Back To School

Back To School
Today a student, tomorrow a leader

by Carrie Severson

WHEN WAS THE last time you went to class? Do you remember college at all? If so, then you should remember all the free stuff people were trying to hand you as you walked down the main drag of the university. College goodie bags were full of sample packs big corporations hoped you would try or be intrigued by. Then of course, there were those annoying credit card employees luring college students to them with huge bags of Starbursts and free T-shirts. Well, not much has changed. According to the National Association of College Stores, the most recent figures show there are 4,096 institutions of higher learning in the United States. Out of that number, 42 percent are public institutions while 58 percent are private colleges or universities.

College students have the purchasing power of $105 billion, according to the fall 2000 Lifestyle & Media Student Monitor. The source also states 75 percent of all college-aged students participate in extracurricular activities while 54 percent of them exercise or work out. Those who own a cell phone equal 46 percent and those who want one equal 26 percent.

Think of all your potential sales.

J.D. Beatty, chief of staff to the president of the University of Colorado, says he sees promotional products not only in the systems' office but throughout all four campuses that belong to CU.

He says that, like any corporation, colleges are very interested in identifying their members, either with backpacks or paperweights. Each individual campus connected with CU runs orientation programs where T-shirts, pens, lanyards and more are all given out to students and parents.

"Before working at CU, I was at Iowa State for 34 years and the two campuses are very similar," he states. "Wherever you look, there's something with the university on it."

Dr. Laura Burgis, director of the Parent Program at Arizona State University, says she uses promotional products that appeal to 40 to 50-something year olds. With parents being the primary target, in the past water bottles, stress balls and other useable items have been used.

She says coffee mugs for specific colleges within the university are ordered frequently to create niche communities for identification purposes. For family weekends, pom poms, stadium cushions, note pads and magnets are ordered for parent association members.

"We need to create awareness through our department and keep our name out there. ASU is such a huge place, we need to keep our identity as a niche community for our constituency out there," Burgis says.

There are several options for your company to work its way into this market. A few distributors with experience in this market explain one complication most large public universities lay out to them involves license contracts. However, going through with the advanced royalties is one way of getting your foot in the door. Another is through certain organizations on campus for specific events, like Greek Week or International Week, and a third is through the different departments on campus.

These three suggestions are just the start. You could also go about it from a backstage approach. Take your existing clients and advise them to become sponsors of a college sports team or a college event. You could make relationships with companies surrounding your local universities and create clever campaigns that would attract the college crowd.

You forgot to check into "Chuck and Cheryl's Realty" to see if the real state firm wanted to get their name into the hands of the young people, didn't you? Perhaps a local bank would be willing to give away a pen and padfolio to college students who open an account with them.

Bob Finn with Finn Graphics has seen colleges go for window decals, computer strip calendars and magnetic directories. The magnetic directories are handy for universities to give out at the beginning of each semester. However, he thinks an advertising product could easily be purchased by an outside source and handed out to students to get the company's name into that community as well.

Michael Byrd, Marketing director for The Leslie Company, has seen his stadium cushions go out to a lot of smaller colleges and junior campuses. Of course, distributors purchase the necessities as well, such as binders, presentation folders and portfolios.

"A lot of times, distributors go through the local businesses or booster programs through the schools, which is a more indirect way but still productive. Distributors have packaged our product with other companies in a care package for different giveaway days."

Tim Lavin with Mad Dog Promotional Products has clients who buy products from him to give away at job fairs held at colleges.

One in particular is a law firm that went to a career day fair and tried to recruit law students to come work for them after the students graduate. Lavin's client was enthused to not only give away information about the company but also an item to help students remember that particular company.

"In the past, I've done upscale luggage tags at events like that, nice metal pens with my client's logo on it as well as lower-end writing instruments and tiny flashlights," he says.

A sales representative for Geiger, Mary Ann Simon, explains about a client of hers who went to the University of Florida to do some engineering recruiting. Her client placed an order for a few "crazy items" from Points of Light, an ad specialty supplier.

"People involved in college recruiting or college campuses look for something a little bit different, but not to expensive," she says.

Simon says she found an aluminum gadget which looks like it would have been used in the engineering field, and using colors similar to those of the "Gators" on the item, her client loved the idea.

Gray Logowares account executive Karen Outland explains that the difference when selling to this market vs. another category is how college students and staffers are more receptive toward trendy and unusual items.

Working on projects and "shopping" for promotional products of this kind is what makes this category so much fun, she says.

There are, however, some knots to maneuver around--one being licensing issues and the second being bidding wars.

Don't sweat the small stuff though, because if you sell product for institutional use, you don't need a license and if you establish a relationship with the heads of a few departments on campus you'll have a better chance at winning the bidding war ... if there ends up being a war to be won.

Outland explains one event the distributorship became involved with in the college arena, avoiding licensing issues, was to take part in the college industry meetings.

One example she lists is through a Dining Services department on a particular campus. It may sponsor a regional or national meeting of Dining Services departments and a conference such as this will have its own logo, which is generally not regulated by the university. The logo will be imprinted on items such as T-shirts and awards for participants.

