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Student news:

A-level students are only weeks away from getting their results which will reveal if they have been accepted to the university of their choice. Whilst this is a rather daunting time for students, it is also an exciting one as they will be getting ready to leave home for the first time. It is also a very exciting time for student friendly brands like us, as the university period is just around the corner!

Students starting their studies are in the market for new products and services to help them celebrate, prepare for and settle into university life. Research has shown that students tend to buy products for university in August and September, meaning this is a great time to target this particular audience. Students have an annual spending power set to top £30bn per annum (UCAS). Imagine capturing your share of this market, what could that mean to your bottom line?

To help engage students, many brands offer freebies and giveaways. Every year popular restaurants such as Nando’s give away free food on results day and this gives students the incentive to return, likewise many brands will run giveaways related to moving out e.g. vouchers to re-vamp their uni wardrobe or the chance to win handy university items like stationary for the new year.

Giveaways work for students as they feel like the company is giving back to them, which will give them more of an incentive to become a loyal customer in the future.

Marketing news:

Speaking of giveaways, during the summer months in the UK, a number of festivals take place up and down the country. One that has just taken place is Wireless festival. This year they partnered with YouTube Shorts, the short-form video platform with 1.5 billion logged in monthly users. This year to celebrate their collaboration, they have like many other brands, started a giveaway for students who attend the events. To win festival goers this year had to create a YouTube short of their time at the festival and submit it. The giveaway prize included free tickets to the 2023 Wireless Festival, as well as VIP access and meet and greets with the headliners.  

Collaboration is a powerful business tool for companies, regardless of their size or industry. By combining the effort and expertise of different organisations, all partners in the network are better able to innovate and grow and increase their competitiveness on many levels.

Although YouTube Shorts has been around for a while now, it has a lot of high competition with TikTok and Instagram. Collaborating with a very popular festival such as Wireless will have helped increase awareness of YouTubes new platform and generated more users as a result.

Student polls:

Speaking of festivals and collaborations, this week we asked our students if they enjoy when different brands collaborate together. 59% of our student audience said yes – brand collaboration is becoming more popular as it generally creates a buzz around both the brands and it gives the customer a new experience which is exciting.

Often when brands collaborate, there is a lot of social media advertising around the collaboration as well as competitions to draw in the customer. We asked our students if they, as the customer, become more loyal to a brand that runs competitions  61% said yes. When you as the brand give back to your customers, they are more likely to become loyal and increase their interest in the brand.

Freshers Festival:

We are holding our annual Freshers events in both Glasgow and London this year and we are expecting them to be even bigger and better than ever before – with some amazing brands already signed up. We still have more spaces available, so if you are looking to reach a student audience this September, be sure to get in contact with us.