Cool Guerrilla Marketing

There's a story on the Ad Week website showcasing some of the great guerrilla marketing efforts for 2008. It's a pretty interesting story if anyone wants to read it.
http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency/e3ie8946cda1b3f6da2519ca08857010ae6?pn=1

Here's one of the cool examples for those who don't want to read it all:

On most days, the six-mile Portoliner Monorail on Japan's island city of Kobe is packed full of people. But between April 14 and May 8, the tiny elevated trains were packed with something else: decorating ideas for people's living rooms.

To commemorate the opening of its new Port Island store, home-furnishings chain Ikea took over an entire train, redecorating the cars with couches, curtains and wallpaper. Many items bore actual sales tags complete with names and prices, so if a passenger saw a color or style she liked, she could easily order it at the store or online.

"The train design showed a unique way to live in an Ikea décor of comfort and everyday living," said a company rep. More to the point, said John Margolis, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Dummies, it was guerrilla in its "purest form:" The Swedish chain was "putting the products out there, letting customers touch and feel the brand. Short of going into the stores, this literally gives consumers a chance to sit on the couch."

Margolis added that Ikea's choice of the diminutive train cars underscored the chain's positioning of being the brand of choice for decorating tiny living spaces. "They're showing how to maximize a small space through the use of [decorative] materials," he said.

Ikea's Japanese marketers could not be reached for comment, so there's no telling what kind of ROI the store got from (much less what it paid for) the three-week stint, but according to Chicago-based freelance designer and event marketer Steve Dennis, this kind of guerrilla installation stands to be far more successful in a socially demure atmosphere like the one in Japan. "In New York City, an Ikea train would be torn up, which would misrepresent the brand," he said. Still, Dennis added, "I think an Ikea-themed bus or water taxi would work here." Hmmmm . . . Note to headquarters.