First off, let me let you know where this question is coming from. I was talking with my friend Andre over at The Terminal and he mentioned “guerilla” marketing, then corrected himself and said “viral” marketing and that got me to thinking, is there really a difference? Have the two really become so common that they are interchangeable?

To me, the difference is huge, but our culture is bridging the gap between the two terms because of how they were incepted and there effectiveness.

Let’s look at “guerilla” marketing. Wikipedia says…

Guerrilla marketing is an unconventional way of performing promotional activities on a very low budget. Such promotions are sometimes designed so that the target audience is left unaware they have been marketed to and may therefore be a form of undercover marketing (also called stealth marketing).

Ok, so as a social media geek, this screams out to me – MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc…and more and more you are starting to see companies such as FOX and The Terminal throwing up MySpace pages like there’s no tomorrow…and almost all of this is done without the consultation of anyone who has or uses these social media sites. Now, FOX and The Terminal are probably two really bad examples because I think they are (or are going to) use them to their full potential.

Ok, before I get any further into my rant, let’s get that “viral” marketing definition out of the way. Again from Wikipedia…

Viral marketing and viral advertising refer to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness, through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of pathological and computer viruses. It can be word-of-mouth delivered or enhanced by the network effects of the Internet.

Viral promotions may take the form of funny video clips, interactive Flash games, advergames, images, or even SMS text messages.

The term “viral marketing” is also sometimes used pejoratively, to refer to stealth marketing campaigns–the use of varied kinds of astroturfing both online and offline to create the impression of spontaneous word of mouth enthusiasm.

What? Stealth Marketing? I think we have out first real connection!

It seems to me that all viral marketing is, is guerrilla marketing on the internet. And it seems to be working much the same way guerrilla marketing worked in the 80s and 90s…the main difference is that one can reach out to thousands in just a few minutes, rather than hundreds in a few hours…getting out the message, packing the theatres, stands, parks, whatever…