October 29, 2003

Dan Gillmor on Guerilla Marketing

Dan Gillmor dismisses -- and then regrets his dismissal -- of guerilla marketing. Commenting on the press release for an Oki Data color printer campaign that featured unitard-clad dancers with Oki logos on their chests singing "songs about Oki printers" and dancing in high-trafficked areas in San Francisco (that's a scenario my fingers have never typed before), Gillmor quips,
I was laughing out loud when I forwarded this along to Mercury News Business Editor Vindu Goel. He wrote back, "Costumed people dancing in the streets of a city that just had the Exotic Erotic Ball and is going to have a peace protest this weekend -- and Oki actually thinks it'll get noticed?" (He also observed that San Francisco isn't exactly the hotbed of technology, though there are undoubtedly some "hot beds" (note spelling in press release) in the city.)
But by the end of the article, he realizes his complicity (Palmolive? You're soaking in it):
Still, I'll bet that the local TV stations will cover this stunt.

Question: Does this posting count as coverage, too?

Bingo. That's the gift of postmodernist culture. There's no such thing as bad press, because mindshare influences brand recognition. Posted by johndan at October 29, 2003 01:14 AM | TrackBack