Guerilla see, Guerilla do

What was originally a form of displaying disrespect to predominant authority is now the 'coolest' new kid on the media block. ad agencies coin any untried form of advertising 'guerilla' these days.

wikipedia defines the term as follows:
Guerrilla (also called a partisan) is a term borrowed from Spanish (from "guerra" meaning war) used to describe small combat groups. Guerrilla warfare operates with small, mobile and flexible combat groups called cells, without a front line. Guerrilla warfare is one of the oldest forms of asymmetric warfare. Primary contributors to modern theories of guerrilla war include Mao Zedong, Wendell Fertig, Vo Nguyen Giap, and Che Guevara....

so guerilla marketing is the bastard son of the then innovative guerilla warfare. why coin new terms to solve old problems?

in all probability, the first cave paintings were frowned upon by cave-society. grafitti artists, or taggers are prosecuted for defacing public property. these artists are far ahead of the advertisers. they take their art to where it really matters. in new york, LA and detroit, you will see sexy anti-AIDS and anti-political advertising on street walls. even awesome branding concepts. beautifully executed, with amazing attention to detail. sometimes spanning whole lengths of streets. whats illegal/shameful to some is 'art' to others.

no wonder, trendwhore designers these days take a spraypaint splatter or a funky 'drip' [see above] to spruce up their web-pages or ad layouts. looks good, don't it? take out that dormant spraycan and deface a road sign today.