UNSTUCK 014: The Agony And Ecstasy Of Back To School

As parents we are ecstatic that, after a long summer filled with Prof. Kelly moments, school is back in session. At the same time, as sustainable food marketing cheerleaders, we’re in agony at the missed opportunity for targeted activations aimed at a strategic audience primed for behavior change. 

Why campus activations matter

Savvy marketers across most major categories salivate over the back to school season, and specifically around college campuses. Where else is a new generation of potential consumers served up on a platter at exactly the life stage where they’ve left home and are forming their identity and new habits?

In the US alone this segment accounts for over 20m students with a spending power of nearly $600bn and has attracted a cottage industry of dedicated agencies offering to host events and pop-ups, recruit brand ambassadors and influencers, and create an endless stream of targeted content.

Apple logos shine bright in dorm rooms fueled not just by special educational deals, but entire education sales and support teams dedicated to the opportunity. Execs in Cupertino know that many of the students they convert to Macs and iPads will take them along into the corporate world. So do their rivals at Google, who have been making a major push into education with special versions of their Workspace and Chromebook products. 

Food companies have been ever more aggressive in the space, with Coke and Pepsi negotiating “pouring rights” contracts with the majority of large public universities in the US that incentivize them to sell more of the companies products. In some cases, the contracts offer higher per-unit incentives for selling sugary soft drinks compared to bottled water. Fast food brands are not far behind.

Alternative Proteins Wanted

Amid mounting efforts to get alternative proteins onto restaurant menus and supermarket shelves alongside talks of early hype and the future of alternative proteins, we have a group of consumers asking for more. Students.  

Plant-based Universities is an international grassroots student campaign calling for universities to transition in a just and sustainable way to 100% plant-based catering. Since their inception in late 2021, 11 universities in the UK (including the University of Cambridge and University College London) have won Student Union votes to move their student catering to 100% plant-based.

Over the pond a 2023 study by Sodexo Campus (a major foodservice provider to colleges) found that when students were presented with a plant-based option as default, 81% choose that option rather than requesting a meat-based alternative. Furthermore, “students, even those who regularly eat meat, reported that they had higher meal satisfaction on days when plant-based options were the default”

Why are sustainable foods missing in action?

We have consumers ready to buy and enjoy and the perfect conditions for brand building, yet we could find hardly any examples of campus activations (thankfully you can always rely on Oatly).

Sadly, this is sadly reflective of the lack of importance placed on proper marketing and brand building within the sustainable foods industry (something UNSTUCK is here to help change). For sure there’s availability efforts (see Beyond Meat and Impossible) and of course a good dose of educational efforts from GFI.  However, opportunity to buy and rational education is not how lifelong habits are formed. In the coming years these students will build their spending power and (like all of us today) will not want to spend energy on decisions and will instead rely on heuristics and emotions. As the beauty brands know, if you become part of a consumer’s repertoire at pivotal times when they are forming their preferred choices, you’ll likely be there for decades, if not for life. Just see the investments Maybeline, Sephora and La Roche Posay are putting into their campus marketing. It’s the same reason brands are so eager to get to new parents before they’ve even left the hospital with helpful advice, offers and samples.

An opportunity ripe for taking

The number one job of every marketer is to drive penetration for their brand (% of the population buying).  Year in, year out, ensure more consumers than the year before are buying you (fending off competition and attracting consumers to choose you over the many other brands out there).  

Recruiting consumers at this definitive time in their lives to be not only regular purchasers but engaged advocates of your brand is a golden opportunity. A great activation will not only drive trial and recruitment of one consumer, but create shareable content where they are telling all their followers and friends about you. And students are not only more likely to be aligned to your mission than the average Joe, they also love being alternative - doing things differently to how their parents did them and discovering new things.  

It doesn’t need big budgets. Start small with one university or college campus, learn this year to inform the next. Recruit student ambassadors or advisors (there’s a lot they’ll do for free food). But whatever you do, start from a place of understanding your potential consumers, what will engage them and be creative and bold in your marketing to them. Please do not default to “we’ll make it available at an acceptable cost and then they’ll come”.

We don’t want consumers just for college, we want them for life.