Guerilla Marketing
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Kevin Godbee - Dec 5, 2011
- 5 min read
By Russ Ouellette
I’ve been involved in sales and marketing for over 30 years, sometimes for small local firms, sometimes for large national or multi-national companies, and I’ve seen, and been involved in, a fair number of marketing campaigns with varying amounts of advertising. I’ve worked for retailers that ran weekly Sunday newspaper inserts, have done TV spots, radio and magazine ads, billboards and more. All of these types of marketing have their place, and the return on investment has ranged from spectacular to horribly disappointing, without any way of knowing how successful the advertising will be.
When I came to work at Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe, we did a variety of local advertising, all of which worked pretty well, and we did some magazine and online ads for PipesandCigars.com. Our campaigns were pretty much "fly by the seat of your pants", and we always saw a response.
After almost a year of working on the retail floor and eventually managing the store, I was called upon to try putting some blends together, which I had done in years past. I came up with six mixtures and brought them to our pipe club meeting to have the members sample them. We have a nicely diverse group, so I knew that I could get feedback on all of the blends. The response was remarkable, and we decided to try selling them on our tobacco bar. We gave samples to anyone who routinely purchased something similar, and in no time we had a steady following. Scott, the owner of the company decided that we should list them on our website. In a rare example of prescience, I thought that we should give the tobaccos an all-encompassing brand name. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that I wanted to project an image of comfort and solace, so the name "Hearth & Home" came to mind. We put the blends on the site, and we started to do a decent, if small, amount of sales. Then came the online reviews in the forums.
We noticed that people frequenting sites like pipes.org and usegroups like alt.smokers.pipes were commenting on having tried our tobaccos, and the posts were mostly positive, so all of a sudden the demand increased and we figured that we might have something here. Like many other people, we realized that we might benefit greatly from using this almost-free resource, and I began to cruise the various forums, occasionally chiming in to help folks where I could, without being overly commercial about it. As people got to know me a bit, they would begin to email me, and often would place an order. We had proof of the power of the internet, so we started to plan ways to make use of what was available.
There were a number of pipe-related websites popping up, and some wanted original content, so they began doing things like interviews with people in the business. I did a couple, and even did a few that were video interviews (like I have done on PipesMagazine.com), and each time they hit the web, we would see a spike in H&H sales. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I can see trends fairly well.
The beauty of this type of marketing is that I had to do little or nothing to get the ball rolling. Someone would call or email me with positive comments about one of our products, and I would reply that I would appreciate it if they would spread the word by posting a review on one of the sites. Many of the folks who would take the time to write or call were internet savvy and would go to a review site and post or would start a thread on a forum, which would lead to people asking questions about the tobaccos, our company and our website. All the while, the demand kept growing at a steady pace.
We began to back up our guerilla marketing plan (I didn’t know that this kind of "advertising" even had a name until a couple of years ago) with print ads and paid banners on some websites, and then we saw another jump in sales.
The first big surprise was when our blends were first reviewed by Pipes & Tobaccos magazine, and we saw a marked increase in the two months following the release of the issue. Then came the comments on forums about the reviews, and then interviews based on the chatter on the forums. You can see the snowball effect that was trending.
The term "guerilla marketing" seemed to imply aggressive action on the part of the promoter, but in our case, it was actually very passive. All we did was to respond to what other people had started and the result was amazing.
The next uptick occurred a little over a year ago when I had a conversation with our esteemed commander-in-chief at PipesMagazine.com, Kevin Godbee and the remarkable Bob Tate. It was at the Chicagoland show in 2010 that we talked following a three-part interview I had done with them, and I casually mentioned that I had done some writing for trade magazines in the past and the chat turned into a discussion about having me write a column for the site. Although this wasn’t the impetus behind my writing, it turned out to be another boost for our products, since people who had never heard of us began sending me emails or calling me, and we’ve seen a number of new customers as a result.
