BRAND Enrollment

The mission: Buy everything you need-food, books, clothing, hair gel, body paint, whatever – on the Internet for an entire college semester. The team: three quirky college students who love computers and being different. The sponsor: Levi Strauss & Co. The reason: “To see if it can be done,” says senior marketing specialist Cassie Ederer.

The mission, too, is to raise brand awareness among college students who fit snugly into the jeans maker”s core audience of 15- to 25-year-olds. But why an Internet promotion? “We go to where they are,” says Ederer, “And now, they”re online.”

Marketers already know the score. College students are nowhere near as broke as the stereotype has always suggested, and they are spending as much as $78 billion annually, according to estimates from Roper Starch, a New York City research firm. These campus-dwellers – freed from the shackles of mom”s and dad”s purchasing preferences for the first time – are developing brand loyalties that they may carry for most of their lives.

And wherever else they might be – the library, the gym, the Rathskeller – college students are on the Internet. According to New York City-based online researcher Jupiter Communications, college students made $482 million in online purchases in 1998 and will spend $2.6 billion in 2002 – a little drop in a $78 billion bucket, but enticing to marketers nonetheless.

You can”t swing a dead mouse online these days without running into a sweepstakes or product giveaway, traditional promotional tactics that have become almost de riguer methods of driving traffic to Web sites. Sampling has also become commonplace. Heck, you can even host an event, albeit a virtual one.

Levi”s latest college campaign employs another tactic gaining favor among marketers: getting students involved in the promotions. Afraid your stodgy way of thinking might alienate the hip college set? Then enlist some students to develop the marketing plan, like Clairol, Playboy, the Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP) and other brands are doing.

Living on the Web There were an estimated 8.8 million computers on college campuses in 1997-98, which works out to roughly one computer for every 1.6 of the 14.3 million college students in the U.S., according to Simba Information, a Stamford, CT-based media research firm. More than 60 percent of students accessed the Internet regularly in 1998, and by 2002 that figure will swell to 86 percent, according to Jupiter estimates.

With that kind of penetration potential, it”s no wonder marketers are clamoring to establish Web-based promotional vehicles, and why agencies and entrepreneurs alike are developing ways to attract the college crowd. Community sites are already numerous, including Student.com, College Club, Student Advantage (a recruitment station for the AT&T-backed discount card program), College Beat, and College Jam. The basic premise is to provide info on the topics students enjoy most – entertainment, sports, nightlife, sex – and sign up some partners to offer freebies and run sweepstakes.

“This is the next big wave for products and services,” says David Marcou, group sales director at MarketSource in Cranbury, NJ. Since 1995, MarketSource has operated T@p Online, an Internet community that boasts about 200,000 registered members and generates five million page views per month. The T@p network includes prizefest.com, a linked site promoting more than a dozen sweepstakes from such brands as Burst Gum (which is giving away a computer system), Chevrolet (a Chevy Tracker), Bausch & Lomb”s Skintimate (a Cancun vacation), and Certs (a ski trip to Colorado). Prizefest.com also offers samples of Trojan, Nair, Arrid, and Pearl Drops products.

“The value-added here is phenomenal,” says Bob Perlstein, president of Atlanta-based LifestyleChange Communications, which handles national advertising sales for Memolink, Inc., Denver, a four-year-old company that will distribute local advertiser-drenched personal message boards to about 500 colleges and universities in 1999. Launching a companion Web site (ad space is offered free to clients buying into the traditional message board and inserts package) has allowed Memolink to expand its reach well beyond its campus network, Perlstein says.

Six-month-old Memolink.com offers a rewards system in which members earn points by either filling out surveys or signing up with advertisers” services, like a NextCard Visa or a University Subscription Service magazine. Members can then redeem their points for gift certificates to Blockbuster Video, Subway, the Olive Garden, or Vanguard Airlines. The underlying goal of the site is to collect user data, which Memolink shares with its clients.

With so many giveaways available, maybe Levi”s experimental shopping trio – 23-year-old Chico State, CA, senior Alanna, 21-year-old UPenn freshman Tomiko, and 19-year-old University of Kansas sophomore Scott – might not have to actually buy anything. Still, this month Levi”s begins giving each of them $500 per week to prove that Internet-exclusive shopping is a distinct possibility. The winners were chosen from more than 500 entries who had learned of the contest through advertising in college newspapers or word of mouth, Ederer says.

Levi”s is hoping the promo, developed in partnership with New York City-based Ketchum Public Relations, becomes “like The Real World online,” says Ederer, referring to MTV”s popular cinema verite teen angst series. “We want this to have an entertainment level,” she says. Thus, the cyber-pioneers will have Web-cams installed in their rooms, write daily journals detailing their online exploits, and may even host some celebrity visitors. (Ederer is mum on who might be dropping in.)

