Reengaging the College Market: Brands Tap into Ambassador Programs
Published on Oct. 16, 2024 at 3:59 p.m.
By Megan Renzi.
Ambassador marketing has emerged as one of the most successful approaches for boosting brand awareness, trust and loyalty among a specific audience. What distinguishes brand ambassadors from other marketing and public relations efforts is their ability to not only drive sales but to also foster a sense of community around the brand. By creating a strong connection with a desired target audience, ambassador programs can move beyond transactional relationships and help develop authentic relationships between brand and consumer.
In today’s competitive market where brands are actively trying to win over Gen Z, college students have become a key target. As a result, student ambassador programs have rapidly grown across college campuses, becoming one of the most effective public relations strategies for brands to connect with this new generation of consumers.
Brands like Microsoft, Vitamin Water and Conair adopting college ambassador programs demonstrates that even the most well-established brands recognize the importance of restoring their identities among Gen Z consumers.
Catering to the college market
To understand how college ambassador programs re-establish brand identity, it is essential to first recognize the significance of the Gen Z consumer market for long-standing brands.
Christina Sugimoto, the associate manager of accounts at Wasserman Next Gen, focuses on connecting brands with the next generation of consumers. She helps clients to get their brands exposed and connected with Gen Z college students and young adults like herself.
Sugimoto explained that she is working with a client to put on a 13-stop experiential tour around the U.S. to various HBCU and HSI campuses. This hands-on experience gives her valuable insight into why more brands are making an effort to target the college audience.
“College students are such an important market to tap into since these are the people that will take your brand to the next level,” Sugimoto said. “Connecting with Gen Z college students allows brands to feel relatable and fun to this audience. With social media being a huge driver in influencing and product consumption, brands need to tap into this space to stay relevant and interesting to an ever so changing climate on social media within this generation.”
Sugimoto highlighted the importance of brands implementing strategies that deeply immerse them in Gen Z culture and trends, allowing them to easily form authentic relationships with consumers.
“Sometimes it may not make sense at all, but Gen Z is so witty and finds humor in most things, and capitalizing on the lingo is super important,” Sugimoto said. “A great way to do that is to have college students promoting your brand on social media through ambassador programs; this way your brand can seamlessly integrate into that language and community and create connections with the audience.”
Traveling to different universities through her role at Wasserman Next Gen has led Sugimoto to develop a unique perspective on the new generation of consumers.
“You can’t categorize this generation in one box — college students are curious and want to explore things outside of their comfort zone, so brands need to be prepared to adjust their programming or marketing to meet those needs,” she explained.
This takeaway illustrates why more and more leading brands are hopping on the trend of college ambassador programs. To effectively appeal to the Gen Z college student market, brands must adapt to what resonates with this specific audience.
Clinique and Coca-Cola: Two brands winning over college students
Two leading brands in the beverage and skincare industries that have successfully re-engaged the college student market through college ambassador programs are Clinique and Coca-Cola.
Insights from Phoenix Stanford, a campus ambassador for Clinique at The University of Alabama, and Khushi Panchal, Coca-Cola campus ambassador at Villanova University, reveal how these brands effectively target the college student market through their programs and in turn re-establish their identities among this key demographic.
Social media and samples
The Coca-Cola Campus Ambassador program focuses on two factors that are sure to attract Gen Z college students: social media engagement and sampling events.
As an ambassador, Khushi Panchal shares Coca-Cola products with fellow Villanova students at sampling events. She highlighted the effectiveness of such events, stating, “We all know that college students are always on a budget and trying to save money as much as possible. Having free products engages students and excites them to come to my sampling events. People are always more likely to try free things!”
In addition to holding sampling events on campus, Coca-Cola campus ambassadors like Panchal also create social media content that showcases how Coca-Cola products fit into the daily lives of college students. She believes that her social media efforts, combined with her sampling events, help foster the success of the Coca-Cola brand. Panchal explained, “I am spreading my love for these products to Gen Z students, which the company is trying to target more and more as they age down.”
While Panchal acknowledges that Coca-Cola already has strong consumer awareness and brand loyalty, she pointed out that implementing a college ambassador program helps “strengthen the brand’s identity with a younger demographic as a brand that has been around for so long.”
Cultivating connections
For Clinique campus ambassadors, the focus is on connecting with Gen Z college students by fostering genuine relationships and working with college students who have a large reach on campus.
As a campus ambassador, Phoenix Stanford utilizes her involvement in a sorority at The University of Alabama to distribute free Clinique products during chapter events. She noted that getting products into the hands of her sorority sisters who share a similar love for beauty has been huge for Clinique.
“When I hand out free products at my sorority house, the members get excited and post it all over their story,” Stanford explained. “That’s free advertising, and it will help further establish the brand’s longevity.”
The Clinique on Campus Ambassador program holds workshops where campus representatives meet the people behind the products — and that is what Stanford thinks sets the brand apart. Having the opportunity to communicate directly with the Clinique team has helped her build a strong relationship with the brand.
“We as consumers are more focused not on just the product, but the morals and values that these brands have,” Stanford noted. “If you feel like you have a connection with a brand, you’ll go back to them.”
The future of brand ambassadors
As they grow to be an effective PR strategy for even the most established brands, college ambassador programs are here to stay. By tapping into the college market, long-standing brands can easily reconnect with Gen Z and remain relevant to the next generation of consumers.