Orders like this repeat over and over again and if you calculate the number of departments on a local campus near you, chances are you'll run into high double digits.

Ask distributor representative Sharon Kitchens of Joe Henry Inc. She says the company does quite a bit of work with some of the colleges in her area, mostly departments on those campuses.

With one smaller college they work with, the mascot isn't licensed so the headache factor of figuring out how to work with a mascot is eliminated. Kitchens says because the tiger mascot isn't licensed, Joe Henry took a picture of the mascot playing basketball that a freshman drew and sealed a deal for 500 T-shirts from this particular college.

"I think the college market is a hard one to get into and because of that, distributors look around it," Kitchens says. "However, I bet there's that one distributor out there that has the licenses and goes after this business gung-ho."

That would be Bob Turner's company, Midwest College Marketing Group Inc. (MCM Group).

Turner says the company actually concentrates on the college market. In doing so, they acquired several licenses and now distribute more than 300 products. With offering so many products, the advance royalties MCM Group has to pay are offset.

The way Turner sees things in the college market is in thirds: the first being through administrative needs, the second through the college bookstore and the third involves the athletic department.

Over the past couple of years, MCM has developed the business at athletic departments. There's been a lot of sport marketing research done and they have become members of the National Association of Collegiate Marketers of Athletics.

He says if distributors bring existing clients to the heads of athletic departments as potential sponsors, distributors could get big responses with the college market.

"If distributors develop a relationship with the athletic departments, they have done a huge favor to the marketing representative of those departments because it's their job to go out and find sponsors," he says.

For distributors who are testing the water of this market for the first time, Turner suggests taking the idea of sponsoring a local college team to the surrounding businesses.

In the years MCM has been involved in corporate sponsorships, Turner has seen creative promotions that get students' attention. Retail companies give 20 percent off a certain item if Michigan State wins. Fast food restaurants give away mini basketballs with a purchase of an ice cream cone.

"When you are a sponsor of a college team, fans and customers will look at corporate sponsors in a whole new way. People are getting bombarded with messages all day, but this is one I've seen people let in," Turner says.

Sponsors aren't the only positive affect MCM Group has been a part of. They also target bookstores and exhibit at the Collegiate Retailing Main Event trade show--the college bookstore industry trade show.

BOOKSTORES

Distributors earning their wings as a sales representative for a college bookstore isn't as easy as apple pie.

In fact, according to Turner, it leaves a totally different taste in your mouth.

"It's a tight-knit group of people who belong to the association and the buyers and managers communicate with each other. When you're in, that's great, when you're not, it hard to break in."

Turner's suggestion for anyone going after the college store market is to find a niche item students can use, and then sell it everywhere.

Kathy Grace, the director of Swarthmore College bookstore, attends the same trade shows that MCM Group exhibits at and she brings home a few specific items every year.

A huge trend for bookstores right now is hooded everything. Grace says a couple of years ago they couldn't sell a hooded sweatshirt to save their lives, and now they can't keep hooded apparel in the store. She says there is a terrycloth fabric vest, sleeveless and full zipped, but because it's hooded it sells like hotcakes.

With the promotional product industry falling behind the retail lines by a year or so, distributors should keep their eye peeled for baby blue. Or the "North Caroline blue," as Grace calls it.

She says bright colors are around, and the translucent items are becoming mainstream, but the baby blue is what everyone is selling these days.

Though bookstores try to bring in the cutting-edge merchandise for college students, the stores also have to cater to the alumni with gift items and children's merchandise.

Barbara Miller Heron, the director of Skidmore College's bookstore, says bookstores like to carry a little bit of everything, attracting the faculty, staff and students.

"I think vendors don't realize college stores are big businesses; we're basically retailers," Heron says. "Our mission is to supply the necessary textbooks to the students, but the rest of the merchandise is where the profit margins are at."

Bill Fitzgerald, vice president of College Marketing, and Bonnie O'Neil, director of National Accounts with MarketSource, a 27-year old marketing service company based out of Cranbury, N.J., work with the bookstores, food services, the dining halls and housing departments of campuses that give out product samples.

Since the beginning of MarketSources' creation, the company has been working with colleges. It's safe for Fitzgerald to say this time of year is busy, not only for MarketSource but for the corporations that MarketSource helps promote on college campuses nationwide with Campus Trial Packs, usually given out at campus bookstores.

Brand awareness is important to the Fortune 500 companies that have products in the packs, especially among the college crowd as students go out for the first time to purchase materials.

"We have research that shows we really do move the meter through sampling. When students receive something free they use it and it changes their consuming power of what they do purchase," Fitzgerald explains.

The products that are in the trial packs are filled with samples from various companies that are trying to target the college market. The objective of the sale is typically successful with students, because they love to receive free items, as it's one less thing to buy themselves.

Whether distributors enter the market with clients sponsoring college teams and cheerleaders tossing corporate-branded foam footballs into the crowd, or through the bookstores or administrative departments, it's a market to be explored.

Today's college students are tomorrow affluent consumer. And if you can help your clients develop a relationship with college students while most of them are still young, your customers could have them for the next 20 to 30 years.