When Guerilla Goes Wrong.

The latest guerilla advertising strategy by Philips Electronics Singapore, executed by The Secret Little Agency (yes, that’s what the agency is called) managed to draw some publicity, albeit negative. The story in a nutshell: someone submitted a video of a bear at a bus stop located in Singapore to a popular local citizen journalism site, STOMP. Employees from the Singapore Zoo, policemen and members from a nature group were notified and went down to the location to search for the bear – one of them even came with a tranquilizer gun.
Turns out it was a PR stunt, and the “bear” was merely a guy in a very convincing bear suit. Read more here. (Source: CampaignSingapore.sg)

The message behind this?

“It was a close shave”

Anyone else missing the joke here?

Sure it hits all the checkpoints of a guerilla ad campaign – it’s unexpected, unconventional, is definitely news worthy and involved a risk (of getting shot by a tranquilizer dart). But did it make a positive connection with their target audience? I’m not too sure. But they’re definitely getting a lot of bad press – it was even covered by BBC.

The incident is being investigated right now, and if what happened was an offence of public nuisance under Section 268 of the Penal Code, the company can by fined up to $1,000.

Another incident which required the police to investigate into a guerilla ad tactic happened just earlier this year, when a campaign by postal company SingPost to promote the upcoming Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Singapore was frowned upon by the public. Read more here. (Source: AsiaOne) The company had actually informed the police about the campaign but in vague terms, and I guess they didn’t expect Singaporeans to be this angered by graffiti. (IMO, wouldn’t have happened if the graffiti on postboxes were actually visually pleasing.)

Of course, the epitome of guerilla gone wrong still belongs to the Aqua Teen Hunger Force for the 2007 Boston Bomb Scare. Oops?

Moral of the story guys, it’s okay to think out of the box, but don’t stray too far away from it. And don’t do anything that will upset the authorities. It’s embarrassing to say the least, when guerilla goes wrong.