Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing

The relationship between brands and consumers is one of great conflict, according to Serazio. This former journalist and assistant professor in the department of communication at Fairfield University uses the term “guerilla” as a war metaphor to describe marketing’s new attempt at virtual invisibility. Serazio boldly tosses around phrases like “appearing to abdicate a traditional position of more didactic authority when negotiating consumer behavior” or “thus emerges a regime of governance that accommodates yet structures participatory agency; self-effaces its own authority and intent through disinterested spaces and anti-establishment formats...” In other words, this is a fairly scholarly treatise. Serazio enlists Che Guevara, Michel Foucault, the Frankfurt School, and a variety of media studies theorists to fight for his cause. Underneath its dissertation language, the book attempts to resolve the mystery of whether power really has shifted from brands to consumers in the new media, word-of-mouth, consumer-generated, self-publishing promotional environment. Are new audience members “empowered” to choose their brand exposure? Or are marketers using us? The book ends on a cautionary note, with a warning that, despite the concerns of the ad men and women, they still have the upper hand in this newest fight for hearts and minds. (Apr.)