We are so exposed to advertising that we barely pay attention to the ads that appear on the internet or in the media. This situation forces marketers to use advertising techniques that are increasingly powerful, such as Street Marketing. In this post we will see what is the definition ofStreet marketing and some examples.

Definition of Street Marketing

Street marketing or street marketing involves the promotion of products or services in public places (the street, a shopping center) in an unconventional way. Actually Street Marketing is not something so novel, since it could be considered an evolution of practices such as the distribution of flyers or brochures.

How is Street Marketing done?

If something defines Street Marketing it is creativity . For a street marketing action to succeed, it has to offer people something they have never seen. Imagination, even over budget, is the key to its success. In addition, if the action is ingenious it is possible that it ends up becoming viral in the social networks, which multiplies the effect of the campaign. Of course, it is important to choose well where to do the advertising action. By force it has to be a busy place and choose an appropriate time if you want to reach the largest number of people.

Street Marketing examples

– Flashmob : in a flashmob a group of people meet in a public place (the street, a shopping center, the Metro …), perform a specific action (do a dance, stay “frozen” …) and then quickly disperse. This type of action usually gets easily media attention.

– Street art : works of urban art (painted, sculptures …) that attract the attention of passers-by and include a more or less direct advertising message. The best known example is the OBEY graffiti made by the urban artist Shepard Fairey and that ended up giving rise to a whole brand.

– Spontaneous concert : consists in offering a free and improvised concert for the lucky ones who pass by the place.

– Games, tests, contests … : here any street marketing action that seeks the participation of the public, which becomes the protagonist. These are just some examples of fun advertising and it works very well; surely new forms of street marketing will appear. The more absurd your idea seems, the more ballots it has to attract the attention of the public.

What is street marketing?

There are many ways to market a product. Marketing is in every corner of society. It has become a natural part of citizenship directly and indirectly. Each space where a large number of people circulate is a perfect place to apply the famous techniques of marketing. And among its advantages, the versatility of marketing stands out. Among this versatility are different types of marketing such as content marketing or street marketing . street marketing is the alternative way to sell in public places through advertising. If you want to know more about street marketing, what are its benefits and how it works, continue reading. In the following lines we will tell you everything you need to know about this topic.

What is street marketing?

As we mentioned before, street marketing is one of the many ways to apply marketing. It is the most practical way to market a product or services in streets, avenues and public places with high traffic. Although this strategy may seem very novel, it really goes back to the beginnings of humanity. The story tells that 20,000 years ago the man painted on a rock his daily life without knowing that this, would be taken as a reference for what is now known as outdoor advertising. Street marketing is the most creative way to tell the customer who you are and what you offer. At this point, brands sometimes recognize that it is no longer essential to wait for the client to arrive, but that you must go and look for it. At present, street marketing is all that group of promotions, advertising campaigns and forms of communication that take place in urban spaces. The main objective is to create empathy with the recipient and promote a closer relationship between the company and the client.

How does street marketing work?

Street marketing is a powerful tool. The greater number of times it is put into practice ends up being successful for several reasons. Mainly, advertising generates a visual impact at first sight that makes the strategy effective. One of the great reasons why this strategy ends up being successful is because it forges a relationship between the company and the target audience in the recipient’s everyday life. In addition to making the product or service known, the surprise factor becomes a fundamental element to achieve the proposed objective. Bet directly on emotionality; The brand is embodied in the mind of the person because it makes it live a different experience. All these combined points encourage the purchase and constant recall of the product and / or service by people. In this way we see that street marketing points directly to memory. From there he works with the consumer’s feelings and motivates him to buy the product or service. Using street marketing within a marketing plan is one of the valuable tools to achieve the proposed goal; if this is to attract the target audience.

Benefits of applying Street marketing

As we already explained, street marketing is an effective strategy. It is used by large brands recognized worldwide because their results are successful. That is why, if you want to create this visual impact on your consumers, here we leave you the benefits of applying this tool in a marketing plan.

● Advertising is in transformation and it is very difficult to surprise and captivate the public; that is why street marketing uses ingenuity and creativity as the main tool.

● It not only shows the brand, but also generates direct interaction with the public.

● They are used instead of high traffic. The largest number of people come across advertising.

● It fits the budget of the company. The great or ingenious of this project is totally at the hands of the brand. Depending on your budget you can forge a large or small street marketing. The important thing is not the dimension, but to achieve the purpose for which it was applied.

