Short deadlines are meat and drink to the news media, so BAM was unphased when The Guardian asked for help meeting a 3-week turn-around for its key student supplement. The challenge was two-fold: source student-focused brands to advertise in the Freshers Guide; and then distribute the supplement directly into the hands of students on campus and at student shopping events. The Freshers guide was first published within the national Guardian newspaper on the 24th September 2015, carrying several advertisers sourced by BAM the supplement was then taken ‘on tour’.
TESTIMONIAL
“FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE GUARDIAN DISTRIBUTED COPIES OF THE GUARDIAN ‘FRESHER’ SUPPLEMENT TO STUDENTS ON CAMPUSES AND STUDENT SHOPPING EVENTS ACROSS THE UK. WE CHOSE BAM TO HELP US DO THIS AND THEY TOOK CARE OF EVERYTHING FROM STAFFING TO THE LOGISTICS. BAM TOOK AWAY ALL THE HARD WORK, WHICH MEANT WE JUST GOT TO SEE THE BRILLIANT END RESULTS. WE’LL BE DOING IT AGAIN FOR 2016 WITH BAM, JUST BIGGER AND BETTER!”
GUARDIAN NEWS & MEDIA
BAM’S SUPPORT INCLUDED
• A STRATEGIC PLAN TO EXECUTE THE DISTRIBUTION OF 20,000 STUDENT SUPPLEMENTS AND 2,000 BRANDED BAGS THROUGH AN EFFECTIVE CROSS CHANNEL APPROACH
• USING BAM’S IN DEPTH KNOWLEDGE OF THE MARKET, WE SOUGHT THE MOST EFFECTIVE VENUES AND EVENTS ACROSS THE UK, CREATING A TOUR THAT COVERED TEN TOP UNIVERSITIES AND SHOPPING CENTRES
• WE HANDLED ON-SITE DISTRIBUTION ON UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES INCLUDING NEWCASTLE, LIVERPOOL AND LONDON, AND VIA RENOWNED STUDENT SHOPPING EVENTS AT ST DAVID’S, CARDIFF AND GUNWHARF QUAYS, PORTSMOUTH
• BAM SUCCESSFULLY MANAGED ALL ASPECTS OF THE CAMPAIGN FROM PLANNING TO LOGISTICS AND STAFFING, ENSURING A HASSLE FREE CAMPAIGN
• BAM IS NOW WORKING WITH THE GUARDIAN TO INCREASE DISTRIBUTION FOR 2016
HSBC Youth awareness campaign
HSBC is one of the largest banking and financial services organisations, serving some 51 million customers worldwide. HSBC prides itself as one of the UK’s leading employers of student talent, providing approximately 400 graduate and intern roles each year. It’s recruitment schemes cover a wide range of the company’s operations including corporate banking, IT and digital marketing.
At the start of 2015, HSBC approached BAM to help raise awareness of and drive applications for its graduate and internship schemes. BAM was carefully selected by HSBC due to the team’s vast experience of delivering highly engaging, successful, experiential campaigns.
BAM’s strong connections with Students’ Unions and Universities nationwide made them an ideal partner to help HSBC push for quality applications.
Time was a huge challenge for HSBC. The second term at University is a key time of year for graduate recruiters to engage with students and as such the competition for space on campus was hotting up.
HSBC set BAM the following objectives:
• Raise awareness and drive applications for HSBC’s various graduate and internship schemes via on-campus experiential activity
Approach
Time was of the essence and for BAM to secure prime space at some of the UK’s leading Universities, the team had to act quickly. With a limited budget, BAM used its great relationships with media partners to book space on-campus at key Universities across the UK, allowing HSBC to conduct face-to-face experiential activity to drive recruitment.
BAM was able to help take the pressure off HSBC by quickly identifying available dates at their targeted Universities, whilst developing a complete tour plan which meant that the brand could engage with as many students as possible.
