Guerrilla Marketing

Anyone who drives through the River north neighborhood in Chicago is familiar with it. Going south on Wells a big green billboard saying "If you were offended by the Rolling Rock "Beer Ape" ad please email rob_xxx@rollingrock.com."

Now, as someone who works in the consumer packaged goods industry, this has me thinking.. Is this really a guerrilla marketing programs, that should be driving web traffic? Or was there an ad where somebody truly was offended.

The biggest issue from a marketing perspective, is "Is this something you want to be associates your brand with?" Admittedly, I don't know what the rolling rock brand stands for. However, creating offensive commercials is probably not something that I would want to put in my brand key. It reminds me of interest companies circa 2000, who launched via Superbowl ads which had nothing to do with the product. The one shooting the squirrel out of a cannonball was particularly poignant.

Admittedly, I still need to try to go a find the commercial, but that doesn't mean this is good marketing.