Camping Out
The fun and games may have ended at summer camp, but for marketers the work is just beginning. Big-name brands, including Hasbro and Nickelodeon, are blazing new trails to find alternative venues to capture kids’ attention via camp programs.
The emergence of marketing at camps signals a growing trend and desire by brands to locate a captive audience — in this case 11 million kids that go to camp in the U.S. each summer — in new and meaningful ways.
Hasbro and Nickelodeon just ended a two-month stint to promote new products to kids across 50 day and sleepover camps. Using a traditional camp game — the scavenger hunt — New York-based entertainment marketing company 4everwild introduced 50,000 campers in 12 states to Hasbro’s new two-way device, the ChatNow.
4everwild, which specializes in marketing to young adults at camp, let kids sample the product on their hunts while unscrambling clues, sending messages and taking pictures. The two-way communicator mimics a walkie-talkie and cell phone with a built in digital camera and text messaging capability. The device lets kids talk and send text messages up to two miles away.
“Impressions made at summer camp last a lifetime,” says 4everwild CEO Larry Lieberman. “Anyone who’s gone to summer camp knows they remember their camp experience vividly. We’ve got an opportunity to touch kids while they are in an open state of mind.”
The scavenger hunt marks Hasbro’s first-ever large-scale product introduction at summer camps. As part of the promotion, Hasbro distributed calendars to campers, which contained a $10 coupon toward the product.
“It seemed like a natural fit,” says Keri DeAngelis, marketing director for Hasbro’s Tiger Electronics. “Making the camp experience fun, as well as getting kids to do something a little different, has been really well received.”
The ChatNow devices, now in stores, sells for about $74.99.
Nickelodeon also joined the fun in its first national camp promotion, airing new programs that will debut this fall on the Nicktoon network. Some 550,000 campers at 1,100 camps in 41 states watched the 90-minute DVD as part of a rainy day activity. The DVD featured a TV spot for the ChatNow device.
“You can reach kids anywhere,” Lieberman says. “The difference is we get their attention at a time when they want to pay attention.”
Over the last year, 4everwild has also had discussions with Fuji Film and Crest, but no plans have been set.
“The summer camp experience is one of the biggest opportunities for brands to have access to such a large number of kids,” says Tim Millbern, director of advancement for the Martinsville, IN-based American Camp Association. “We’ve had companies call us and say, ‘how can we reach your market?’ All of a sudden, this trend is starting to get bigger.”
The association has already received inquiries from entertainment organizations and movie producers to market to kids.
“We need to be very sensitive about marketing to kids,” he says. “We cannot say, ‘Here’s a product you must use.’ Our job is to work with the camp directors on an education level as well as the filter process.”
