Guerrilla Marketing – A (KLM) Social Media Experiment

I am a big fan and follower of Guerrilla Marketing campaigns. It is one of the most creative, innovative and sometimes controversial ways to market. It’s on my bucket list to put at least one Guerrilla Marketing campaign to fruition.  KLM has been a force to be reckoned with in some of their campaigns, if you have not seen them let me start you off with their Guerrilla Marketing Campaign at Manchester airport: 

Recently I was watching the KLM social media experiment in which they would locate KLM passengers checked into their flights via their foursquare locations or those who left a message through Twitter. They then searched their social profiles, got to know them in a discreet manner and came up with a personalized gift. Finally, they would locate the passenger in the terminal and give them a surprise gift. Take a look, thoughts?

I think KLM is a great airline – a great company with excellent customer service. However, this marketing campaign gave me mixed emotions. It truly drove the point home that social media is easy access to our most personal information. A complete stranger within seconds can find out when you’re birthday is, what you had for dinner last night, your location and/or when you changed your relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’.

Yes you can argue that people need to be in control of their privacy and yes I agree to an extent. But how many times has someone ‘checked in’ with you into a bar , tagged you in a picture, posted a comment about you having dinner at Olive Garden? … And lets consider the ‘newbies’ – how many people know how to navigate through all those privacy settings let alone what they really mean?  It becomes overwhelming.

Now I am a big advocate for social media and what it can do for our social interactions and social connections. However, this social media experiment reminded me just how vulnerable we really are with our social media presence.