Making the most of campus campaigns

Marketers often spend large amounts of time and money unsuccessfully trying to 'crack' the university market. The crucial thing for marketers to realise, as demonstrated recently by the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, is that it's not what you say that will guarantee you a captive student audience but how you say it.

21 Aug 2009

"Today's students download what they want to know, fast forward or delete at the click of a button what they don't, which unfortunately includes a lot of on-campus advertising," says Julian Hewitt, selection manager at the Foundation. “What this means for marketers is that creative marketing is the only way to get noticed above in the saturated youth marketing milieu.

By applying a creative approach to reaching this elusive student market; the Foundation recently boasted a 267% increase in the number of students attending the annual first year recruitment campaign road show on campuses around the country.

The marketing collateral included a Hollywood-styled red carpet complete with dark-suited bodyguards waiting to give the students a VIP welcome; a short attention-grabbing DVD on the opportunities it offers to first-year students; and recruitment campaign staff with branded caps with light bulbs affixed to the top.

Another insight on marketing to the youth that the Foundation capitalised on was the youth's proclivity to listening to each other and making decisions based on peer recommendations. “We invited some of our current first year Allan Gray Fellows to speak at the recruitment talks," continues Hewitt, "they are the ambassadors of the programme and can empathetically communicate the benefits of the programme far better than anyone. We know that we will never be as cool or have the same credibility or rapport as our Fellows do with their fellow students," concludes Hewitt.