A dedicated and efficient approach to securing space on all of HSBC’s desired campuses, within the tight budget, meant BAM was able to implement one of HSBC’s most cost effective, graduate-focused tours, maximising the amount of students they were able to approach and engage with.
Results
BAM worked closely with Universities, Students’ Unions and HSBC to ensure the delivery of a strong, highly-engaging recruitment campaign. HSBC were extremely pleased with the tour, including the planning and management, especially in such a short time frame, and in the second term which is a highly competitive time of the academic year for top recruiters to be seen on campus.
By securing the target list of Universities identified by HSBC, BAM completely delivered on the brief, helping the brand to be seen by mass student numbers whilst generating approximately 4,000 applications. As a result of the success of this campaign, HSBC will continue to work with BAM for their 2015-2016 recruitment drive.
Testimonial
“BAM helped us with the HSBC Spring Campaign this year. They have a wealth of knowledge around graduate attraction and were able to advise us a great deal on our plans and ideas.
Furthermore they were extremely efficient at organising the logistics of the campaign and managed the relationship with universities well”
Lycamobile Increase Their Student Appeal
Lycamobile is one of the world’s leading international pay-as-you-go mobile brands, serving over 12 million customers across 17 countries and welcoming a new customer every 2 seconds. In the spring of 2014, Lycamobile approached BAM to help facilitate a significant marketing campaign targeted at the UK student market. The campaign objectives were three-fold:
1) Raise awareness of the Lycamobile brand within the UK student market 2) Educate students about Lycamobile’s offering to students studying at UK universities 3) Drive the number of activations of Lycamobile’s pay-as-you go SIM cards, surpassing the previous year’s results
Approach:
Working in partnership with Lycamobile, BAM conducted a strategic whiteboard session with key Lyca personnel at BAM HQ. The session was designed to hone Lycamobile’s proposition and appeal to students, whilst identifying potential channels aimed at maximising reach.
It was important for Lycamobile to create ‘quality engagements’, educating a mass student audience face-to-face fast. The competition for mobile services is rife within the student sector, consequently it was crucial to target students before and during the start of the university term in order to gain traction.
University Freshers’ Fairs were identified as a key channel to get Lycamobile face-to-face in front of a mass student audience quickly. Together we identified and targeted strategic universities with high student numbers in order to focus the budget and maximise our ‘bang for the buck’.
BAM planned and booked the entire campaign. Using our strong relationships with universities and Student’s Unions across the UK we were able to plan and book attendance at over 50 university Freshers’ Fairs and events cost-effectively and hassle-free.
Results:
The campaign achieved several thousand ‘quality engagements’ with students across the UK, significantly increasing ROI in comparison to previous years. A summary of the results include:
Reached over 150,000 students ‘face-to-face’ within a three week window
Created several thousand ‘quality engagements’ with students, educating them on Lycamobile’s offering
Significantly increased ROI by over 100%, more than doubling the number of pay-as-you-go SIM card activations in comparison to the previous year despite reducing media spend by 30%
Testimonial:
“The BAM team helped deliver excellent results whilst providing a very helpful and friendly service. We would highly recommend BAM to any company wishing to run a student-focused marketing campaign.” –Lycamobile
Sports Interactive Digital Youth campaign
Sports Interactive is the creative studio behind the well-known Football Manager gaming series. In the summer of 2014, Sports Interactive approached BAM to help strategise and execute a marketing campaign to support the release of its latest edition in November. The campaign needed to generate further brand awareness and encourage new gamers within the UK student market. SI Games set BAM the following key campaign objectives:
1. Raise awareness of the Football Manager brand within the UK student market 2. Drive students online to the free FM15 demo download
Approach:
Based on the campaign objectives and BAM’s experience of driving student awareness to online products, the key route to BAM’s success was the use of a range of digital channels to increase student reach. Using the team’s vast knowledge of suppliers, a range of highly popular and engaging student and sports related websites, as well as social media channels were selected to raise awareness and drive traffic to the FM15 demo download page.
