Survey: Experiential marketing is a student winner

New research demonstrates the power of experiential marketing to influence consumer behaviour in the student market. In the largest face-to-face research project ever undertaken in the student market, almost half (48%) of the 6,000 students surveyed said they plan on using brands they hadn’t used before, as a result of seeing them at their Freshers’ Fair.

The research, conducted by student marketing agency BAM, questioned more than 6,000 students and 1,100 stallholders attending university Freshers’ Fairs at the start of the 2013/14 academic year. When asked why they attended 64% of students wanted to pick up some freebies, while over a third (35%) were hungry for information on the latest products or services from brands.

The Freshers’Fair is a key date in the university calendar and 26% of students see it as an opportunity to socialise, with 25% attending primarily to source offers and discounts. An overwhelming 95% of first and secondyear students who attended the 2013 fairs plan to return in 2014, when they want to see more fashion brands (demanded by 41% of students), drinks brands (33%), pubs, bars and clubs (30%), food brands (29%) and supermarkets (26%) represented.

“The student market in the UK is alive and well, packed with 2.5 million experimental, enthusiastic and engaged young people, with an estimated spending power of more than £15.5 billion”, says Carl Daruvalla, director of strategy and insight at BAM.” Students are savvy shoppers and love getting a great deal, but they also want to be engaged, even entertained. Brands that get it right at Freshers’ Fairs have a fantastic opportunity to cultivate loyal customers, at a time when students are asserting their independence from the family home and creating new buying habits of their own.”

An emphatic 99% of stallholders surveyed told BAM they think it’s likely they’ll participate at Freshers’ Fairs in 2014. This follows 89% of them showing confidence that they’d achieved the targets they’d set for the fair. The top three reasons stallholders gave for exhibiting at Freshers’ Fairs were brand awareness (57%), student engagement (51%) and informing/educating (27%).

“We asked the stallholders which channels they found most effective when targeting students, and 80% said face-to-face experiential”, comments Carl, “While social media came second at 49%, these results show how powerful it is to experience a brand in person. There are many points throughout the academic year when we can create experiential activities on campus, but it all starts with Freshers’ Fairs.”