DEMOCRACY HOPE
DIGNITY FREEDOM
SPIRIT JUSTICE
SUSTAINABILITY OPENNESS
SOUL POWER
PEOPLE HUMANITY
GUERILLA MEME (Ref: 999999999p1101)
Note : this 'guerilla meme' needs to be launched at the right moment, when the website and its associated ideas are substantial, tidy and 'ready'. This will probably be later
in 2004 at the earliest. For now let's just refine the concept and get things ready for it.
What. (Ref: 99999p1302)
A symbol or short word or phrase that can represent the whole project and idea and be used as the project's master visual meme.
Properties.(Ref: 99999p1302)
The symbol needs to :
- Be memorable
- Be simple
- Be easy to write or make by hand
- Be usable in both black and white and colour
- Contain no thin lines or fiddly bits which reproduce poorly
- Be clear not fuzzy or visually ambiguous
- Be positive in its instant message
- Have no associations with other marks, symbols, projects or products
- Have no history
- Have no bias towards left or right
- Have no potentially political colour bias
- Have no sex, race or creed bias
- Be international
How.(Ref: 99999p1302)
Conventional means of spreading news, ideas and awareness about products cost buckets of money and are fairly inefficient.
One of the fortunate characteristics of this project is that the "product" being "sold" requires maximum possible exposure and
the "product" cannot be harmed by anything; the worst that can be done is that it is ignored. Additionally, the product does not have a sell
by or use by date, no immoveable launch date and is not in competition with another model which is cheaper, better or could reach the market first.
So, a guerilla marketing campaign is what is needed.
Rather than try to tell everybody what the product is (politics, dry as dust, insomnia cure par excellence) instead lead them to
believe some unknown product is available, represented by our meme mark. Make it deliberately mysterious so that the mark enters the
unconscious first, eventually leading to the question "Have you seen this mark ... before? Do you know what it means?" Those who pursue that
question will be lead to the product, a website and egroup. At that point they become aware of what the product is and can go further or ignore it. Either
way they do the work and they choose what message if any to take away with them. The mark must lead the curious somewhere so the website
and egroup must be up and running and stable first. When the product is ready we, that is anybody involved in the project who believes it is
worth spreading the ideas, launch the guerrilla meme by gradually making the symbol appear all over the place, so that it seeps into the unconscious
like fluoride in the water. Think the Silk Cut, Orange and BG Tell Sid campaigns. Think CND. And think of the Hamlet music.
To make the mark become visible and ubiquitous :
- Write it on all envelopes you drop in the letter box
- Write it on all forms you fill in, somewhere out of the way
- Write it on fly-posted posters
- Print it on a T-shirt
- Send it on a blank sheet of paper to newspaper editors completely without explanation
- Send it to radio presenters without explanation
- Call radio talk shows and ask if anybody knows what it means
- Stick a copy in your car window
- Stick a copy in a house window
- Make your own graffito on your garden wall
- Make a birthday banner for a roundabout announcing its birth
- Put it in a corner shop window ad
- Put it in a newspaper ad
- Send anonymous copies without explanation to FOE, WWF, WI etc
- Scratch it in the mud on footpaths
- Chalk it on pavements
- Chalk it on phone poles
- Chalk it on lamp posts
- Text it anonymously
- Put it in visitors' books
- Draw it in frost and snow
- Make a stencil and tan it onto your skin
- After using a public toilet write it on the next piece of toilet paper
- Put it on catalogue requests
- Write it on the front of mags in the doctor's or dentist's
- Use it as an egroup id
- Use it in every egroup post
- Ask on egroups what this mysterious symbol means
- Ask in the local rag if anybody knows what it means
- Get a sky-writer to write it over a city
- Get a farmer to leave it in a field at harvest or ploughing time
- Put it in all emails
- Reply to nuisance telemarketing calls with it
- Mention it in SIGs
- Put it on web pages
- Have it printed on balloons
- Put it in a personal column WLTM ad
- Send it to MPs
- Write it on dirty vans and cars instead of 'clean me'
- Write it in the sand on the beach
- Chalk it in phone booths
- Write it on filthy bus and train windows
- Write it on beer mats in the pub
- Chalk it on trees
- Chalk it on road signs such as foot and cycle path signs
- Write it on the next paper napkin in a cafe
- Write it on used napkins you leave on the table in cafes
- Use it as your name in street surveys
- Write it on shop discount coupons
- Write it on the rubbish you leave on the train
- Write it on scraps of paper you leave as bookmarks in books in the library
- Write it in salt on a cafe table
- In a public toilet write it on the soap
- Write it in lipstick on public toilet mirrors
- Write it by your letter box or door bell so that callers see it
QUESTIONS (Ref: 999999999999999h1099) (Contact us)
- What do you dislike about this page?
- How can it be improved?
- After looking at this page do you think you understand what the page is for?
