Today's student

Today's student originally appeared in 2005's book Targeting Students: A Marketing Guide and formed the introduction.

Students are widely recognised as a valuable audience to engage with. They are at an age when they make decisions that stick with them for many years. Compared with other audiences, the 18 to 24 year-old in full-time education is highly consumptive in various product sectors, such as cinema, mobile communications, music, internet banking, snack food, beverages and healthcare. And although many marketers find it hard to pitch their communications effectively to students, those that get it right often find the response is enthusiastic.

Student marketing has grown significantly in the last ten years and the marketplace has become crowded and competitive. Students have also become more marketing savvy, and any marketer that wants to engage should not underestimate the student's understanding of techniques and motives. The attitude generally of students to marketing is, in part, trend dependent; there was a cultural backlash in the late-Nineties which caught out those marketers behind the pace. Today's student, now fully aware of his or her worth to marketers, assumes an attitude of perceived power, striking deals and often seeking to get one over on the marketer.

Today's student is conscious that there is a literal price to pay for their education. They seek maximum value from the experience, whether that be on a social, academic or personal development level. The shift of funding structures in recent years has turned around the 'poor student' legend; today many students have relatively easy access to cash while at university or college but become poor on graduation when years of debt-accumulation begin to impact and loans stop. Imminent changes in the funding structure is likely to create an even more dramatic contrast between student and graduate finances: students will find university life easier to survive but post-graduation will bring some mighty debt.

Every year the student accommodation provider, UNITE, commissions MORI to find out what students feel about their university experience. The key findings of 2005's survey were:

Students are generally a happy and contented group, enjoying the freedom to live as they want and considering the experience to be worthwhile. On the downside, increasing proportions are feeling stressed since coming to university.

Financial constraints are likely to be adding to the stress factor with little money, debt and the lack of a regular income being the three worst aspects of student life. Trying to juggle studying with other commitments, especially work are also key triggers.

Students enjoy their social lives, a large majority feel that they have good opportunities for social activities, to meet people and to try new experiences.

The pub is their favourite activity but despite a high level of awareness of the risks of binge drinking, significant proportions buy more alcohol than the recommended levels for safe drinking. Similarly, significant proportions continue to smoke and do not acknowledge the risks involved. However, they are more likely to recognise the dangers of smoking cannabis and, especially, using hard drugs.

Despite their vices, more students today care about fitness than in previous years. Seven in ten now claim to care very much about health and fitness in body and mind compared with the four in ten who said three years ago that they spent their spare time playing sport or taking exercise.

Mobile phones with picture messaging are the gadget of choice with males owning the most gadgets overall.

This book takes a look at more of the research findings that help create a vivid picture of today's student in the marketing context, including chapters on advertising that gets noticed, segmentation opportunities and market research techniques. There is also a close look at some specialised areas, such as field marketing, student television and working with students' unions.

In the preceding book to this, the Reach Students Handbook (2003), we predicted it would be a critical year for the big student websites and student brand manager schemes, that new student media such as SUBtv (students' unions plasma screens) would be worth watching closely, and that new innovative methods would be employed in student marketing to engage students.

Since then Virginstudent.com and StudentUK.com have both lost their financial backing, The Guardian has ended its brand manager scheme (one of the most successful in its time) because it feels the idea has been exhausted, and SUBtv has developed into one of the market's most interesting and versatile media. There have been various new advertising ideas employed, projections onto university buildings being a popular one, some of them more gimmicky than others - the fleeting availability of students foreheads for advertising messages springs to mind.

This year we believe that clients will start to demand more accountability from their student marketing, which in turn will either force results or bring more pressure on those at the front line than can be managed. A massive amount of student marketing is eventually realised by or within students' unions, institutions that are not overly concerned with profit-making. They will be asked to deliver more, and inevitably there will be those that can't or won't, encouraging the search for other routes to access the student audience.

Among specialist agencies there is a spirit of co-operation and consolidation that is welcome: the cowboy days that gave this sector a bad name are fading, and experienced student marketers are willing to work together to create a more attractive and rewarding experience for clients.

All in all, it could be the year that student marketing comes of age.