Case study: The Guardian

The Guardian - 25 years of student marketing
This case study was a chapter in The Reach Students Handbook (2003)

The Guardian has had a commercial interest in students for over 25 years. It's an interest that today consumes £500,000 of the paper's overall marketing budget. Its portfolio of studentmarketing activities is broad and diverse:a student brand manager network; the Saturday careers supplement, Rise, aimed as much atundergraduates as graduates; the Student Media Awards; a discount voucher scheme;regular on-campus promotions, ranging from quiz nights and debates to sports events. Plus miscellaneous sponsorships, such as careers fairs, arts exhibitions and talent showcases.

The paper is not unusual in investing large sums of money in the student market - broadsheet competitor the Daily Telegraph is rumoured to spend a six figure sum each year, and The Times also has a large student marketing budget. But The Guardian is different in that it has achieved great success. Not just as a daily newspaper, but as a student brand. Whether or not they buy the paper, every student knows The Guardian.

Good marketing has created the desired impact on sales; in the mainstream market the Telegraph outsells The Guardian by two-to-one, yet among students The Guardian is by far the biggest-selling broadsheet.It's not so simple as to say The Guardian, aleft-thinking, comparatively radical paper is bound to be more popular with the student audience. Because students can no longer be assumed to be left-thinking and radical. Recent research by the Index on Censorship found most of today's students accepting of authority, happy with the status quo and keen on the idea of a nanny state. The current ruling executive of the National Union of Students is made up mainly of centre-aligned independents and includes a Tory - once upon a time unheard of. Students just aren't the banner-wavingrevolutionaries they once were.
It's more accurate to look at the quality, consistency and commitment of The Guardian's student marketing.

In conversation with Marc Sands, Marketing Director at Guardian Newspapers, it quickly becomes apparent as to why the paper has achieved such striking success with a supposedly difficult audience. Sands explains the philosophy behind The Guardian’s student marketing: "In my view it would be a disappointing and scary world if everybody only read either the Telegraph or the Mail. The Guardian has a remit about reach and influence, we're about ensuring a more progressive, liberalperspective is conveyed to as wide an audienceas possible.

"Newspapers clearly have a role in shapingopinion. The point at which a person leaves home and goes to college is a period when they are at their most influential and influenceable. It's a time when they make decisions that are key, some of which stick with them for many, many years. So there is a window when people are making massive decisions. Students are an audience to whom our message shouldbe receptive.

"From an ideological perspective, it's crucial that the student audience is open to the message of The Guardian, even if they choose not toadopt it."

The Guardian marketing team is on a mission to promote liberal views, as well as sell papers. Their evangelical belief in their product, and how it can impact on society, drives their work. It's no coincidence that other brands that do well, like Orange and STA Travel, have an offering that it is 'easy' to get passionate about - they have an innovative and engaging product that students feel can genuinely benefit them.

Lots of businesses try out the student market. Some like what they find and hang around. Many - often to the amusement of student market stalwarts - get a fright and bail out. An awful lot of businesses never consider carefully why they want a relationship with students in thefirst place.

The Guardian is absolutely clear on why it wants to attract students. "Historically people tended to read the newspaper their parents read," says Sands. "But now many don't, and the period when they go touniversity is a time when they make their decision. Choosing your paper, particularly a broadsheet, is part of the transition made between childhood and adulthood. It begins to define you. So, in terms of life stages, students are at a pivotal period. From a commercial point of view, students are the future of the paper."

"People rarely change newspapers, and the life-cycle value of a reader is a lot. Readers are our lifeblood. There are good commercial reasons for reaching them as students."
The Guardian's student marketing works, but why does it work? Sands feels their student brandmanager scheme is behind the good results: "You'll hear lots of people talking about student brandmanagers," says Sands, "but the truth is The Guardian invented them [this is hotly disputed by Tony Harbron, who founded the Red Bull SBM scheme]. Everyone else copied The Guardian's model. They thought: that's a good idea, let's apply that to our business. That's the way it goes."

"The brand managers are the advocates for the paper. You'll find them mainly in the liberal arts universities rather than the science baseduniversities, because that's our constituency. We targeted those universities specifically."If, in the newspaper, we're giving away a CD on Saturday, we'll brief our brand managers to adopt that and plug it like crazy on campus. They run their campaigns to tie-in with everypromotion the paper does.

"I think the reason we don't make mistakes and our student marketing works so well is because we give an awful lot of autonomy to the brand managers. If it was down me I'd make lots of mistakes because I was at university 20 years ago. My idea of a good promotion is a pile of discount vouchers inside a packet of what looks like Rizlas - when I told the person who runs our student brand manager scheme that idea she looked at me and laughed. Because she's aged 24, not 39. So we don't go wrong because we don't do things like that."

While Sands may steer clear of the creative side of marketing, he pays close attention to the way students have changed over the years and makes sure his marketing evolves accordingly. "Because funding has changed, the onus on the student is so much greater than 20 years ago," he says. "By the time a student is half way through their second year they're starting to think about what they might do when they finish. It's a fundamental change. When higher education was funded by the state you had time to luxuriate in your student life and get severely into the subject you were studying. If you're being asked to pay such a lot more for education, I think it radically alters why you chose to go to university and what you do when you're there.

"That's changed The Guardian's approach. The Guardian has been a recruitment and jobs paper for some time. But now we push that very hard to undergraduates: we're the place to find your job."

Like other top student brands, The Guardian is now considering ways to reach students off campus. They have noticed that today's student is a moremetropolitan character, and that the city centre is a valid place to make contact. Sands is looking at ways to operate the daily discount scheme in high street newsagents - another example of the paper staying ahead of the game.
So how does he sum up the overall effect of this 'student marketing from the frontline'?

"Some students may not like The Guardian," he says, "but they will be aware the paper is an important influence. And that is important."

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