Advertising - Other

Some advertising firms appeal to consumers through viral marketing. For example, Detroit-headquartered ePrize creates interactive promotions, and Kaboom Advertising specializes in experiential marketing and viral advertising. Guerilla marketing typically uses imagination rather than big budgets to try to generate buzz around products or brands. A subset of guerilla marketing is undercover marketing, where the marketer tries to convince consumers to use a product without the consumer realizing they are a target of a marketing campaign. Event marketing agencies attempt to engage consumers through events such as concerts, sporting events or street teams.

Not all of these non-traditional advertising efforts have been successful. For example, in January 2007, a stealth campaign for Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force backfired when people mistook light displays that were part of the campaign for bombs. In another instance, a campaign for the Judd Apatow film Forgetting Sarah Marshall featured scrawled ads that read “You Suck Sarah Marshall.” The campaign ticked off women who happened to be named Sarah Marshall, and some of them created signs that read, “You Suck Judd Apatow.”

A few schools including Northwestern University and NYU have programs that focus specifically on integrated marketing communications, and some colleges and universities offer courses in guerilla marketing or viral marketing. Consumers have grown weary of traditional advertising, so non-traditional forms of advertising could gain popularity in the future. The Bureau of Labor Statistics expects employment in the advertising and public relations services industry to grow 14 percent between 2006 and 2016.