My newspaper column for this week: Can't even trust your roommate

[flowomo]

also available online at:

www.cumberlink.com/articles/2005/11/17/editorial/rich_lewis/lewis01.txt


The roommate as hidden persuader
By Rich Lewis, November 17, 2005

Your buddies in college may not have always given you the best advice ("Oh, sure, Ed, you can help us kill this gallon of Thunderbird and still finish your English paper tonight"), but at least you knew they were speaking from the heart. They actually believed what they told you.

In my day (which, admittedly, was many days ago), we college students depended on each other for tips on things like the best audio equipment, music, books, games, beer and so on. You'd walk into some guy's room and say, "Hey, are those Advents any good?" or "Were those Birkenstocks worth the money?"

And he'd tell you.

The watchword was "Trust no one over 30" — your peers were the only people who weren't in somebody's pocket. That was a really nice part of the whole college experience.

Which is why I so depressed to read Sarah Schweitzer's recent article in The Boston Globe. Schweitzer says the latest corporate strategy is to hire college students to hawk products on campus.

She notes that Microsoft, for example, "is among a growing number of companies seeking to reach the elusive but critical college market by hiring students to be ambassadors — or, in more traditional terms, door-to-door salesmen."

The head of a New York firm that specializes in student marketing told Schweitzer that the tactic "embraces all the elements that corporations find most effective: It's peer-to-peer, it's word of mouth, it's flexible and it breaks through the clutter of other media. For all that, it's growing very quickly."

What? Your roommate a flack? Your sorority sister a corporate hireling? Is no one to be trusted anymore?

You can certainly understand why businesses lust after the college market. An August 2004 study by Harris Interactive showed that college students brought $24 billion in "discretionary spending" power to the nation's campuses this year.

The study also found that students "hold considerable sway over the purchasing decisions of their peers." In fact, 78 percent of students "listen to friends" when purchasing movies, and 58 percent do so when buying computer games, the study notes. I'm sure the influence works on everything from deodorants to digital cameras.

And that's fine, if your "friends" are giving you an honest opinion — but not so fine if it turns out they're paid shills for Warner Brothers, Activision or Olympus.

Schweitzer says companies recruit "campus leaders with large social networks that can be tapped for marketing." The kids tend to be the ones with "good looks and charm" and they are expected "to devote 10 to 15 hours a week talking up the products."

They also must "plaster bulletin boards with posters and chalk sidewalks — tactics known as ‘guerrilla marketing,' which, marketing firms acknowledge, intentionally skirt the boundaries of campus rules."

The "ambassadors" are paid with product and maybe a small stipend.

Well, you might say, it's not so bad if the shills make it clear their opinions have been bought and paid for. I disagree. The kids are being paid to sell — and presumably will say whatever it takes to get the job done. Besides, as Schweitzer reports, "Campus ambassadors generally are not required to state their corporate affiliation, but most companies instruct them not to try to obscure it."

The devilish beauty of the ambassador scheme is that it outflanks the college administrations. As Schweitzer writes, "Colleges and universities say they have little say over student marketers on campus and are often unaware they exist. Although many schools bar companies from setting up shop or sending non-student representatives to approach students on campus property, administrators say many campus spaces are difficult to restrict to students."

As a dean at Tufts University explained to Schweitzer: "We are not in a position to tell people that they can't talk to people."

No, indeed. In fact, colleges encourage students to bond with each other. You just now have to be careful your classmate isn't a corporate James Bond — a trained agent.

I suppose I'm sounding naive about the ways of the world here. After all, advertising and marketing have invaded every corner of our lives. Our mailboxes, cyber and physical, are flooded with spam; moviemakers now make millions of dollars by selling "product placements" in their films; the government now "hires" journalists and columnists to sell its programs and policies.

It's all about the selling, so why shouldn't college campuses be ripe for the picking? Heck, the colleges themselves are engaged in endless marketing wars to attract more and better students.

Still, I just hate to see campuses turned into trade shows, the most independent voices into mouthpieces for big business, and casual conversations into verbal spam.

I mean, what's next? I can see some little kid asking her mother for a "Squeezable Suzie" doll for Christmas and mom says, "Well, Sally, that's a good choice. But this ‘Kissable Kristy' by Mattel is made from high-impact plastics and imported Peruvian alpaca hair. I recommend it highly."

Then she pats Sally on the head and tucks the check into her pocket.

Rich Lewis' e-mail address is [e-mail]

[Mist]

1. I actually have tremendous faith in the students' ability to see through

this stuff. The "ambassadors" plan may very well backfire.

[flowomo]

2. hope so!