Anita Facundo

Immediately after glancing over Celine’s blog, “Guerilla Marketing- one of the most creative forms of marketing yet!” I thought of the Vancouver Aquarium.

Celine explained in her blog how “Guerilla marketing thrives to reach consumers at a much more personable level than conventional advertising might, and wants the consumer (or viewer) to leave with a whole new perspective on things”. Not only did the Vancouver Aquarium do an exceptional job of this, but they also successfully managed to differentiate themselves from other facilities around the world by giving their advertisements an educational and conservational focus.

See for yourself…

No doubt these Vancouver Aquarium ads are imaginative, clever and memorable. If I saw a shark fin while running through Stanley Park, I would 100% take a photo of it and share it with friends. And there you go; I am already marketing for the Vancouver Aquarium without realizing it.

While browsing through some more local, creative guerrilla marketing examples, I came across Science World’s Science of Sexuality ads.

Like the Vancouver Aquarium ads, I thought these advertisements were effective in a humorous manner. According to Science Worlds Communication Coordinator, these “hot and heavy ads were designed to be cheeky icebreakers to get people curious about the science behind sexuality”. Yet, to no surprise, these advertisements received a lot of negative attention of the media. Negative reviews included comments such as “these ads promote that the younger generation should have more sex” and “it looks like the man is raping the woman because she can’t move”. This negative word-of-mouth from the media resulted with 2 of the 3 advertisements being banned from being displayed around Vancouver for being “too racy”. I agree that the ads may not be suitable for young kids, but I don’t think it was necessary to completely ban these amusing ads. I think these ads are honest, educational, and laughable. How often do we come across advertisements like these?