It's not a billboard, banner, or a neon sign. It's Stanley Weatherspoon, a 22-year-old who dances from 9 to 5 at the corner of Lake Avenue, flapping American flags and drawing bewildered stares from passing drivers.

Dressed in the red, white, and blue garb of Uncle Sam, Weatherspoon's flamboyant moves are meant to draw attention -- and ultimately clients -- to Liberty Tax Service, a filing service that recently opened at the corner.

In a consumer landscape cluttered with advertising, "guerrilla marketing" is increasingly a component in the marketing toolkits of companies both large and small, but it isn't new.

Tim Calkins, a clinical associate professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, said "guerrilla marketing" is a broad term used differently by different companies.

The term "guerrilla marketing" is associated with marketing guru Jay Conrad Levinson, one of the creators of the Marlboro Man campaign that propelled Marlboro brand cigarettes to the top of the heap. Levinson's book "Guerrilla Marketing," published in 1984, introduced some of the unconventional marketing techniques to a wider audience.

"Most people take it to mean unconventional marketing activities designed to attract considerable attention at a relatively low cost. Traditional marketing tools such as network advertising and print advertising are fairly predictable and stable and costly. Guerrilla marketing programs are much less predictable, both in form and impact," Calkins said.

Marketers, he added, are worried that traditional tactics are becoming less effective.

"Consumers today are bombarded by advertising. Clutter is becoming a fact of life. Guerrilla marketing is seen as a way to break through the clutter by being unpredictable," he said.

Since January, Weatherspoon's streetside antics in Glenview have not only provided brief amusement for the 50,000-plus drivers who filter through this commercial crossroad daily. They have also turned some curious onlookers into Liberty Tax clients.

Larry Feiger, a corporate accountant from Buffalo Grove, said he had driven by Weatherspoon in wonderment several times before his curiosity got the better of him in early February.

"I turned into the parking lot, parked and went over to talk to him," Feiger recalled.

After Weatherspoon, donning his outfit imprinted with Liberty Tax's name, explained what he was doing, Feiger went in to inquire about the service. Feiger said he later used the service to file his taxes.

"If that's what guerrilla marketing is, at least in my case, it did the job," Feiger said.

Since the franchise opened in January, owner Tom Japczyk said Weatherspoon's dancing has drawn a lot of attention to his hard-to-spot storefront. About half of Japczyk's clients, he estimates, have been walk-ins.

Frequently, those who stop in the store simply want to pass on their compliments on Weatherspoon's unique dancing. But Japczyk, a CPA, uses this as an opportunity to sell his services.

As for Weatherspoon, who lives in Rogers Park, this has been the strangest job the temp agency he works through has handed him, he said.

With an anti-skip CD player, Weatherspoon grooves to everything from gospel to rap, he said, varying his moves to the rhythm of the music.

"If you do the same routine over and over, people catch on," he said. "You need to do something a little different."

Come Tax Day, April 17 this year, Weatherspoon knows he'll be out the $7/hour job at Liberty Tax Service.

The former construction worker isn't worried though.

"Out here, somebody's always coming up to me," Weatherspoon said. "A few times, people have even offered me jobs."