I find it surprising that this relatively new media has had the impact that I’ve been seeing for the last six years, and much of the exposure has been entirely unintentional, but there might not even be a Hearth & Home product line if it weren’t for the power of the internet.
What does this have to do with your enjoyment of our hobby? Just think about how much more you know about the pipes and tobaccos you use than you would have without the web. Now if we can just keep them from taxing the hell out of the internet, we’ll at least have one place to go to for free information (and advertising, too).
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Russ Ouellette is the blender/creator of the Hearth & Home series of tobaccos for Habana Premium Cigar Shoppe and www.pipesandcigars.com in Albany, NY. He has been a pipe smoker and blender for over 30 years, and enjoys feedback from the pipe smoking public. You can reach Russ at russo@pipesandcigars.com or by calling 1-800-494-9144 on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9 am to 5 pm and Friday from 1 pm to 5 pm. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 634! Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with Warren Ertle. Warren is an extremely accomplished musician with a PhD in music. He started early as a percussionist in sixth grade. Later his grandmother got him a cheap Casio keyboard which he taught himself to play. He started playing in blues bands in high school, and has been a pianist with jazz big bands for years. Even though he was already a professional musician, he took his first real piano lesson when he enrolled in college with his studies in classical music. He is of course a pipe smoker. At the top of the show we will have an Ask the Tobacco Blender segment with Jeremy Reeves. Jeremy is the Head Blender at Cornell & Diehl, which is one of the most popular boutique pipe tobacco companies in the USA.
Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. Now, if you have read some of the great authors of the past and present, their pipes were always nearby. Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be a three-pipe problem at times. S. Lewis and Jean-Paul Sartre require time with your pipes to reflect on the existential problems and solutions these authors provide in learned novels and other narratives. Or take Edwin Hubble and Bertrand Russell, philosophers of another world. Pipes are required for reading. The quantum lode of ideas Pundit is attempting to sort out is that our pipes are relaxing and stimulate our thoughts and creativity. Especially in these last months of the year. Many times Pundit has had that light bulb flick on while smoking my beloved pipes. And friends in Pipedom, it ain’t easy to turn on the lights in Pundit’s rock pit head. Now it’s time for a quote from a Pipe Smoker of the Past. Shelby Foote was born Nov. 17, 1916, in Greenville, Miss., and died June 27, 2005, in Memphis, Tenn. A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. Naturally a Virginia-Perique, it is enhanced with a traditional core of black Cavendish. In the tin it holds much promise, with a lightly bready and very woody, if ever-so-slightly sour, aroma. After some time acclimating to air, the bouquet softens further and offers hints of the burley with some chocolaty notes wafting through the more dominant dry grassy aspect. The tin art is of a coin-style bas-relief bust, presumably of a founding Sutliff brother, Ă la The Old Boss On the reverse of the tin we find the blend’s description: Reflecting on Sutliffs 175 years of tobacco excellence, we came across a brand that embodies true value, SILVER QUARTER. This name pays homage to Sutliffs roots, the legacy of two brothers who popularized pipe smoking in the burgeoning mining society of San Francisco. We celebrate this heritage with a coin cut composed of the finest African Virginias, complemented by a core of Perique and Black Cavendish. The tin notes are, forgive the pun, on the nose for a good VaPer blend: mild tart sweetness peeking out from behind dried hay and slight chocolate undertones, with a lightly tannic finish of weathered oak. It is always a joy to prepare a coin cut, my preference being to