Guerrilla Marketing by Mercedes-Benz Sprinter

Guerrilla marketing is a loose term to describe unconventional methods of advertising and promotion, using very little resources, relying mainly on time and creativity, just like its military combat namesake equivalent. Everyone loves to hear a story of how creativity can achieve big results with very small budget. Well here is one from Mercedes-Benz Netherlands. This is the story of a Dutch advertising agency N=5, who created a viral ad from just 150 Euros. The brief given by Mercedes-Benz to N=5 was to address the issue that Mercedes-Benz Sprinter commercial vans were perceived to be very expensive, probably due to association with Mercedes-Benz luxury cars. Mercedes-Benz's target buyers think that they cannot afford the price of a new Sprinter and thus go shop around for a second hand van. Since this is the case, N=5 followed the potential buyers to where they go to shop for second hand vans, Markplaats, Netherland's largest automotive classifieds.

Two fake ads were placed, and if you look carefully at the pictures, a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter can clearly be seen in the background, with the words "The new Sprinter is already available from 19,800 Euros."

Prospects who made calls to the telephone number advertised will only hear a recorded answer saying "I assume you are not calling about my van in the advert. Your call is probably about the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter in the background. That is not my van so if you are interested you should go to the Mercedes-Benz dealer or visit www.mercedes-benz.nl. Bye!"

While emails sent to the address advertised were answered with an autoreply message saying "I am no longer using this email account because I keep getting e-mails about the bloody Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. It's not mine! So leave me alone and visit www.mercedes-benz.nl or go to the Mercedes-Benz dealer. Bye."

The ads were viewed over 20,000 times a day, versus a typical average of 2 times a day. The fake ads were picked up by Netherland's largest car blog, autoblog.nl and was spread further via Twitter. All these from just 150 Euros. Watch the video below.