Students may be hard up but suppliers are recognising that campuses are great places to school tomorrow's ABC1s in the disciplines of brand loyalty says Mary Carmichael Banks have known it for years ­ catch customers when they're living on baked beans and an overdraft and you have the mature, moneyed versions for life. Some canny food market players have also cottoned on to this, but others are still missing out on a lucrative and influential market. Students now account for around 30% of the youth market in numbers ­ a proportion that's growing. Their total spending power is £10bn a year, but this money's only the short-term benefit. In the long run, manufacturers ­ even those whose wares are aimed at a richer, older market ­ can lay the foundations of brand awareness among the next generation of ABC1 decision makers by investing in campus based activity. And retailers can aim for the holy grail ­ customer loyalty. Isolating students from the youth market as a whole presents some problems but the student state is not just about being young. There are solid characteristics. Students tend to be clustered in certain areas and most don't have a car. They are generally short on cash but have lots of time. Food storage space is minimal, as is concern for health. Leisure and image are the focus of spending. University is, for most students, the first opportunity to make independent food purchasing decisions. They don't want to waste their university years weighing up the relative merits of different brands or retail outlets, however. Their allegiances will be forged quickly and, once formed, will be hard to shift. The National Union of Students' Services provides a platform for retailers to tout for long-term custom and opportunities for manufacturers to target the primary user and primary purchaser simultaneously. "We know the market inside out and can help to establish market penetration and lasting brand loyalty," says a spokesman. NUS bars and retail outlets are used more frequently than equivalent high street outlets. Promotional tactics available on campus include entertainment/bar contracts, arranging sampling, providing customer feedback and research, sponsorship, advertising, and targeted promotions by direct mail or within shops. Some big names ­ including Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Britvic, Bestfoods, Vladivar and McDonald's ­ have seen this as an opportunity to grab students' attention. So far, Tesco is the only major multiple to actively court students. Five years ago, it launched a Student Club Card, in conjunction with the NUS, with preferential points. The normal Tesco Club Card now offers the same points, so the student version is obsolete, but students can still get extra money-off vouchers for products such as CDs, videos, beer, pizza, and so on. Tesco encourages its branches in student areas to target them directly. Its Hatfield store is one of several with a stall at the local university's freshers' fair. Customer services manager Chris Davies points out that it brings other benefits besides enrolment for the Tesco Club Card. "We can attract potential employees whose lifestyle adapts well to flexible hours," she says. Despite efforts to attract students, the store does little to tailor its range to its student customers. Davies says that the higher priority of Tesco's value ranges in the store is based more on the area's average income than the number of students. Convenience stores' more impulse-oriented ranges are more easily tailored to students' immediate hunger solution' philosophy and this may explain why they have been more successful in targeting the market. C-stores are especially effective when they can scale the campus ramparts and take up position on university sites. Only a handful have managed this, however, as the NUSSL buying consortium runs most campus stores. Independent retailers can only step in when the university retail outlets have opted out of union control. Warwick University's campus store became a Costcutter branch two years ago. The 515m2 store now turns over around £100,000 a week ­ four times most stores its size. The average basket is only three items, but 6,000 customers a day pass through the seven tills. Manager Mark Potter says the store is tailored to its customers: "Most of what we sell is sold to consume immediately. They don't use us for a big shop but we target their daily needs." Potter says the range differs from the average c-store's, with the focus on news and snacking. Broadsheet newspapers sell well because publishers offer heavily discounted rates to campus stores. Alcoholic and soft drinks ­ especially energy drinks like Red Bull ­ dairy products and cigarettes also earn their floorspace. The high proportion of overseas students means that bottled water sells at a "phenomenal" rate. Other bestsellers are more unusual. "We got through eight metric tonnes of bananas in 20 weeks," says Potter. "And most of those were sold one at a time." Some products, including soft porn magazines or chewing gum, are excluded in line with NUS policy. (It seems the temptation to stick gum to seats remains even when the desk has been