Guerrilla Advertising with One Day Agency

Street stunts are unexpected branded events or physical installations placed in high-footfall public locations. Oversized props, product sampling in unconventional settings, pop-up installations, and brand character appearances all fall into this category. The objective is immediate attention and social capture. The best street stunts are photograph-worthy: the person who stops also takes out their phone, which extends the activation's reach beyond its physical footprint.

Street stunts work best in dense urban environments where footfall is high and dwell time is sufficient for the idea to land. Planning requires location assessment, timing, staffing, and in many cases permission from the relevant landowner or local authority.

Experiential activations go one step further than stunts: they invite public participation. The brand becomes something people interact with rather than observe. T-Mobile's Liverpool Street flash mob is the canonical UK example. The crowd did not watch a performance; they became part of it. That level of participation creates a different quality of memory and a different incentive to share.

Experiential guerrilla advertising works particularly well for brand repositioning and product launches where emotional association is the primary goal. The format is measurable in ways that passive OOH is not: participation rates, dwell time, social shares, and earned media coverage all provide campaign data. For a planning guide, see how to plan an experiential campaign.

Ambient advertising places brand messages on surfaces and objects that are not conventional advertising spaces. Floor graphics, stair risers, manhole covers, park benches, door handles, shadows, and shop floors are all ambient formats. The power of ambient lies in its unexpectedness: seeing an ad where you would never expect one commands attention in a way a poster site cannot.

Ambient delivers high recall precisely because it breaks the environmental pattern. A person walking across a floor graphic, or noticing a brand message on a surface they have used every day without ever seeing an ad, stops in a way they would not stop for a billboard. Wall mural advertising occupies similar creative territory at a larger scale.

Permissions requirements vary depending on whether the surface is private or public. One Day Agency handles permissions planning as part of the brief.

Projection advertising displays brand imagery or campaign video onto the facades of buildings, landmarks, or public infrastructure. Executed at night, large-scale projections create high visual impact with a temporary footprint. The format is particularly suited to launches, seasonal campaigns, and location-specific brand moments where spectacle is part of the message.

Projection advertising shares creative territory with 3D anamorphic digital billboard advertising but operates in spaces that are not conventional advertising inventory. The canvas is chosen for its cultural or architectural resonance, which gives the brand association with the location itself.

Wild posting is the high-volume placement of posters on walls, hoardings, scaffolding, and construction boards in urban environments. Used to create a saturation effect, the format gives brands the impression of being everywhere at once across a specific city or neighbourhood. It is widely used in music, entertainment, and product launch contexts.

There is an important distinction between licensed wild posting sites and unauthorised flyposting. Licensed wild posting operates on consented hoarding space and is entirely legal. Unauthorised flyposting on private property or public infrastructure is not. One Day Agency uses licensed wild posting inventory and advises on the distinction as part of campaign planning.

Reverse graffiti uses high-pressure cleaning equipment to remove dirt from pavements, walls, or other surfaces in brand patterns or messaging. Legally distinct from graffiti (it cleans rather than marks), reverse graffiti generates significant attention and PR value when executed on a visible surface.

The format has strong novelty value. Most passersby have never encountered it, which creates a high-recall moment. Permissions are still required for many surfaces, and the planning should address the longevity of the message, since rain and foot traffic will gradually erase it.

Brand takeovers are about scale and completeness. Wrapping a building facade, a bus, or an entire urban environment in brand creative turns a space into an unmissable brand statement. What makes a takeover guerrilla rather than standard out-of-home advertising is the totality of the execution: the brand does not just appear in the space, it owns it.

Takeovers are typically combined with other out-of-home advertising but the planning logic differs. The objective is not reach across many sites: it is depth of impression at a single location. The format works well for launches, anniversaries, cultural moments, and brand repositioning where a single bold statement is more valuable than distributed awareness.

Flash mobs are organised public performances (dancers, musicians, actors) staged in public spaces to attract attention and generate media coverage. T-Mobile's Liverpool Street flash mob remains the best-documented UK example of the format at scale, but flash mobs have been used effectively at a range of campaign sizes.

The logistics are significant. Choreography, staffing, rehearsal, permits, and professional filming are all required for an activation that will be used in post-campaign content. The activation itself may last minutes; the content produced from it can circulate for years. Planning the filmed output as a campaign asset from the start, rather than treating it as documentation, changes both the execution and the return.