put a few in my palm and vigorously warm my hands together to fully break them apart. These well-formed discs pack and light easily, and smoke with little prodding to the end of the bowl. For technical points it scores well—it smokes light, and it’s easy to tend the ember. While it gets sharp after a few quick bowls, pacing should be heeded to easily smoke down to the heel without inviting bite. Of the flavor, though, I am left a bit wanting. There are tart and high notes aplenty, but very little of the lemony citrus I would anticipate, as well as scant midtones; they tend more toward the red wine-vinegary and sour. The flavors are muted, also, lacking the sweetness and piquancy of other marques—the small measure of Perique tickles the nose now and again with peppery hints, and there is a smidge of a deeper sweetness to be found in the Cavendish from puff to puff, but overall it lacks some dynamism. The Virginias, to my palate, come off a bit on the dry side, and here they dominate the blend. The aftertaste and mouthfeel are neutral, again evincing more of the dry, woody, tartly tannic end of the spectrum. The blend has plenty of polish, but not enough depth or richness (*yet) to make it a standout. Here, comparisons are inevitable: Luxury Bullseye Flake has more sweetness, both from its Virginia as well as its Cavendish, and a better finish; Davidoff is similar but with a pronounced umami that is absent here; as for Escudo, I haven’t had any fresh tins lately so it would be unfair to compare. While it rates as a solid, fairly mild smoke, particularly to lovers of the genre, it does not surprise with any exceptional flavors. To be fair, all the boxes have been checked for the blend to benefit from some real aging, and it would be worth checking in on this after a couple of years sealed away. I’ve set half my tin aside to sample again in a month or two, in case I’m merely suffering from the lingering effects of parosmia, and will amend this review in that case. Maple Shadows II, on the other hand, made up for the weeks of sniffling and sneezing I’d endured. Offered in a full 8 ounce tin with delightfully spooky Halloween art, it’s (hopefully) enough to last through the season. Somehow I had missed this last year, so it’s a real pleasure to get some in my candy bucket this year. As the chilling winds of autumn draw eerie prattle from contorted, deciduous limbs, we find ourselves possessed by the spirit of the season. Bewitched by a dissonant charm, we’ve created Maple Shadows. In a season that is defined by the unlikely harmony of treats and frights, we’ve joined the enchanting sweetness of maple with the earthy spice of Dark Fired Kentucky for a smoking experience that captures the senses with an otherworldly fusion of flavor. This may be the best aromatic blend Sutliff’s ever made—and they make a ton of them. First off, it’s not overbearing in the least—quite the opposite, it is also one of the more restrained aromatics they’ve ever made, with a clear but very light topping that melds oh-so-well with their choice Kentucky added to the mix. Opening the tin, the sweet maple is up front and center, but so too is the must of fallen leaves, bready pie crusts, and a crackling fire in the hearth—a perfect invocation of HerbstdĂĽfte in a can. Packing best in an open and capacious bowl, the flavoring is subtle, and recedes to the background while puffing. With a sweet coffee or tea to accompany, the aftertaste of the maple is reinvigorated on the palate […]
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 632. Our featured guest on tonight’s show is the host of the Pipe & Tamper Podcast, Mike Murphy. Brian and Mike will have an extended chat revolving around the days before, during and after the Las Vegas International Pipe Show. We will hear about their travels to the show and the anxiety of Hurricane Milton bearing down on Florida at the same time while running a show and not knowing if your house is going to be there when you get home. In the end, the show went great and our homes survived, although many others in Florida were not so lucky. We’ll have clips from the show, and shoutouts to other podcasts and vlogs that were broadcasting from the pipe show.