exchanged for the lecture theatre.) The store's baby products and petcare ranges are also considerably smaller than similar size stores. It's not just stock that has to fit the customer profile; aesthetic considerations also carry weight with the student population. Layout, appearance and lots of refrigerators are important, according to Potter. "You need a fresh looking environment with lots of lights and clean straight lines," he says. This focus on image is also important for manufacturers who want to keep their brands credible. As a group, students are highly image conscious. Typical youth brands like Bestfoods' Pot Noodle risk losing their core market if they aim for too wide an age spread. Students are the youth market style arbiters, so Bestfoods looks to student promotions to retain the brand's youth appeal. "We target the state of mind rather than age," says senior brand manager James Griffin. The Pot Noodle Experience Roadshow is visiting music festivals during summer 2000. "We're aiming to get this group where it spends its leisure time," says Griffin. The company is taking no chances with possible laziness either. It has made noodle nibbling as convenient as possible by installing Pot Stop vending machines in most student unions. Students' reputation as early adopters of new trends makes them a useful trial market, especially for growth sectors like soft drinks. But they'll still be watching the pennies, so promotions should be price oriented. Britvic has completed four years of a five-year contract as exclusive pumped soft drinks supplier to NUS bars. Customer marketing manager Andy Cork says exposure in the bars has had a knock-on effect in the campus retail outlets, but value activity cross promotions with snacking products have paid the greatest dividends. Manufacturers who really want to communicate with their student market can take a step further and infiltrate their ranks. Bulmers began building its Strongbow campus marketing teams ­ complete with budgets ­ in September 1999 and now has brand managers on eight university sites. Spokesman George Thomas says that while the appointees get good training from professional marketeers, the real benefit is for the company. "They're our eyes and ears on campus," he says. "And they can use whatever means they deem necessary to push the brand on campus ­ mailshots, promotional bar nights, whatever." Thomas claims the concentration of activity means the brand's target audience now extends a year or two further. "We see this particular group as an area where we can do meaningful sampling and create general awareness which will benefit the brand for the next few years," he says. Red Bull ­ perhaps the ultimate student brand ­ has been making use of student brand managers since 1997 and now has 40 on campuses across the country. "We wanted to let the youth market represent itself," says Bill Curtis, youth marketing director. "Universities are obvious places to start as certain elements of campus culture are relevant to the brand ­ ambition, energy, exuberance." He says there's little need to advertise the jobs; the right people find out about them and come forward. The student programme has helped to reinforce the brand's live-life-to-the-full ethos by forging links with action sports such as white water rafting, and setting up more creative activities ­ for example the Recharge Room for acts at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Some expansion on to new campuses may happen, but Curtis points out that diluting activity too far would decrease its impact. Instead, Red Bull will be developing closer relationships with student media ­ publications and radio. "The short-term gain is a boost in sales," says Curtis. "The long-term one is that our consumers understand the brand and take this through to their working years." And this indeed is the challenge for the food and drink industry. How can it harness students' loyalty in the transitional years after further education and before serious adult life has taken a hold? One area which suggests itself is online shopping. Students are the single most prolific group of internet users. Around 90% of the UK's campus based students have internet access and they spend 15% of their income online compared to 2% in the general population. Surprisingly though, it doesn't seem to be happening in the grocery arena, with Tesco claiming students don't use its online service in large numbers. It suggests that the £5 delivery charge is a deterrent ­ even if it can be shared among a household ­ but also admits its computer system doesn't recognise the postcodes of halls of residence. But it would be marketing myopia for retailers in particular to ignore this area's online potential. Today's students are tomorrow's internet-literate accountants, lawyers and business consultants. They will work 12 hour days ­ much of that time in front of a computer screen. Students already receive a fresher's bag to welcome them to university. What about a Congratulations on your Graduation' bag, complete with a CD-Rom ready to load Supermarket Dotcom? That mature, moneyed individual could also be theirs for life. {{FEATURES }}