In collaboration with SI Games, BAM developed a variety of shareable online content articles and banners that would raise awareness of the free demo. This was driven across a range of digital platforms including social media, email, mobile and websites, to reach a student audience of over 850,000. In addition, we utilised our supplier contacts to feed the article out on a range of popular football and sports websites, as well as blogs to reach a further 100,000 potential new gamers.
To support the digital activity and boost brand awareness, we conducted on-campus peer-to-peer interactions at nine key universities. These interactions enabled BAM to engage students directly, driving them to access the free online demo, while interacting and gaming with them, providing a richer and more meaningful experience.
Results:
The campaign achieved mass awareness within the student and youth market, putting the Football Manager brand in front of more than one million individuals over a three week period. The exposure both online and on-campus generated new gamers, while reintroducing previous gamers by enticing them to trial the demo. Many of the reintroduced gamers were converted into game players again, which achieved an uplift in demo downloads in comparison to the previous year.
Testimonial:
“I was very impressed with BAM’s confident and upfront approach to our brief. Working to very specific objectives with a tight deadline, it would have been all too easy for BAM to action exactly what we wanted – but instead they applied their expertise and insight to ensure we could achieve better results and more value from the campaign. BAM’s proactive approach to planning also meant that when the campaign started they were able to tweak and optimise in real-time to improve results, without the need to re-strategise. The line of communication between BAM’s delivery team and me was excellent, and the level of care applied to the campaign was felt throughout.” – Sports Interactive
Wagamama’s Youth Experiential campaign
Competition is rife between restaurants hoping to dominate the student market. Wagamama had made the decision to turn away from the trend of using heavy discounting to attract customers. They were concerned this may put them at a disadvantage with their student customers and wanted to re-engage with students across the UK.
Approach:
Wagamama tasked this project to agency Albert who came to BAM to co-ordinate the campaign. Together we recognised the importance of experiential marketing in engaging with students and put together a combined social media and experiential campaign.
We took Wagamama on campus in a UK-wide road trip to 12 universities. Two students staffed the Wagamama vehicle serving noodles to other students across the UK and blogging simultaneously on social media.
Results:
During the four weeks after the campaign, student custom in the target outlets rose by more than 80%. Wagamama had over 30,000 active members on the Noodle Tour community and 800,000 views of their Facebook page.
Testimonial:
“Student custom in the target outlets rose by more than 80%. Wagamama had over 30,000 active members on the Noodle Tour community and 800,000 views of their Facebook page.” – Wagamama
Greggs national university marketing campaign
Following a successful trial in 2014 that saw Greggs attend nine Freshers’ Fairs, BAM and Greggs worked together to plan and carry out a nationwide Freshers’ Campaign attending 46 Freshers’ Fairs in 2015.
As part of the partnership, BAM planned and delivered a nationwide Freshers’ Fair tour handling all of the campaign logistics including event booking, recruiting and training talented promotional staff, as well as transporting an interactive set and thousands of goodies to each fair.
Approach
At each Freshers’ Fair students participated in an interactive game, either “Spin to Win” or “Lucky Lights”, for a chance to win prizes including free food vouchers and branded products such as thermos mugs, USBs and frisbees.
Visitors to the stand also picked up goody bags filled with freebies including the Greggs “Fill Me For Free” bag that can be taken to their local store to retrieve a choice of freshly baked food.
Results
The results generated a significant impact on footfall and purchases by students within the key target locations, with 30,000 student deals bought since the campaign.
Key Figures from 2015
46 Freshers’ Fairs attended, reaching from Dundee to Southampton, Cardiff to London
100,000 goody bags distributed
18,000 prizes given away
More than 24,000 emails collected
27 vans hired covering in excess of 3,500 Miles
More than 1,000 promotional staffing hours
20,000+ products redeemed
30,000+ student deals purchased since the tour
BAM is now working closely with Greggs on plans to expand the campaign for 2016.
