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Guerrilla Marketing
A practical playbook for buying attention with creativity instead of media spend. You learn the original Jay Conrad Levinson principles, then build ambient, street, and stunt campaigns and the earned-media engine that amplifies them.
Founders, small-business owners, marketers, and creators who need to stand out on a tight budget and turn creativity into reach and press.
Course content
Workbook & downloads
Put the course into practice — a printable workbook plus editable templates you can fill in and reuse.
Preview the workbook
This workbook turns the course into a campaign you can actually run. Each section maps to one course module and moves you from concept and safety planning, through ambient and street execution, into shareability engineering and earned-media amplification with measurement. Work through the exercises and templates in order, and by the end you will have a designed guerrilla campaign, a risk-checked activation plan, a press kit and outreach list, and a measurement sheet that proves the reach you earned.
Foundations of Guerrilla Marketing
Lock in the worldview, generate concepts that fit your goal, and pressure-test them against the failure modes before you spend anything.
Exercise: Run Your Idea Through the Three-Question Concept Test
Take three rough campaign ideas for your brand and run each through the stop, tell, and connect test from the course. Be honest; an idea that fails any question needs sharpening, not funding.
- Would a stranger physically stop and photograph this? Why or why not?
- Would they describe it to at least one other person, and what would they say?
- Does it connect clearly back to your brand without a paid explanation?
- Which of the three ideas scored best, and what one change would lift a weaker one?
Worksheet: Campaign Brief and Single Message
Define the campaign on one page before any creative work. Fill every field; if you cannot state the single message in one sentence, the concept is not ready.
- Brand and product being promoted
- Single narrow message (one sentence)
- Primary objective (awareness / trial / sign-ups / sales)
- Target audience (who, where, when)
- Total budget available
- Which of Levinson's guerrilla types this fits
- The emotion we want people to feel
- How we will know it worked (one primary metric)
Checklist: Backfire and Safety Pre-Check
Walk every concept through these failure modes before committing. If any item is a risk, redesign before you build.
- Could this be mistaken for a hazard, device, or emergency?
- Is the timing safe against any current event or sensitive moment?
- Are we using only surfaces and spaces we control or have permission for?
- Is there a real product or payoff behind the hook (no bait and switch)?
- Wrote the worst-case local-news headline and judged it acceptable
- The single message survives the stunt without paid explanation
Ambient and Street Marketing in the Physical World
Design the physical execution, plan the activation, and clear the permits, permissions, and safety steps that keep it legal.
Worksheet: Ambient Placement Designer
Design one ambient piece that uses a property of the surface itself. Fill in each field and sketch the two-step reveal.
- Everyday surface or object being hijacked
- The ordinary first glance (what people see at first)
- The brand reveal (what the second glance shows)
- Property of the object the idea depends on
- Brand identifier used (logo / hashtag / short URL)
- Best camera angle for the photo that travels
- Location and expected footfall
Exercise: Plan a Low-Budget Street Activation
Design one street activation with a clear hook, location, crew, capture plan, and takeaway, using the 500-dollar coffee example as a model. Write specific numbers.
- What is the single strange or generous hook that makes people stop?
- Where and when will it run, and why does that location have footfall?
- Who is on the crew and what is each person responsible for?
- How will reactions be captured, and what takeaway do people leave with?
Checklist: Permits and Brand-Safety Pre-Flight
Complete before build day. Everything here should be in your on-site operations kit.
- Public-space or special-event permit secured from the city
- Written permission for any private surface, storefront, or transit space
- Public liability insurance in place for the activation
- Checked local rules on sound, structures, road use, and food/alcohol sampling
- Teardown and full clean-up plan documented
- On-site lead named with emergency contacts and copies of permits
- Media-consent signage prepared for anyone filmed
Worksheet: Activation Budget Lines
List every cost line for one activation so the experience-versus-content split is visible. Leave the total empty for you to add up by hand.
- Materials and samples cost
- Print, signage, and branding cost
- Equipment and rental cost
- Crew and capture cost
- Permit and insurance cost
- Estimated total spend (you calculate)
Engineering Stunts That Spread
Design deliberately for sharing, build the capture-and-amplification loop, and bridge the physical moment to digital reach.
Exercise: Score Your Stunt Against STEPPS
Rate your stunt concept on each of Berger's six STEPPS elements from 0 to 2, then strengthen the weakest. Leave the total empty for you to add up.
