Czech Guerilla Marketing in the

Czech Guerilla Guerilla Marketing in the Czech Republic Though the Czech Republic has made enormous strides in establishing a free, protective, and productive society since its Velvet Revolution in 1989, the country has still faced significant issues in the past decade. Government corruption, increasingly intrusive and prohibitive tax rates, and complex and often redundant bureaucracies have served as barriers to the full growth and prosperity of the Czech Republic and its citizens (Forum-2000-2009).

In addition, changing social forces have led to recent schisms in several of the country's more prominent political parties, signaling a dissatisfaction with certain trends and features of the status quo that are indicative of larger movements in the political beliefs and values of significant segments of the populous (Earth Times 2009). All of this contributed to the establishment of the TOP 09 political party and its use of guerilla marketing tactics.

The name of this political party began as an unofficial abbreviation of the party's major platform terms and slogan, Tradition Responsibility Prosperity '09 (Tradice Odpov-dnost Prosperita in Czech) (Gardner 2010). Guerilla marketing is a term that is more broadly applicable, and is at once more readily understood and less clearly defined.

Though there is no clear and definite definition for guerilla marketing as of yet, pretty much anything that falls outside the realm of traditional marketing ventures -- the use of social networks,-word of mouth advertising, and especially shocking public spectacles that become newsworthy in and of themselves -- can be considered a form of guerilla marketing (Crawford 2004). The use of such marketing campaigns by political movements is still somewhat new, but is definitely here to stay.

The TOP '09 party formed when a faction within the Czech Republic's Christian Democrat party, which was a fairly centrist part in terms of both fiscal and social policy (Earth Times 2009; Gardner 2010). He more right-wing members of this party were more avid and vocal proponents of free markets and the free trade agreements and others incentives offered by the European, while also showing greater conservativeness in terms of fiscal and social policy than were popular in the Christian Democrat party (Earth Times 2009; Gardner 2010).

As disagreements in the party grew, the right-leaning members of the party split off to form the TOP '09 party, with a platform promoting fiscal restraint and regulatory loosening that would encourage free market growth and the prosperity of industry and private citizens (Gardner 2010). Next, the party had to make itself known to the public. Marketing by the TOP '09 party has shown some significant differences from the strategies employed by other parties in the 2009 election and in previous elections in the Czech Republic.

This has been a necessity for the party given its platform of change and difference from the other "standard" and larger traditional political parties in the country; especially given modern social and technological trends, a change in the methods of message delivery is at least as important as changes to the.