Food brands such as Domino’s, Nando’s and Pizza Hut are most likely to be remembered by students, with research from The Beans Group finding that having a good offer, popularity and creativeness were the top three reasons for remembering advertising.
Getting freebies was a key way to get students to remember a brand, with the report stating: “In an open-ended question we collected the reasons that students remembered brands. In the case of Domino’s, it was almost entirely because they received a free slice of pizza. Nando’s engaged students with their use of a large Wheel of Fortune which delivered guaranteed prizes. Pizza Hut also won student interest with the lure of free pizza, while Lucozade coincidentally used the exact competition theme as Nando’s: a spinning wheel.”
The research found that while a third (66 per cent) don’t like to be handed flyers, 61 per cent of students admit “I still like to hold, feel and take away printed things”, while 74 per cent notice posters around campus.
Billboard advertising was found to be eye-catching for 71 per cent of students, while 73 per cent say they don’t like to receive postal mail from companies.
The Beans Report also found that 66 per cent of students see email as their preferred way to keep in touch with brands, compared to Facebook (27 per cent), Twitter (8 per cent) and SMS (3 per cent); with 80 per cent saying they check their email several times a day.
Jenny Elworthy, head of marketing at Hearst Magazines UK, said: “Freshers is one of the most important events in the student calendar. It’s a time when students are eager to try new things and start to form the habits of the next three or so years, and even their lives. They can be receptive to marketing because of this but of course there is a lot of clutter, so you have to give them something they’ll really value and to cut through is incredibly hard.”
Almost a third (30 per cent) said that freshers impact the brands that they will buy over the next few months.