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How Brands Are Tapping the College Content Machine
Brands are creating on-campus experiences, from concerts to tailgate events, to drive sales and loyalty — and take advantage of college influencers’ growing power among Gen Z.
Key Insights
Brands are giving students opportunities for community-building, memorable activities and special access to product with on-campus activations including concerts, tailgate parties and dorm room makeovers.
As college students become content creators — and wield heavy influence on their peers — brands are tapping the opportunity by partnering up with sororities and college athletes alike.
The content students produce receives high engagement and allows brands to reach a new demographic, all rooted in the trust students have for their peers.
Read the entire article at The Business of Fashion >>
excerpts of article related to NIL...
Students also make particularly effective ambassadors: Jewellery label Gorjana, for instance, partnered with college athletes to create campaigns and social media content as part of its Gorjana Sports Club initiative. Its August catalogue, starring Lauren and Sienna Betts, sisters and basketball players for the University of California, Los Angeles and Kyra Zaengle, a freshman volleyball player at the University of Southern California, outperformed last year’s by 35 percent.
“College athletes are really the ones that probably have the most influence on college campuses,” said Iva Pawling, Gorjana’s chief marketing officer. “They have such true loyalists in their followings. If you’re following an athlete, you really want to support them.”
The benefits too, have the potential to last beyond graduation. By building relationships with students early on, brands can hopefully develop longer-term connections that will pay off over time as students graduate and have access to more disposable income. In the meantime, they can also earn a more solidified place in the TikTok zeitgeist by gifting students products or creating shareable experiences.
Creating Shareable Experiences
Brands are designing events that feel like a natural part of the college experience — but are still worth sharing online.
Football season, too, is a popular backdrop. Pacsun, Hollister and Faherty are among those staging game day parties, tailgates and more for students. What those look like in practice varies brand to brand, campus to campus.
Hollister leaned into one school in particular, hosting the first campus edition of its free “Feel Good Fest” concert series at the University of Texas at Austin to kick off a multi-year partnership with the university. As part of the sponsorship, the brand will take over the stadium for all home games as the official sponsor of the university’s existing “Longhorn City Limits” concert series, where it will give away Texas-branded products, host game day activations and partner with student athletes through sports marketing agency Postgame.
“The team has done an incredible job of creating real relationships with athletes,” said Carey Collins Krug, chief marketing officer of Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister’s parent company.
College Content Creators
The best activations keep students posting about the brand even after they’ve wrapped.
That starts with choosing the right creators to work with to amplify their messaging. Student athletes — essentially on-campus celebrities — make for particularly effective partners. Hollister, for instance, partnered with dozens of student athletes (NILs) to support its “Feel Good Fest” series — many of whom the brand has started to actively incorporate into broader campaigns through Postgame.