Vegas Baby The show started out strong on the 14th floor hospitality suites hosted by the Vegas Pipe Show and Smoking Pipes as well as room hopping to carvers, estate sellers, and vendors to pre-game for the festivities. If you’re interested in what that looks like I’ll refer you to last years pipe show round up. I circled with Brian Levine to get the totals in comparison to last year: This year’s show numbers: 108 Exhibitor tables, 445 attendees, 3,250 Raffle Tickets, 100ish dinners, 172 Rooms in the Hotel. Last year, by comparison, 107 exhibitor tables, 425 attendees, 2,200 raffle tickets, 104 dinners, and 175 rooms on Friday and Saturday nights. We were at capacity, basically, when it came to vendor tables and the dinner, so there is no physical room for growth at this point except for attendees. That said, we filled that smoking lounge to the brim. New Carvers Spotlight Garret Woo (Pipes by Woo) How long have you been carving? Garret: I’ve been carving since 2021, and I’m guessing your next question is probably how’d you get started carving? James: Yes. Garret: In 2021 I took a break from my full time job – that included machining and assembly work and I thought maybe it was time I made something that I would like and I started looking at youtube and Instagram and putting together my shop. I did struggle on the stems to start and there was a lot of failure at the beginning. James: How many pipes have you made so far? Garret: I number my pipes, so I just finished up 186. James: What is your favorite shape you’ve been making? Garret: I really dig Canadians and pipes with longer shanks and lovat Canadian blends. I like to play with different shapes of stems on the longer shanked pipes. The billiard would be my go-to shape but I want to learn more techniques on freehanded shapes. I like to put brass and copper adornments on my pipes with my machining background it helps. James: What is the craziest thing you’ve seen at this show? Garret: The first thing that comes to mind is the table over there with C-Pipes with the shapes and the size and petiteness and the intricate details they did. You can check out what Garret is working on by going to his Instagram. Stefan Cashwell James: how long have you been carving? Stefan: about 3 years. James: What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at the show? Stefan: The Adam Davidson pipe with the clear shape and the bamboo—I don’t know if it’s 3D printed or what, but it’s amazing. James: What’s your favorite shape to do? Stefan: That’s a tough question. I think they’re all the same shape, but what’s fascinating is that Dublin, volcano, and blowfish are all the same depending on how you turn them. Playing with that, with all its variations, is a lot of fun. My favorite accent to use is also horn; it’s finicky, but it’s a great accent on pipes. You can check out Stefan’s work on his Instagram. Science: Meet Pipes I chatted with Chris from the San Diego Pipe Club; he started off doing stem replacements for estate pipes but also improved the airflow. James: How are you doing 3d printing? What is the thought process? Chris: It’s a 3D-printed pipe with a briar insert. The design is a calabash meets a Peterson system meets a metal Falcon/Kirsten radiator style. It is a bottom draft smoking bowl like a radiator like those metal pipes. The inside chamber is a calabash. The stummel and accent rings in the stems are all 3d printed. The insert is briar, olive wood, or I have the potential to use meerschaum as well. This idea came about through the San Diego Pipe Club, wanting to see if we could 3D print a pipe and being curious about the technology; I have a printer and design ability, so here we are. James: What’s the type of plastic you’re using? Chris: It’s all PLA plastic, a renewable potato starch plastic that is food-safe. The stummels are printed with a plastic that has wood in it 40% wood fiber, bamboo, rosewood, ebony, redwood, and walnut are the woods I’m printing. For the accent rings I just got a new material that I’m printing that has 40% copper, so its real metal that you can sand, and polish the same as wood filament. The stems are 3d printed as well. The concept is renewable and cheap from a production standpoint, with the ability to make a very high quality smoking pipe based on the experience. By combining the calabash system pipe and bottom draft hole and using 3d simulations to see airflow, I can see where I’m having eddies and ripples in my current, and see where my moisture and all the particles are dropping back out from a vapor to a liquid. Most people who have tried these say the stems are clean, and they don’t even have to run a pipe cleaner afterward because everything collects at the bottom. Chris has also been experimenting with color-changing plastics so you can see the hotspots. Chris said he was able to use this to slow down his cadence, which, of course, could mean you could get a slow-smoke training pipe to teach yourself to perform better. If you’re interested in learning more or want to check one out, you can contact him on Instagram: Copper Beard Pipe Works The Negative Space The show was buzzing about one specific pipe, which had everyone guessing how it was made. I chatted with Adam Davidson briefly about it. James: How did this idea come to fruition? Adam Davidson: Smokingpipes.com had an expo back in August open to all of the makers they carry. The theme was to make a pipe utilizing bamboo. Given that the last time we had the expo I made a smooth Almond with three bamboo shanks, […]
Russ, The “new media” has had a huge amount to do with my return to the hobby. I had smoked a pipe for a long time, but finally put it down in exchange for cigars, pre-cigar boom. This was primarily because I wa smoking only a single blend form my B&M – a rather full English – and had gotten tired of it.