- Social currency: does sharing it make the poster look good? Score and why.
- Triggers and Emotion: what daily cue recalls it, and what high-arousal feeling does it create?
- Public, Practical value, and Stories: is it visible, useful, and wrapped in a narrative?
- Which element scored lowest, and what one change would raise it?
Worksheet: Capture and Amplification Loop Plan
Plan the loop before build day. The footage, not the bystanders, carries most of the reach, so fill every field.
- Camera positions and who shoots vertical vs hero wide
- Who edits the 15-to-30 second hero clip and by when
- Unique campaign hashtag (short, spelled, pre-checked)
- Brand handle attached to all assets
- Single low-friction call to action (QR / short link / scan)
- Where the first posts are seeded (channels and communities)
- Plan to repost user reactions over the following days
Exercise: Write the Stranger's Caption
Imagine a bystander posting your stunt. Write the caption they would naturally use, then judge whether it builds social currency.
- What caption would a stranger genuinely write when posting this?
- Does that caption make the poster look good to their followers, or only advertise you?
- What unique hashtag and handle should appear, and have you confirmed the hashtag is free?
- How would you adjust the stunt so the natural caption flatters the poster?
Checklist: Physical-to-Digital Bridge Checklist
Confirm the stunt connects the street to the feed before it goes live.
- QR code or NFC tag links the installation to a landing page
- Any geofence or location offer is configured and tested
- AR filter or lens (if used) is built and linked to the location
- Unique hashtag aggregates all photos into one stream
- Short list of 10 to 20 local micro-influencers invited with a ready content kit
- Brand-owned channels scheduled to carry footage on day one
Amplification, Measurement, and Running Campaigns
Turn the stunt into earned media, measure what it was worth, and build a repeatable guerrilla program.
Worksheet: Press Kit Builder
Assemble the press kit before the stunt happens. Fill each field so it is ready to send the morning it runs.
- Press release headline and news hook
- Key facts: dates, locations, scale, notable numbers
- Quote and who it is attributed to
- Link to high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video
- Brand boilerplate (one paragraph)
- Named media contact with direct email and phone
Exercise: Build and Personalize Your Journalist Outreach
Create a targeted media list and draft a pitch under 150 words that leads with the hook. Pitch local and trade outlets first.
- Which 10 to 15 journalists or outlets cover your beat and city, and how did you find them (Muck Rack, Prowly, research)?
- What is the news hook tied to a trend, cause, record, or local angle?
- Write a subject line and opening sentence personalized to one reporter's recent work.
- What is your single, polite follow-up plan and timing?
Checklist: Measurement Setup Checklist
Stand up tracking before launch so the campaign is provable, not anecdotal.
- Unique landing page with Google Analytics in place
- QR generator with built-in scan counts ready for the activation
- Native platform insights and hashtag tracking set up
- Media-monitoring searches or alerts configured to catch pickups
- A method chosen to estimate earned-media value with visible assumptions
- Every metric mapped against its cost for the ROI calculation
Worksheet: Guerrilla Program Calendar Planner
Turn one-off stunts into a sustainable cadence. Define the rhythm and the constants that keep activations on brand.
- Sustainable cadence (e.g. one small activation monthly, one stunt quarterly)
- Calendar moments to tie activations to (seasons, events, awareness days, launches)
- Brand constants to keep (tone, recurring visual or character, value or cause)
- What varies each time (format and execution)
- Where the running idea bank lives
- Post-campaign review questions to feed the next run
Your Action Plan
- Write a one-page campaign brief with a single narrow message and one primary metric.
- Run three concepts through the stop-tell-connect test and the backfire pre-check, then pick one.
- Design the ambient piece or street activation, including the two-step reveal and the hook.
- Secure permits, permissions, insurance, and a teardown plan before build day.
- Plan the capture-and-amplification loop: camera positions, hero clip, hashtag, and call to action.
- Build the physical-to-digital bridge with a QR code or geofence and a short influencer list.
- Assemble the press kit and a personalized journalist outreach list ready to send on launch day.
- Set up measurement: landing page, analytics, QR scan counts, hashtag tracking, and media alerts.
- Run the activation, capture everything, edit the hero clip the same day, and seed it immediately.
- Review reach, earned-media value, and ROI, record the lessons, and schedule the next activation.
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