrilla Marketing. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 1–89. ISBN 0-395-90625-3. 
  2. ^ a b c "What is Guerrilla Marketing". 2010. Retrieved October 17, 2010. 
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Olamendi, G. "Street Marketing" (PDF). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  4. ^ a b c Gonzalez, R (October 12, 2010). "Street marketing y field marketing. Estrategias en auge" [Street Marketing and field marketing.] (in Spanish). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  5. ^ a b Gibbons, V. B. (October 2010). Street marketing. ABI/INFORM Global. pp. 36–40. 
  6. ^ Mediazonal group (2010). "Volanteo" [Fliering] (in Spanish). Mexico. Retrieved 4 November 2010. 
  7. ^ a b Frey, D. (2002). "Street Marketing for Small Business". Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  8. ^ Berry, T. (10 December 1999). "Segment the Target Market in Your Business Plan". Retrieved October 19, 2010. 
  9. ^ Franch, E. (January 2009). "La Creatividad de la publicidad exterior: teoría y práctica a partir de la visión de los creativos" [Creativity Theory]. Area Abierta (in Spanish) (ABI/INFORM Global) (22): 1–18. 
  10. ^ Villa, C. (March 2010). "Tiempo de Mercadeo" [Marketing Time] (in Spanish). Retrieved October 15, 2010. 
  11. ^ Tanda, J. D.; Marrero, M. "La identidad urbana vista como elemento estratégico del marketing de ciudades" [The urban identity as a strategic element of Marketing in Cities] (PDF) (in Spanish). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  12. ^ a b c d e Rodriguez, H. (2007). "Ejemplos de acciones de street marketing" [Examples of Street Marketing] (PDF) (in Spanish). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  13. ^ a b c Pereira, J. (2007). "Sobre el Street Marketing" [About Street Marketing] (in Spanish). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  14. ^ a b Blocs, M. (19 April 2010). "MK de guerrilla con notas" [Guerrilla Marketing with post it] (in Spanish). Retrieved October 12, 2010. 
  15. ^ Pixel, P. (2 October 2009). "Volanteo, Efectivo Metodo de Publicidad Segmentada y Economica" [Flyers: effective marketing method] (in Spanish). Leon, Guanajuato. Retrieved October 29, 2010. 
  16. ^
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