● It allows sending a direct message about who the company is and what it offers.

● You have the option to reach more people because it is not targeted to a target audience, but is aimed at a general audience. The only way to segment advertising will depend on the area in which you place it.

● Some people believe that this type of advertising, especially the large ones, are invasive or aggressive. Try to take this into consideration.

● It generates an immediate impact.

What is the difference between street marketing and ambient marketing ?

In many cases street marketing and ambient marketing are often confused. Mainly because both tools are applied on the street, generating the same surprise effect. Both are part of the guerrilla marketing category. This is the group of ads that adjust to unconventional media and have greater emotional connection with the public; But do you know the difference? Both tools have greater similarities than differences, which is why it is so difficult to differentiate them. However, when applying them to your company it is important to know the distances between them to define which is the best for your strategy. To differentiate them, we begin by conceptualizing them. Ambient marketing is street advertising that transforms urban environments in order to present a product. Street marketing, very similar, is the way to market a product or service locating street advertising that generates surprise. Although in reality they are very similar, there are small nuances that make the difference. Here we show you the two big differences between each strategy.

Interaction with the environment

The main difference between the two is their interaction with the environment. The street marketing puts large or small objects on the streets in order to advertise the brand. The idea is that creatively add elements that do not belong to the environment to send the message. This can be a great hand coming out of a wall, an armchair in the middle of a street. Something that, naturally, does not belong to this site. On the contrary, the ambient marketing use existing objects in the environment to recreate the message to be transmitted. The main idea is not to highlight an objective, but to merge advertising in the everyday environment . As an example, the decoration of a lamp post can be adapted.

Result produced

The second way to differentiate ambient marketing and street marketing is the impact it produces. The first is usually subtle, a little more spontaneous and delicate when it comes to presenting the message. As an example, this type of advertising could generate hunger, happiness or sympathy. However, the street tends to be more radical. It is normal for this type of advertising to generate a strong impact of fear, surprise or any other acute feeling or sensation. It should not necessarily be negative, like fear. It can be any type of sensation, but it impacts with greater strength. We already saw that, although both belong to the same guild and have more similarities than differences, there are small but well-marked nuances that point to different objectives. It is important to recognize and differentiate them to know what we need to apply in our campaign. Both have a visual, emotional and surprise effect that catches the public, but from their area it is important to know how to recognize them.

What should be taken into account when applying a street marketing?

For the advertising campaign to take effect you will need to take into account certain considerations. These factors will be decisive to have the expected result and respond to the objectives set out in the marketing plan. If in the analysis and study process you noticed that you need to apply a street marketing to publicize your brand and explain what your product is, you will need to define with details the following options:

Place

In order to achieve the proposed goal, it is necessary to define the ideal space to establish street marketing. This, as we said before, is the only way you have to segment your target audience since, high traffic places are traveled by a general public. It is also the opportunity to win new people to your community, if that is what you want, that were not outlined in the beginning of your marketing plan. It is a way to expand and have greater social recognition. The place where you locate your street marketing will be fundamental to define the result of the campaign. It is important that at the time of the analysis locate carefully and carefully the geographic space of your brand.

Weather

The time or time in which you place advertising also plays a fundamental role. It is impossible for a campaign on a sunscreen to have the same effect in winter as in summer. It is important to take into account this suggestion that will determine the end of the objective.

Message

In this type of campaign it is important the color, the images that are used and everything related to the creative theme. However, if you fail to create a message that is easy to understand and easy to remember, advertising will not have much impact. Beyond the color element, the main idea of ​​this tool is to transmit a message. Therefore, it is important to carefully study which words will be used to reach the desired audience.

Type of action

After identifying the above elements, it is essential to determine what type of action will be taken or how the campaign will be presented. If it will be in a small way or large elements like a lot of color will be used. This last factor will depend exclusively on the result of all the previous points.

How to reach your target audience with Street Marketing?

In a highly competitive environment, it is vital to design strategies that impact and surpass those of the competition. Faced with this challenge, Street Marketing could be a solution. In recent years, various marketing tools emerged looking to innovate and impact the public. One of them is Street Marketing ; and although the term could be translated as “street marketing”, in reality it is much more than that. “It consists of communication actions or publicity campaigns that are carried out in the street, shopping centers and other public places such as parks, buses, airports, etc. They are considered as an alternative to traditional media, seeking to generate a high impact, approaching customers and give them memorable experiences “, explains Luis Ubillus, professor of the PEE of Disruptive Marketing at ESAN . This tool encourages brands to go out into the streets in search of the consumer, instead of waiting for it to come closer.