Then, while in a JR retail shop, I purchased a tin of C&D Strathspey, and went “wow”. Totally different from anything I had smoked before. I found the Yahoo Pipesmokers2 group, and became an active member. (This was about 8 years ago.) That group, and Tobaccoreviews.com, became my guide to exploration. Earlier this fall I joined the forums here, too.
I have returned almost completely to my first love, the pipe, and smoke a wide variety of blends, 90% of which I buy online. Loving it.
Great read – I could probably use some of this 🙂
Moral of the story for me is – great products will sell and word of mouth is still one of the best ways to get your product “out there”.
I love a number of the HH blends and if it wasn’t for the forums and the review sites, I most likely would never have tried them.
The net chatter is all good, but, without a great product, it can die pretty quickly. I don’t think the H&H brand is going to have that problem though.
I think a good product will naturally generate net chatter – especially in such a niche market like pipe-smoking.
Another good item mentioned here (but not necessarily as a part of the ‘guerilla marketing’) is that you’re accessible. When you talk about reading and replying to emails, as well as participating in the forums it shows that you’re involved in the community quite a bit as well as keeps your product name in front of your customers (or potential customers).
I think that the current uptick in pipe smokers and related sales shows the power of this type of passive marketing in the internet age. It is a good way to start up sales and word-of-mouth by letting your product/work speak for you. It is time for manufacturers and retailers to go beyond this, though, and expand the market by advertising to the general public. Yeah, that will bring more scrutiny/criticism from the the antis, but businesses with the courage to face that will see another wave of new cigar/pipe smokers, in my opinion.
I think there is a lot of merit in coming out into the open (where you stand the risk of being attacked from all sides) and saying, “Yeah, I’m the guy who did this and I put my name on it because it has value. If you disagree, well, here I am. Throw down the gauntlet and let’s go.” I knew your name before I really knew jack squat about tobacco. I smoked a bowl of Magnum Opus and said, Hot Damn! And the guy who threw this together was WHO? OH That Guy! Since most of us are thousands of miles away, being active and sometimes even personal on the forums builds trust.
Great story Russ! We don’t have a single pipe shop in our state and unlike cigars, pipe smoking requires a little knowledge and the net has brought our fraternity together. Thanks to a review site, I found H&H and Anni-Kake , then Virginia Spice, Stogie, Larry’s, and Magnum Opus, Black House and……..well you get the idea!!!
Thanks for the history lesson on how it all took off!!!
Great article enjoyed the lesson
Great read and insight. Interesting to me as I work in graphics and advertising. Unfortunately there is a bad side, elitist types are very quick to spread overly base, personal and unfriendly critic of companies that they, for some obscure reason, feel do not match their standards.
The anti-aromatic, or anti-drugstore blend are two such camps that spring to mind. It is unfortunate that some feel they do need good manners on forums. Few blends or pipes are nasty, if only we could claim the same as pipe smokers.
Great article Russ as per usual. I agree with Chris, in that accessibilty is the key. Particularly being able to meet you,Craig,Patty, Greg Keith and many others at the CORPS Show and other shows and being able to discuss our mutual likes and dislikes. Also the availability of getting samples and hearing our likes so a blend can be recommended. There’s nothing like hearing what goes into a blend, why and how the tobacco is toasted,air cured or cased to achieve a certain taste and smell.
The other factor is if you have a fantastic product it will sell itself. That’s been proven by you and the afore mentioned folks. All in all I feel as if I have my own personal blenders at work. Just like a new Stevie Wonder record back in the day..people would buy it without listening to it first…they knew it would be a quality product.
Smart use of the Internet is a good start but even more important is providing good customer service. PipesAndCigars.com does both right.