Jenna and Matt are your typical college students. They are 21, hip and always on the go. With their part-time jobs, they have about $3001 in monthly discretionary spending. Students like Jenna and Matt represent an attractive audience for advertisers who are able to reach out and engage them as they go about their busy daily lives.
What makes these students so attractive to advertisers?
- Not only do they spend money on themselves, their family and friends, but they also influence the purchases of the people around them. College students across the US account for about $170 billion in annual spending, and that includes their own as well as their parents’ money.
- By 2010, this Gen Y population will account for about 32% of the total population; they will be the next dominant generation of purchasing Americans. If they become loyal to a brand, they present an enormous lifetime value in potential revenue for that brand.
- The majority of them grew up in dual-income families and that translates into more sophisticated tastes in clothing, dining and recreation. They also grew up in a media-saturated, brand-conscious world, (i.e., they were raised as consumers). These attributes make them a great advertising opportunity for “entry level” luxury brands in particular.
Connecting with these potential buyers requires a close examination and understanding of the patterns that shape their daily lives. College students spend about six hours a day on campus in classes and in the library, and a few hours a week at their part-time jobs. Weekend evenings are spent hanging out with friends at the local coffee shop or pizza place or at the nearby sports bar. Weekday evenings are spent studying with much of that time spent on the Internet — doing research, catching up on email or hanging out on social networking websites. They prefer reading college newspapers over national dailies and listen to music primarily on their MP3 players rather than over the radio. They rarely take in more than six to eight hours of TV a week and when they’re watching, they are likely to fast forward through ads using their DVR.
Jenna and Matt’s active lifestyle and reliance on new technology means traditional TV, print and radio advertising is just not going to be effective in reaching them. The Internet represents an advertising opportunity since college students are such avid Web surfers, but advertisers are looking for other ways to connect with them when they are not in front of a computer.
Out-of-home digital media is a pervasive solution to reach and engage these students where they are. Using out-of-home digital media, advertisers can reach them both on college campuses and off campus in venues such as in bars and restaurants, gas stations and travel centers, bookstores, grocery stores and other retail outlets - places where you are more likely to run into Jenna and Matt because of their active lifestyles.
Research shows that awareness levels are high for the 18 – 24 demographic and that it drives action for this audience – typically the early adopters of technology and new media.
- 70% of 18-24 year olds are aware of digital signage that they have seen in the past 12 months3
- 27% of 18-24 year olds took an action based on the last time they saw advertising on digital signage3
Combine this research with the fact that 50% of 18-24 year olds use text messaging on a regular basis3 and you have a compelling media that not only delivers a brand message to Jenna and Matt, but also provides a way for Jenna and Matt to interact with a brand through the combination of text messaging and a call to action placed in the advertising creative.
By employing digital advertising in out-of-home venues, advertisers can now be practically everywhere Jenna and Matt are on a typical day and at a reasonable cost. Using this medium, advertisers can get a high frequency of exposure to the brand. In addition, based on the venue, advertisers can tune the ad creative by the type of venue, making the message very context-sensitive and more likely to engage their audience – again possible due to the technology behind out-of-home digital media.
SeeSaw believes ubiquity has a profound impact on a campaign’s effectiveness. Context is everything. An advertisement is more effective when people view it as a part of their everyday life. With out-of-home digital, an advertiser’s brand can be everywhere Jenna and Matt are – with the right message in the right context.
In addition, SeeSaw has addressed another fundamental issue that was a barrier to reaching this audience with out-of-home digital media – in the past, each of these venues could only be bought through separate networks. Creating a national or regional campaign targeting Jenna and Matt required that a media buyer try to find the right venues at the right time, and then buy spots and collect disparate results across multiple networks, each with their own process. SeeSaw has smashed this barrier.
By aggregating individual out-of-home digital networks, SeeSaw has created an extensive national network of out-of-home digital media venues that blanket the country coast-to-coast. This network covers a broad range of categories including colleges and universities, travel centers, book stores, grocery stores and other retail outlets, and bars and restaurants.
With SeeSawAds.com, media planners and buyers can utilize an online planning tool that evaluates a campaign’s goals, budget, timing and targets to create an optimized plan that matches the available venues from multiple networks with the campaign’s objectives. The planning tool can be used to view venue-specific information such as pricing, photography and traffic details and also to make appropriate tweaks to the campaign targets or to specific venues. Once the plan is finalized, it can be reserved while all of the necessary client sign-offs are secured.
With out-of-home digital media, advertisers can reach college students like Jenna and Matt and engage them more effectively with a brand message that starts the process of making them lifelong customers.
1 Source: 360 Youth/Harris Interactive College Explorer Study.
2 Source: Generational Shift in Media Consumption Habits by Jeff Dickey and Jack Sullivan, 2007.
3 Source: SeeSaw Networks – OTX Research Digital Signage Attitudes and Awareness Study, 2007
