The Horrors of Guerilla Advertising

          I know with great certainty that upon leaving my domicile on any given occasion going to any given locale that I am setting myself up to have advertising thrust upon me like a stripper in a titty-bar. This I can understand and accept, but when on a typical day coming home from school I see flyers on my door knob, ads in the mailbox, 15 e-mails for lists I apparently signed up for, and 12 calls from Admiral Out-Of-Area and Private Caller all I can do is cringe with FURIOUS ANGER. Hatred for what I call the ever-growing beast of guerilla advertising an invasive, harassing, and undermining scheme of marketing that for the love of god just can't possibly be effective outside of the mentally handicapped and old people.
          It has already came to a point where if you want not to be hassled in the comfort of your own home, you are expected to purchase some sort of protection from the advertisers. Anti-SPAM this, and Call blocker that... now if there is a market for protection against a marketing strategy wouldn't anyone surmise that this just isn't working? I decided to go to the source of a company that appears to thrive on nothing but telemarketing; ladies and gentlemen I give you Quality Home Foods. I spoke with Rick one of the sales managers of the Las Vegas chapter of this small business and learned some accurate and eye-opening facts.
          While they do have a telemarketing department it does not supply more then 20% of the business that they do. Which makes sense, because the percentage of the population that would actually fall prey to this, previously mentioned mentally handicapped and old people, do not make up a majority of the Las Vegas valley. Within this minority, I am sure that only 50% of them would still be unwilling to accept telemarketing calls. Since this business thrives more on word-of-mouth apparently guerilla advertising isn't a huge source of profit. However, 20% is actually nothing to sneeze at for an up and coming small business.
          So if it works for some businesses should we just bend over like the god-fearing sheep we are and just subject ourselves to this level of torture? Well, apparently our friends in the government are actually doing something to aid in our apparently never-ending struggle. That's right, believe it or not, when they aren't demanding War, robbing you of your money, or just plain screwing up our economy, the government is actually pretending to care about the modern man's struggle with invasive publicity. Especially lately, what with certain bills being introduced such as the Family Dinnertime Protection Act of 2003, introduced in the Senate, providing small relief from those pesky telemarketing calls in the evening. The Do-Not-Call Implementation Act proves to be actually a more permanent solution to previously mentioned problem of telemarketing. The Wireless Telephone Spam Protection Act, introduced in the House, which would protect our already overstuffed e-mail boxes from the likes of refinancing deals, Viagra, and porn.
          All in all this marauding form of hype needs to disappear. And with all the marketing majors passing through these "hallowed halls" as it is, I think the place to stop it is here. First off I spoke with Marketing 301 (Marketing Management) and 473 (Business Marketing) Professor James Cross. Prof. Cross informed me that, especially in his introductory classes, all that they do is objectively look at all avenues of advertising that would be potentially open to a future business. He personally doesn't feel one way or the other regarding intrusive ads as a whole and sees the argument against each avenue on a case-by-case situation. James also expressed that they have been trying to get legislation against types of advertising going as far back as 1914, so he doesn't see any big wins in the near future especially with the ever changing face of technology.
         Well what are we walking away from this with? Today we learned that the government is actually attempting to be our friend. If only we could be better friends to them and actually pay attention to what it is that they are doing behind what the media tells us. Secondly, that guerilla advertising while minimally beneficial to your business, will make a good portion of the population curse your name. Finally don't expect any help from the doctors and professors of the Marketing department of the Business College because as long as the books keep telling them what they are expected to teach, then they are going to keep lecturing on it.
          If all of this doesn't come to an end soon then I can only postulate it getting much, much worse. Sometime in the not to distant future, sitting at a park bench feeding the pigeons with grandma, you happen to look up and see a man being chased by a horde of scoundrels. They'll be demanding that he purchase their new soft drink now on sale, and then beating him within an inch of his life upon capture for missing out on such a great opportunity. Then all you will be able to do will be to shake your head in shame, look up into the sky, and inwardly narrate "Why didn't those bastards in the past act sooner... They did this didn't they? Damn them... DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!"