I’m walking down the sidewalk on the Las Vegas strip a year ago with some associates. Out from behind a bush springs a man in a Gorilla suit screaming at me and my associates like a wild beast. Said Gorilla then runs away with an accomplice carrying a video camera. We’d been punked by a stranger. I yelled out, “don’t you want me to sign a release?”
I receive a number of marketing newsletters. I keep up on the latest trends and movements in the copyrighting, internet marketing and social networking worlds. A marketing newsletter for which I had made no request showed up the other day, for the third time.
I did a little searching in my bank statement and found I’d been charged. I tried to comb through the slender hairs of recent memory to discover what I may or may not have missed via opt-outs, pre-checked forms or inadvertent clicks in my online purchases.
I finally found the culprit. Man is he good. I didn’t see it coming. I don’t subscribe to anything of his but he was behind a recent video offer which I ordered . Got the video, watched it, end of story. Then a free newsletter comes. Predictable. Then another. Then when a third shows up I start looking for a charge and sure enough there it is. He’d used the financial info I used to buy the video to sign me up for his marketing newsletter.
Which was worse, Guerilla or Gorilla? In this case, I felt the same. Surprised. Startled. A little miffed. Only with the Guerilla, I was already on the lookout. He still got me. To this day I didn’t see where I’d signed up. I never had that intention. And that is the point of today’s entry. Is this behavior winning my ongoing business? Of course not. Would I buy a video with myself getting startled by a large man in a Gorilla suit? Odds are better of buying that video than subscribing, or continuing to subscribe in this case, to a Guerilla marketer who ambushes my bank account through marketing slight of hand.
I don’t watch his channel anymore.
joesummerhays.wordpress.com 
Wow, that is a horrible thing to have happen. I wouldn’t call it Guerrilla marketing though it sounds more like fraud. I know some great Guerilla marketers and I know that they don’t endorse that kind of behavior.
You crafted that story very well.
The fraud part has not been part of my thinking. They are too careful, and I had received two free newsletters. My assumption is a price presentation strategy gone wrong. They probably buried it so well, I didn’t see it. I’m willing to take that responsibility. But my point stands…if you bury your price so well people don’t know they are getting piggy-backed with extras which cost $, the surprise factor loses the customer via jumping apes syndrome mentioned in the post.
Gorllia ambush hit me too. I was not happy. Tried to tackle the guy.