Guerrilla marketing in Switzerland : an analysis of success factors for lifestyle brands
Creators: name: Egli, Yannic
Publisher: name: ZHAW Zürcher Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften
Year: 2017
Subjects: 658.8: Marketingmanagement

description: In a century of sensory overload, attention has become a scarce resource. Traditional marketing communication instruments are not able to reach the target group anymore due to their incapability of circumventing people’s perceptual screens. In order to attract the attention of prospective customers, creative forms of advertising are crucial. Guerrilla marketing, an umbrella term for unconventional marketing activities, being one of them. Guerrilla marketing is not a new concept, however, not many campaigns have been successfully orchestrated beyond the borders of its country of origin, the United States. The cultural environment in the United States is widely perceived as very open-minded, which raises the question of whether such a campaign likewise has potential for success in a national context which is perceived to be more traditional and conservative, such as in Switzerland. Hence, this research aims to assess the potential of guerrilla marketing within the context of the Swiss culture. It further investigates factors of success for lifestyle brands which plan to orchestrate a guerrilla marketing activity within the Swiss environment. The findings are based on a review of relevant literature, an analysis of two case studies as well as nine in-depth interviews conducted with two culture experts and seven marketing specialists from different fields of expertise. The results contribute toward a better understanding of the coherence between guerrilla marketing, Swiss culture and lifestyle brands. The empirical research revealed that Swiss people generally are perceived as risk-averse, serious and critical toward advertisements and hence, do not offer ideal preconditions for unconventional, creative and surprising guerrilla marketing activities. On the other hand, Swiss value concise, informative and creative ways of advertising which implies that guerrilla marketing has potential for success if appropriately executed. Accordingly, twelve success factors, ranging from creative human capital to a concise message design, were identified and incorporated into a newly developed model. Another interesting aspect which arose during the qualitative analysis was the question of whether guerrilla marketing might even be independent of the national culture and has the potential to be successful everywhere – presupposing an adapted execution. According to some experts, other factors, such as the underlying values of the company, are more important and outweigh the significance of the country culture. Based on the above findings, guerrilla marketing has unused potential in Switzerland and maybe also in other countries. If thoroughly planned and judiciously executed, lifestyle brands should consider this instrument when aiming to circumvent the perceptual filters of the Swiss target market. However, the results of this empirical study are based on individual opinions and hence are not representative. Further, systematic research has to be conducted to verify and extend these findings.