Making a giant eye, primarily for fun, by no means makes us experts on guerilla marketing, but (spamming questions aside) it leads to an interesting thought: where were the big companies in all of this?
Where was McDonalds with its truck load of Big Mac’s at Bondi Beach creating an image of the world’s largest group of hamburger eaters? Why didn’t Milton Bradley create the world’s largest twister game on the world’s largest twister mat?
Here are our thoughts why:
1. Ideas like this would get laughed at by many companies.
2. The decision to do something like this would take too long at a large company, too many people would need to be involved. We heard about the idea on Tuesday and were on a plane Thursday night.
3. Given large companies have a base reputation to protect, there are risks involved. Much of our press was negative.
4. Large companies are much more susceptible to bad press. Take Wal-Mart and Microsoft. In their growth phase, both were loved by the press, but as they grew, so did the negative press, to the point they are at now where they can’t do a thing right.
5. Given the barriers caused by the above, how the hell does a large company motivate its employees to spend their own time brainstorming and planning an idea all week, then get up at 4am on a national holiday to execute it? It’s tough and they didn’t. They hire advertising agencies to try and do it for them, but they sometimes struggle with the same problems and need the client’s approval before doing anything, meaning the decision to act would take too long.
As Seth Godin says, small is the new big.
The SwiftCity.com Blog 
1. Big companies have already done this before.
2. See #1
3. You don’t give a rats arse about bad press for doing something negative, any press is good press and you know it.
4. What does this have to do about you adding more crap in our world?
5. So your better then a big business because you have nothing better to do then spend a day at the park out of desperation for attention?
Whats your point with this post? All you did was copy an idea and got a lucky hit with the press. You trying to say your smarter, more capable then a large business? If so, say it and I’ll have a really good laugh. Seriously, I’ll have a good one.
From the news on how people trying to inject ads on google maps didn’t make it:
“He had spent $10,000 on a 50-metre sign featuring his company’s logo and website address and had organised 30 of his employees to come along to Queens Park in Waverley on Friday morning and help assemble the installation.”
This seems to completely go against this post.
I do believe that KFC is a ‘large company’. I do believe that it took a marketing team to think this up without laughing at it. I do think it took massive coordination of employees. I do think they care about their reputation and haven’t heard of them getting much negative press over it.
http://michaelcastellon.blogspot.com/2006/11/kfcs-logo-first-to-be-seen-from-space.html
Some good comments in here. KFC have indeed done something similar creating a huge logo in the desert. Big companies do have some advantages over small companies, we certainly couldn’t afford 3,000 hours to create a giant logo!
However last Friday presented a unique opportunity to build a creative temporary display. Imagine the buzz McDonald’s would have received if they had handed out Big Mac’s on Bondi last Friday (and cleaned up afterwards) to create an ariel image in Google Maps of the world’s largest group of people eating burgers? The mind boggles thinking of all the amazing and interesting things different companies could have tried.
Adam Cogan of software services company SSW put in a stellar effort with his $10k sign. He organised and motivated his employees to help out. Whether you’d call a company with 30 employees ‘big’ depends on your definition of big. From the SMH articles it sounds like he’s the business owner and that he was the main driver behind his businesses efforts.
It’s possible to find examples to refute just about any argument but we feel that the point behind our post stands. Compared with small companies, it’s tough for big companies to develop and execute spontaneous guerilla campaigns.