Beauty and the Guerrilla

                This week in my Leadership and Media Strategies Communications 6610 graduate course we learned a Tale as old as time. What tale might that be? The beautiful tale of Advertisement, and we also learned a new form of advertisement called Guerrilla marketing. According to this week’s reading on Referral Candy site, “Guerrilla marketing is a set of marketing tools, techniques, and practices to connect directly to customers and leave a lasting, memorable impression. The ultimate goal of guerilla marketing is to get customers to remember a brand’s products in a way they are not accustomed to” (Hall, 2022). How did Message development, product placement, and positioning happen in the 17^th to 19^th century. This is what I thought as I watched the movie “The Women King”, this week with my family. The Movie “The Women King”, “is a 2022 American historical epic film about the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries. Set in the 1820s, the film stars Viola Davis as a general who trains the next generation of warriors to fight their enemies. It is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Dana Stevens, based on a story she wrote with Maria Bello. The film also stars Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, and John Boyega.” (Wikipedia, 2022).

               While watching this film with my family. I did not see one, on screen, technology device. I often wondered how they communicated from tribe to tribe. How they warned against new danger, or how they advertise the sale of their famous Palm oil. How did the Europeans know they were in the slave trade business. Or was this the first real Guerrilla Marketing? Leaving a lasting impression with force. There was a scene in the film where the opposing tribe was threatening to stop the use of the river to trade goods. The king of Dahomey people did not like that, so he sent a form of his own advertisement by using his Agojie warriors to send a physical violent message to the opposing tribe. I wonder, did all advertisements and messages involve violence. Was this the only way to set up Kingdoms in positions of power. Even back then in the 17^th and 19^th century there was not extra, extra, read all about it. There was only action. What if we only acted today and did not rely on algorithms to analyze materials for us. What if we communicated more. What if we used our interpersonal skills more and that was our way of sending messages of truth and power. It will allow us to think for ourselves, make decisions for ourselves, and even feel for ourselves. Here in Florida, there is a famous grocery store chain called Publix. Publix’s slogan is “Where Shopping is a pleasure”. I wholeheartedly agree with this because shopping at Publix is not only a Pleasure, but also an experience. If I run in to Publix for a loaf of bread or this week’s grocery supply. I always leave feeling like I have experienced a hug. I leave feeling like I went on a journey with a family friend. Anytime I am in a rush or make the mistake of going to another local big name shopping mart. I always feel dizzy, almost turned around. I feel like I am bothering the employees by asking for help. Instead of walking me to my needed items. The employees use terms like “I think”, or “I am new”, “I am not sure but…”, and then proceed to point to where they think the item is. The experience is not the same.

               According to Apple, “We believe privacy is a basic human right and that users should have transparency and choice about how their data is collected and used. We’ve invested in privacy-preserving technologies for decades, with Intelligent Tracking Prevention in Safari, Privacy Labels on the App Store, Sign in with Apple, and App Tracking Transparency. Our privacy features apply to all developers — including Apple. But users won’t see App Tracking Transparency Prompts from Apple because we don’t track users.” (CNBC, 2021) When I was younger, I remember being on the playground and running with my friends and whispering in each other’s ear “The Sky is purple”. Now we knew the sky was not purple but now that we whispered it, and no one knew our secret made it fun. We were able to, at our young age, keep that secret until the end of the day. Which is standard for elementary school secret keeping. Today people with cell phones cannot keep secrets. We cannot keep a secret from our cell phones. Our phones know where we are shopping, what we are eating, and what coupons we should use. Even if we are driving near a store our cell phone will make a recommendation of what we should eat for lunch based on our location. I feel like this is removing the choice from us as consumers. A new idea would be to remove the fear of taking risks. Allow the consumer to decide. Decide on everything, like when they see an advertisement, when they are notified of an advertisement. I remember back when the social media platform MY SPACE was popular. Then suddenly it wasn’t. in my opinion, as a MY SPACE user. I feel the advertisement piece became overwhelming. Facebook is giving the same MY SPACE vibes now a days.  I wanted to see what my sorority sister was up to who lives in Tokyo. However, before I can even get to her page. I am bombarded with advertisements from a discussion I had with my husband on wanting a hotel diffuser as an air freshener, and then I fall down a rabbit hole of forty-five minutes of advertising, when all I wanted to do was check on a loved one. Advertisement is a time stealer. As I stated in one of my previous blogs about light. Light will do what it is made to do and that is shine. Consumers will do what they are there to do, and that is consume. No matter how little or how much advertiser, advertise. Consumers will continue to consume what they need and want, but the overloading of advertisement can cause consumers to be exhausted. Companies think that if they do not advertise a certain way through certain technologies they will be ignored. As a consumer, I feel it is quite the opposite. Too much advertising can cause consumers to need an advertisement selfcare day.

The app Calm is an app that literally provides white noises and relaxation sounds for consumers to reset. During Election time they help voters remain calm by being one of CNN’s sponsors. “Meditation app Calm’s brilliant and hilarious marketing campaign that saw it sponsoring CNN’s coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results this week seems to have paid off for the business. The app, which today offers mindful meditations, peaceful sounds, and sleep stories, had flashed on screen during CNN’s “Key Race Alert” coverage, reminding users of the need to relax during this stressful time.” (Perez, 2020). Although time has not been any less stressful.  Advertising has been put in positions to determine the way we relax. From the Tribe of the Dahomey people to the Voters in the past election we are told how to purchase, how to feel, where to have lunch, and even what app to download on our phone. This is a tale as old as time.

CNBC. (2021, MARCH 19). CNBC. Retrieved from CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/19/apples-privacy-change-could-increase-the-power-of-its-app-store.html

Hall, B. (2022, March 25). ReferralCandy. Retrieved from ReferralCandy: https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/guerrilla-marketing-tactics#definition

Perez, S. (2020, November 5). TechCrunch. Retrieved from TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/05/calms-hilarious-cnn-ad-campaign-sent-the-meditation-app-flying-up-app-store-charts/

Wikipedia. (2022, November 26). Wikipedia. Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_King