Companies turn students into walking brand-imprinters

[ellenrr]

Teams of college students paid by American Eagle (wearing American Eagle T-shirts) welcome new arrivals to campus, carry their stuff to the room, give them Amer. Eagle brand merchandise.

A Target party - where hundreds of students - are driven to a Target store, for a shopping party. By midnight, the store is crowded with freshmen pushing shopping carts full of lamps, pillows, cases of soda and free junk food. A D.J. spins tunes between clothing racks. Students dance the wobble.

This fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses — for cash, swag, job experience or all three — marketing everything from Red Bull to Hewlett-Packard PCs.

Corporations have been pitching college students for decades on products from cars to credit cards. But what is happening on campuses today is without rival, in terms of commercializing everyday college life.
The students most in demand are those who are popular — ones involved in athletics, music, fraternities or sororities. Thousands of Facebook friends help, too.
If companies can hook them early, it often has customers for life. And the choices students make — about shampoo, clothing, computers, smartphones and so on — can become the lifetime habits of future families.

Mr. Youth, a marketing agency, charges corporate clients $10,000 to $48,000 a campus per semester for brand-ambassador programs, for products such as microsoft, Nike, Ford and Hewlitt-Packard.

Alyssa Nation, 21, a junior is a brand ambassador for H.P. laptops. Even when she is not officially on duty, she puts on her H.P. logo shirt, takes her company-issue laptop and positions herself at a campus Wi-Fi hotspot.
“I can tell they believe me,” she says. “There’s a completely different trust level when it’s peer-to-peer marketing.”
She also posts to H.P.’s Facebook site for students and uses her own Facebook account, with more than 1,300 friends, and her Twitter account to promote H.P. student discounts and contests. Last semester, Ms. Nation painted the H.P. logo and Web site address on her car, using washable markers. She posted photos of the car on Facebook and recruited 15 friends to paint their cars, too.
This fall, Mr. Youth plans to hire more than 5,000 college students among the 150,000 who submitted profiles to its student recruitment network.
Back at the Target party: Over the course of the evening, about 2,200 Carolina students make their way through the aisles. The Vice-chancellor of college Mr. Crisp describes the party as the school’s “signature event” for the start of the school year. “It’s late night. It’s fun,” he says, adding: “It’s an opportunity for us to gather them together on a Saturday night in a healthy, safe environment.” Says one freshman: “This was definitely the highlight of my orientation”.
Red Bull, which has student brand managers at 300 universities and colleges, sponsors everything from chariot races to music lectures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/business/at-colleges-the-marketers-are-everywhere.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[d_legendary1]

1. Who says marketing doesn't work?

Get'em while they're young. Wonder when liqour companies are gonna get in on the action.