In a world obsessed with algorithms, ad optimisation, and analytics dashboards, it’s easy to think old-school tactics like guerrilla marketing have lost their spark. But in 2024-2025, the streets started buzzing again, and brands rediscovered the magic of being seen, touched, and talked about. Leading that movement? Meta. With their Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses and the Meta Quest 3 headset, the company pulled off a masterclass in experience-first guerrilla marketing. They didn’t just promote the product; they promoted the moments the tech enables.
What Is Guerrilla Marketing (and Why It’s Back)?
Coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in 1984, guerrilla marketing was built on one principle: “Achieve conventional goals with unconventional methods.” It’s all about surprise, creativity, and connection. Back in the early 2000s, we saw brands like Red Bull, Coca-Cola, and Flash mobs redefine public engagement. But the digital boom shifted focus to online performance.
Why the resurgence now? As Dan Hanover and Kerry Smith note in Experiential Marketing (2016), “The more digitally saturated the world becomes, the more consumers value what they can feel, not just what they can click.” Now, post-pandemic, people are craving physical experiences again and brands are rediscovering that visibility in the real world drives digital ripple effects.
Case Study: Meta x Ray-Ban — Wearable Tech Meets Street Culture
When Meta relaunched its Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses in 2024, it faced a challenge: How do you sell tech to people tired of tech?
- The Objective: To reposition smart glasses as lifestyle accessories, not geek gadgets.
- The Strategy: Guerrilla But Make It Social Meta skipped the typical digital-first route and went for something riskier. They went for live street experiences across major hubs like London, New York, and Berlin, under the rallying cry: “LIVE ALL IN” (The Shorty Awards, 2024).
- The London Summer Activation: Going to the Festival Crowd Your intuition about the summer campaigns is absolutely correct. Instead of just traditional billboards, Meta tapped into cultural moments that appeal directly to Gen Z:
- The “New Energy” Summer Solstice Event: Ray-Ban collaborated with Warm Street to host a rooftop party celebrating the Summer Solstice in London. The event showcased breakthrough artists and provided a multi-market content campaign, positioning the glasses as the essential accessory for capturing genuine, in-the-moment cultural experiences (Warm Street, 2024).
- Street Art Projection & Creator Collabs: The concept: “See the world differently.”The more traditional guerrilla tactics like the late-night projections in Shoreditch and Soho London walls lit up at night with live visuals filmed through the glasses themselves showing what wearers saw in real time. As Gen Z marketing reports show, consumers look for brands that integrate physical experiences with digital sharing, allowing the community to deepen connections in-person (Popular Pays, 2025).
- Hidden Pop-Up Booths: Passers-by who spotted the Meta x Ray-Ban logo QR code on murals could claim an instant trial.
- Creator Collabs: Influencers documented the activation live, turning the offline stunt into a viral TikTok and Reels wave.
- The psychology here is curiosity. People don’t engage with ads; they engage with mysteries. As Wided Batat (2021) suggests, “Experiential value is not in the message, it’s in the discovery. Consumers co-create meaning through participation.” By letting the audience discover the campaign themselves, Meta created ownership a core Gen Z motivator.
- The Results: The “LIVE ALL IN” campaign generated 57 million views, with over 20 million of those being organic, proving the massive shareability of the authentic, in-the-moment content captured with the glasses and 40% of on-site participants shared their footage online (The Shorty Awards, 2024). And the buyer can customise the Rayban Meta glasses price started from £299 to £r400.
OTINGA Insight:
“Guerrilla marketing isn’t about scale — it’s about spark. One wall in Shoreditch created more authentic buzz than a million sponsored posts.”
Case Study: Meta Quest 3 or 3s – Turning Streets into Portals
If Meta x Ray-Ban was subtle street art, Meta Quest 3 or 3s was full-blown spectacle.
- The Objective: Reignite excitement around AR and VR by taking it to the public, not just gamers.
- The Strategy: Public Reality Bending:Meta built augmented “portals” in key city centres (like the tunnels you mentioned) where passers-by could “step through” and see virtual worlds projected in real time. This is exactly what Jae Davis (2018) talks about: “Guerrilla marketing works when it disrupts routine not with aggression, but with awe.” You might ask What games are on Meta Quest 3 or 3s? There are a lot including the Batman Arkham. And the lowest price of Meta Quest 3s is 128gb sells at £299.
- Activation Highlights:
- AR mirrors that showed users wearing Quest headsets inside digital worlds.
- Pop-up zones where people could play mini-VR experiences, like Beat Saber or Horizon Worlds.
- Branded photo ops designed for Reels and TikTok.
4. Results:
- Over 120,000 interactions across 10 days.
- 80% of participants scanned the follow-up QR for discounts or demos.
- #MetaQuestReality trended for three consecutive days.
OTINGA Insight: “The genius wasn’t the tech it was the location. Guerrilla activations thrive when they hijack everyday spaces and make people feel part of something extraordinary.”
Why Guerrilla Marketing Works in 2025
Let’s be real people are numb to ads. The average person scrolls through over 6,000 brand messages per day (Statista, 2024). Guerrilla marketing slices through that clutter with experience, emotion, and energy.
