Even in the Socially Distant Era of COVID-19, Guerrilla Marketing Still Prevails in the East Village
Although contactless advertising reigns supreme, especially since the pandemic, some businesses still find the charm and appeal of guerrilla marketing useful.
Nick Ayala opened the New York City branch of SLCT Stock, his vintage clothing store, in the middle of the pandemic. One of the main difficulties he faced at first was a fundamental one: getting customers into the store.
“If you have to wear a mask, [some customers] will just walk right out,” Ayala says, “the door open is [also] a big thing. People don’t want to open the closed door.” Ayala, having previously opened two stores in other states, stuck with what he knew, even if it appeared out of sorts in the socially distant time of COVID: flyers.
“For me, the hardest part of my business is marketing in general,” the owner says. Other than social media and word of mouth, advertising with flyers, or what Ayala calls the “old-school way to do it,” is now a source of foot traffic to his store.
Ayala is just one of many business owners in the East Village who use flyers, posters, stickers and more, to attract new customers. The industry calls this “guerrilla marketing,” and it’s a relatively affordable way to reach a local audience. Some businesses believe that, even in an age of pandemic and social media, something about its charm still works. Like the vintage appeal of vinyls and polaroids, the classic, tactile flyer is still effective and attractive in the modern era.
Guerrilla Marketing was a popular form of advertising in the 1980s and 90s, but has since been called out for causing litter and eyesores. However, with the number of flyers in the East Village alone, guerrilla marketing appears to be making a comeback. Niki Jones, CEO of The Niki Jones Agency, an advertising agency, explains that guerrilla marketing is good for “[saturating] a specific area for a specific time to try to get a result.” It works well in New York City because of “population density,” and even better in the East Village, where SLCT Stock is located. “The people that are living in the Village — they’re accustomed to, or they like, the guerrilla marketing aspect of marketing, and they will engage with it more,” Jones says.
According to Jones, guerrilla marketing is versatile, and it’s particularly useful for local events, handy-people, missing people signs, and those reaching people who don’t have social media. However, guerrilla marketing has a pretty major drawback. “You really have no idea how effective [it is],” says Jones. She usually recommends the simplicity of social media marketing instead. “The beauty of social media is that there’s a ton of metrics behind the scenes, and you can also tweak your method, as you go through the campaign” she explains.
Guerrilla marketing has proved useful for owner of Pet Portrait Fun, Michele Cahill. She admits that she began hanging up flyers because a friend of hers in advertising suggested she try it. “At first, I said, ‘Do people even look at flyers anymore?’ I felt like I was downgrading my business a bit,” says Cahill.
Since then, Cahill perfected her flyering skills, hanging flyers in places where they won’t be taken down and where she can find her target audience of dog owners. She found out that they were effective when she saw that the tabs on the flyers had been ripped off and when she began meeting people at her events who found her through the flyers.
As someone who works in social settings, Cahill had trouble with work during the pandemic, but she describes how she started regaining customers through flyers and social media, which was surprising because she thought no one would touch the flyers (she also included a QR code). “I thought that was a bit silly [at first], and I was proven wrong,” Cahill expresses, “[the success] gives me incentive to do it again.”
However, Ayala sees it as one tool of many. He tells me that I am the first to even mention the flyer since he moved to New York City. For him, social media is the most effective form of advertising, so far, because of his audience. “Vintage clothing people are always on the internet,” he explains, “people will come in and say, ‘Hey, I saw your Instagram account!’” He likes it for the same reasons Jones does: metrics and customization. Even so, Ayala persists with his flyers. “Hopefully people will organically see them and stumble upon the shop,” he says, “flyers are meant to grab people’s attention.”
Besides helping businesses, guerrilla marketing also appears to be helpful for local bands. At least, it has been for the young punk-rock band Plastic Baby Jesus, whose members are Joshua Morales, TJ Coffino, and Griffin Eerie.
The difference in their approach is that, in addition to posting flyers, they also personally hand them out to passerbys (which they call, “a very ‘New York’ thing to do”). The band states that their flyers are more effective than social media, and they’ve hypothesized that it’s because of how personal the process is. “Giving them out makes you feel like a person,” Coffino says, “people feel appreciated when you go up to them! I don’t want to be a boomer, but it adds a nice vintage element.” “It’s a really intimate experience,” Morales agrees.
The band’s flyers seem to represent a beacon of hope for the boys and their fanbase. The flyers symbolize an opportunity for a return to pre-pandemic normalcy and human interaction. Coffino notices, “Now more than ever, people are craving something.” The boys already have multiple stories about how random people have recognized them from their flyers, and they’ve even become friends with people they met through their flyers. People have shouted at their performances, “NY is coming back!” “People are trying to compensate for their lost time,” Coffino explains, “Young people crave so much because the pandemic has robbed them of a lot.”
In short, after a long, bleak period of pandemic, guerrilla marketing is giving people a chance to finally connect with each other again!