What to consider when applying Street Marketing ?

A series of guidelines must be taken into account, with innovation being one of the most important. It is essential to take advantage of all the tools at hand, especially the technological ones. “You can use technological resources that generate unique experiences: virtual reality, augmented reality, 360 experiences, interactivity, movement, etc.”, recommends the teacher. Also, given that the goal is to draw attention, the visual aspect of Street Marketing is essential. “It must be creative and break the conventions of the brand or company sector, it has to be memorable for the public, and it must generate repercussion through viralization in social networks, which are now indispensable for any campaign. is that the users themselves spread the experience, “explains Ubillus. This type of campaign tends to be very popular among consumers. Two clear examples are those presented below, carried out in Germany.

The celebration with 400 bottles of beers

With the help of a group of urban artists, the German beer brand Grolsch created a mural made with 400 empty beer bottles. This was done to commemorate the four centuries of life that the brand fulfilled in the global market. In addition, as another curious fact, the time it took to install the mural was 400 minutes. Taking care of every detail, the bottles were not all the same, but they were different models that the brand launched to the market during its 400 years of existence. The mural caused a sensation among the passers-by, who took photos with him and viralized them on social networks.

“Connections instantly” by Nescafé

The renowned coffee brand, Nescafé, carried out this campaign in the main avenues of Germany. The mechanics were very simple: two free coffee vending machines were placed on two opposite sides of the street. If two people (unknown) activated the machines at the same time to order their drink, the machines invited them to interact. Some just greeted each other, others smiled, while others even engaged in conversations. Nescafé fulfilled its objective of generating interaction and union with a coffee in hand, a goal that is aligned with the identity of the brand. As well as those mentioned, many other companies use Street Marketing strategies to generate impact and impact worldwide. If you want to know more about this tool, sign up for ESAN’s Disruptive Marketing PEE . MARKETING AND STREET ADVERTISING IN THE CITIES OF THE WORLD Street advertising seems to have exceeded the limits contemplated for the aesthetics of some cities. No doubt there are countries in the world where advertising on the streets dominates every square centimeter and therefore some capitals have already taken the initiative to prevent this increase in advertising space. In this regard, Paris has been one of the cities to adopt a new regulation to drastically reduce publicity on its streets with the aim of eliminating advertising panels larger than eight square meters and also prohibiting light advertising on buildings “Haussmann” century XIX Sao Paulo, the largest city in Brazil is another cosmopolitan example where advertising is hard to ignore. Posters the size of a skyscraper flood the facades of the buildings in its streets to which every day new spaces and supports are added that are sometimes even installed illegally. Also in this city have been proposed to reduce the publicity of its streets. Gilberto Kassab, mayor of Sao Paulo calls it “visual pollution” and confirms the intention that these giant-format posters disappear from the streets. During the year 2006 in cities such as Madrid, the proposals for new ordinances that would prohibit street advertising and advertising activities that could deteriorate public spaces or declared goods of cultural interest were made public. The opposite of what other cities in the world like New York promote, where advertising is already more than a sign of identity to the point of converting some of its streets and avenues into real advertising galleries. Times Square is one of its most striking and genuinely American streets. It is perhaps the symbolic center of consumption, advertising and the most spectacular America. It is possible to see dozens of luminous signs, fluorescent panels of great dimensions, all kinds of ads, restaurants, cinemas … To finish we could not forget to mention another of the most spectacular cities where advertising is practically impossible to ignore. Tokyo. Tokyo is like Disneyland (of trends). ” This was defined by Sven Kilian, President of CScout Japan, a market research and marketing firm. Advertising is the streets of Tokyo seems to recover life thanks to that unstoppable inertia to overcome the barriers of technology and innovating with digital media of all colors and sizes. Summarizing. Undoubtedly different cultures mark their own style and rhythm of life. Advertising has a defined role in every place and every city in the world. Although its objectives are almost always the same, in some cities it is considered that advertising involves hiding the showiness of the classical environment, its buildings and its places. In others however, advertising is already part of their environment and without it, these cities would seem naked before the eyes of those who observe them.