Here’s why it’s resurging now:
| Reason | Explanation |
| Attention Scarcity | Surprise and spectacle stop the scroll, literally. |
| Hybrid Integration | QR codes, AR overlays, and hashtags make the campaigns measurable again, turning street engagement into data and conversions. |
| Authenticity as Currency | Gen Z views authenticity as a prerequisite, not a bonus. They trust User-Generated Content (UGC) over polished ads (73% prefer short-form videos for product discovery), and a live street stunt fuels that UGC engine immediately (Cropink, 2025). |
| Shareability | Every real-world stunt becomes content fuel for social. |
| The New AR/VR Bridge: | Over 47% of Gen Z actively engages with AR/VR, and they view these technologies as natural extensions of digital interaction, not novelties (Attest, 2025). Guerrilla activations are the perfect bridge to get them to literally try on the technology. |
The OTINGA Takeaway: Guerrilla x Digital = Maximum Impact
The OTINGA Takeaway: The genius of Meta’s campaigns wasn’t just the tech it was the strategic placement in high-footfall, culturally relevant areas in London during the summer, hijacking everyday spaces and making people feel part of something extraordinary. Guerrilla marketing never died; it simply got a data-powered, Gen Z-approved upgrade.
Some other brand who did a guerilla marketing
| Brand | Tactic | Result |
| Netflix (Stranger Things) | Street art portals revealing “Upside Down” worlds. | 50M+ TikTok views. |
| Barbie Movie (2023) | Pink billboards with no logo. | Became a global meme. |
| IKEA | Sleepover challenges and pop-up bedrooms. | PR coverage worth millions. |
Our 5-Step Formula of crafting your next guerrilla campaign:
- Find your “wow” — something visually irresistible.
- Place it where no one expects it.
- Add a digital hook (QR, hashtag, livestream).
- Capture and amplify through UGC (user-generated content).
- Measure engagement — not just reach.
P.S. Want your brand to stand out without breaking the bank? OTINGA Marketing designs experiential and guerrilla campaigns that go viral—in real life and online.
If you’d like to see how one of Meta’s celebrity campaigns connects to the core strategy of making tech fun, check this out: Hey Meta, Who Eats Art? Ft. Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pratt and Kris Jenner. This video, although a Super Bowl ad, clearly shows the lighter, lifestyle approach Meta is taking to position the smart glasses for a broad, modern audience.
The Future of Guerrilla: Phygital Storytelling
As Alroy, Ben-Shushan & Katz (2022) write in Event Success:
“The future of live marketing lies in hybrid touchpoints — blending live experiences with measurable digital outcomes.”
Meta’s activations prove that. Guerrilla campaigns are no longer just surprises; they’re story starters that connect offline emotion with online engagement.
In 2025, the smartest marketers won’t choose between guerrilla and digital — they’ll merge them.
Final Word from OTINGA
Guerrilla marketing never died it evolved. It’s no longer about shock value; it’s about shared value. Meta’s Ray-Ban and Quest campaigns show that when you meet audiences where they live, laugh, and scroll — you win both hearts and hashtags. So yes, guerrilla marketing is not just “still a thing.” It’s the most human thing brands can do right now.
Want your brand to stand out without breaking the bank? OTINGA Marketing designs experiential and guerrilla campaigns that go viral — in real life and online. Book your free campaign strategy call
References
- Alroy, A., Ben-Shushan, E. and Katz, B. (2022) Event Success: Maximizing the Business Impact of In-Person, Virtual and Hybrid Experiences. Hoboken: Wiley.
- Attest (2025) Understanding US Gen Z media consumption trends: Insights for brands, 15 July. Available at: [Insert Full URL to Attest Source Here] (Accessed: 18 October 2025).
- Batat, W. (2021) Experiential Marketing: Case Studies in Customer Experience. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Campaign (2024) Meta’s AR Guerrilla Activation: Ray-Ban and Quest Live. Available at: https://www.campaignlive.co.uk (Accessed: 10 October 2025).
- Cropink (2025) Top Generation Z Marketing Statistics [2025] for Marketers. Available at: [Insert Full URL to Cropink Source Here] (Accessed: 18 October 2025).
- Davis, J. (2018) You Do What? The Ultimate Experiential Marketing Guide. New York: Dynamic Publishing.
- Hanover, D. and Smith, K. (2016) Experiential Marketing: Secrets, Strategies, and Success Stories. New York: Wiley.
- Popular Pays (2025) Gen Z Marketing: Why Community-Driven Engagement is the Key to Success, 7 April. Available at: [Insert Full URL to Popular Pays Source Here] (Accessed: 18 October 2025).
- Smilansky, S. (2009) Experiential Marketing: A Practical Guide to Interactive Brand Experiences. London: Kogan Page.
- Statista (2024) Advertising Fatigue and Consumer Attention Statistics. Available at: https://www.statista.com (Accessed: 10 October 2025).
- The Shorty Awards (2024) “LIVE ALL IN”. Available at: https://shortyawards.com/17th/live-all-in (Accessed: 18 October 2025).
- Warm Street (2024) Ray-Ban Sun Day cultural activation. Available at: https://www.warmstreet.com/work/ray-ban-sun-day (Accessed: 18 October 2025).