The Semester Online is part of an increased emphasis on promotion in 1999, although Levi”s plans to increase its advertising presence as well. “We”ll be doing a lot of tie-ins with the music industry and extreme sports, and product placement in TV and film,” says Ederer. Levi”s is already booked for a return engagement as sponsor of the MTV Music Awards, and will market a new line of clothing through a tie-in with the MGM film, The Mod Squad.

Hefs-in-training How efficient is the Web in attracting attention to a company? Playboy Enterprises, Inc., Chicago, has established a network of more than 200 “Campus Reps” at 100-plus schools over the last 18 months by posting a call to arms in the On Campus section of its Web site. Signing on as a local Playboy promotions man (or woman; almost one-fourth of the reps are female) requires nothing more than filling out a simple application form.

Playboy college marketing manager Alison Raleigh admits that the loose qualification system has produced a few reps “who only did it to get a free subscription to the magazine.” Still, there are a good number of reps “who have done a phenomenal job running promotions, selling subscriptions, and just getting the buzz out there,” Raleigh says. Most promotions come in the form of a party held at a local bar or fraternity house, in which the reps give away magazines, videos, T-shirts, and other premiums. But sorry, “there are no naked women running around. It”s just good, clean fun,” Raleigh stresses.

It”s also good, cheap marketing for a company that has never specifically targeted the college student before, says Raleigh. Because correspondence with the reps is handled by e-mail, “the only costs are the premiums we give them,” she says.

Not your father”s mustache MilkPEP is looking to tap the college-age Zeitgeist through a promotion with partner Rolling Stone magazine and handled by BSMG Marketing Communications, Chicago, a unit of Bozell Worldwide.

The Ultimate Milk Mustache Internship will award summer marketing internships at the magazine to four students who devise innovative on-campus promotions or ad campaigns. The goal is to increase milk consumption, which drops dramatically after Johnny and Suzie leave the nest. More than 900 students have called requesting marketing kits since the contest was first unveiled through an ad in the Oct. 15 issue of Rolling Stone, according to a BSMG spokesperson.

MilkPEP has been a staple on college campuses for the last four years by participating in a number of magazine-hosted college road shows, and is currently on tours with Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated that will hit more than 100 institutions in the 1998-99 school year. Judging by the local media clips generated at most stops, the road shows have “really helped us get our message out,” says the spokesperson.

“The milk mustache campaign has been so popular, we”ve had requests from a number of marketing classes for information on how we set it up,” says the spokesperson. “So we decided to make our own curriculum for kids.”

MilkPEP”s notion is hardly new. In fact, bona fide college marketing courses have been established by companies such as Clairol, Wells Fargo, Pacific Bell, Ameritech, Sprint, and soon Coca-Cola in concert with Berkeley, CA-based EdVenture Partners. Since 1991, EdVenture has managed the General Motors Marketing Internship, a GM-funded program through which student teams receive actual college credits for developing and implementing a local marketing campaign and promotional event for one of GM”s autos. Students work with a local GM dealership and are also strongly encouraged to add a cause-related component to their efforts. The program has been conducted at more than 500 colleges nationwide.

Over the years, the GM Marketing Internship has produced some noteworthy campaigns, including one conducted by students at the University of Washington in 1995 that was borrowed by Seattle-area Pontiac dealers for their own media effort. GM has also hired some of the program”s most promising graduates.

Clairol signed on last year, and this semester is sponsoring courses at five East Coast colleges. The company was attracted by the credibility of running a school-approved educational program, as well as by the opportunity to add a peer-influenced component to its traditional strategies.

“I”ve found that to be the most powerful way to reach the younger target group,” says Laureen Schroeder, product manager for Clairol”s Hydrience hair coloring line, one of two brands that will be promoted through the classroom program. “It”s word-of-mouth taken to the next level.”

Until now, the Hydrience marketing team has targeted students through the more traditional methods of road shows, college media advertising, and direct-mail trial offers. “We are just starting to impact the college market in a bigger way,” says Schroeder. “We feel it”s a big opportunity for the brand.”

It”s not that the more traditional promotional methods are losing their effectiveness, just that a new age of enlightenment appears to be dawning in college marketing. Brands are making the effort to don varsity sweaters and stroll around campus to see firsthand what makes student-consumers tick.

MarketSource this month launches its first Spring Into Action sample pack (with products from Edge, Trident, Lubriderm, Tylenol, and BMG Music), expanding a service that already features two fall programs, Campus Trial Pak and Study Breaker. But the agency is steering its clients toward a more integrated marketing approach, “and the Internet is now part of that,” says Marcou. “You can”t just throw a sample out there and expect college students to change their brands for life,” he says.

For that, you need to hit them where they live – either literally or virtually. And if you”re having trouble reaching them, try putting a few on the payroll.