# THE POWER OF STUDENTS
With an annual spending power of £12.8 billion, students should not be underestimated. By understanding how to connect with them at the most formative period of their lives, you can establish life-long relationships that deliver long-term results for your brand.
GEN Z ARE HIGHLY INFLUENCED BY BRANDS
43% of all 18-24 years olds are students. So with Gen Z being such an influential and important focus for many brands, you can quickly see why it becomes crucial to target this demographic specifically. Not only are students in a formative life period which means they are keen to engage, but they are also incredibly cost-effective to target due to the dense communities they live in both online & in real life. It's a rare opportunity to get such a large percentage of a specific demographic within one place, meaning minimal audience wastage for brands.
Understanding, collaborating with and activating the student audience is something that we have done time and again. We build strategies that work for student marketing but, more than that, work on campus, in culture and beyond.
TARGETING STUDENTS AND YOUTH THROUGH MARKETING CAMPAIGNS
Students and youth audiences place huge trust in their peers over advertising & celebrity endorsements, but you may be wondering how to really cut through & have an impact. Our answer to this is Student Brand Ambassadors.
Student Brand Ambassadors as a marketing channel are now widely recognised as a key way of creating influence through peer-to-peer recommendation and establishing meaningful connections with this influential and culturally-important audience and, as a result, can be truly transformative for brands.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CONNECTING WITH GEN Z ON CAMPUS
Student brand ambassador programmes allow brands to:
#1 Build credibility
Messaging and positioning developed for and by the audience and transferred through credible, trusted sources.
#2 Hyper relevance
The ability to be on the ground when things matter - to be in the moment with the right message or solution at exactly the right time.
#3 Ownership
Co-developing campaigns with SBAs and giving them a stake in the outcomes creates a more meaningful connection and drives real impact.
#4 Direct access
Both on the ground and online to spaces and platforms that brands otherwise wouldnt have exposure within.
#5 Micro exponential influence
The messages can grow exponentially through the concentrated social environment of university.
MARKETING TO STUDENTS IN THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS
No doubt, the current cost of living crisis will bring about challenges for brands as young consumers will be more intentional about how they spend money. The silver lining with this audience is that we know they will spend time and money on the brands that show them their identity and that resonate with them.
Therefore engaging with this audience through an intelligent student-led ambassador strategy based on cultural insights can overcome this challenge.
INFLUENCING AND CONNECTING WITH STUDENTS AND GEN Z ON CAMPUS, IN CULTURE AND BEYOND
We are a new generation agency built around the audience we create for, students + youth.
With over 10+ years of expertise, Seed can help brands understand, influence and connect with students and Gen Z on campus, in culture and beyond. Whether it's creating a secret music festival or a touring experience, designing a hype-building campaign with TikTok creators or increasing sign-ups through ambassador activations and paid social, Seed’s knowledge can help brands to build lasting relationships with the next generation.