TESTIMONIAL
BAM HAS BEEN VERY HELPFUL, THEY KNOW THEIR STUFF, THEY KNOW HOW THIS MARKET OPERATES AND THEY KNOW HOW ALL OF THE UNIVERSITIES DIFFER. IT’S IMPORTANT TO GET PROFESSIONAL SUPPORT IN MARKETS LIKE THIS AND WORKING ALONGSIDE THEM HAS MADE THE CAMPAIGN MORE EFFECTIVE, SO IT’S WORKED REALLY WELL!” ROGER WHITESIDE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, GREGGS
“BAM HAS BEEN REALLY HELPFUL WITH THE LOGISTICS AND PUTTING THE PROMOTIONAL TEAMS TOGETHER AS WELL AS BOOKING THE STALLS AND MAKING SURE WE’RE IN THE BEST PLACE AT EACH FAIR, WHICH HAS BEEN REALLY KEY TO THE CAMPAIGN.” DANIEL MACLUSKEY, STUDENT CAMPAIGN MANAGER, GREGGS
Double whammy for BAM at local awards
We’re proud to have reached the finals of the UK’s largest regional business awards – the Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen Business Awards 2015.
Double whammy for BAM at local awards
BAM currently holds the title of Best Place to Work and is thrilled to have been named a finalist in this category for the second year running. The team is also a top challenger in the Marketing category, for its exceptional results-generating campaign for Hostelworld.
“This is fantastic recognition for the team,” says Tim Bodenham, Managing Director of BAM. “The culture at BAM is pretty special because of our exceptional people – they bring together a depth of skill and experience with real energy and dedication. We’re proud to have been acknowledged nationally as one of the UK’s best workplaces by the prestigious Great Place to Work® Institute UK 2014, and regionally as Best Place to Work in last year’s Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen Business Awards.
“To be a finalist again is tremendous, and it’s even more exciting that we’re up for ‘the double’, with a hugely successful client project in the frame for an award.”
Recognised by industry peers as a finalist in the CIM Excellence Awards earlier this year, BAM’s work with Hostelworld, the world’s number one hostel booking website, supported the UK part of its global ‘Escape to the World’ campaign.
Including the launch of a fantastic competition to win three all-expenses-paid trips of a lifetime, BAM’s objectives were clear; to drive entries, collecting a minimum of 50,000 student email addresses, while increasing brand awareness and engagement among the student market. This was achieved through delivering a creative and strategic multi-channel approach. The campaign was also selected as a finalist in the British Youth Travel Awards in December 2014.
Now in their 18th year of recognising the best of business in Gloucestershire, more than 130 entries were submitted for the Gloucestershire Echo and Gloucester Citizen Business Awards 2015. The winners will be announced at a black-tie ceremony on 1 October 2015 and the BAM team will be there in full force to enjoy the festivities.
Give us a call on 0845 1300 667 or drop us a line if you’d like to know more about how our ‘best in class’ team can put you in touch with an audience whose estimated annual spending power is more than £19.7 billion.
Mobile marketing: Targeting millennial’s
With 71% of 16-24 year olds needing to be around mobile phones at ‘all times’, the idea that mobile is a crucial marketing tool for reaching young people is not all that surprising. Marketers can prompt better brand perceptions just by creating a pleasant mobile experience. However, with a sea of digital content at students’ fingertips, marketers need to identify how to make their brand stand out from the thousands of others. We have seen how brands can successfully use social media to market to students, but how effective are other mobile features that could be utilised (or not)?
Apps
According to The Beans Group, 76 of the top 100 Youth brands have their own mobile app. With the popularity of smartphones, mobile apps are now a key marketing resource; almost a third of these top 100 brands have at least one app (even if they don’t have a mobile-optimised site). However, as easy as apps are to download, they are equally easy to neglect. Brand apps have two expectations to meet: direct material benefit or entertainment. Sometimes deemed unuseful, apps are first to be deleted when storage space runs out (that is, if they haven’t been immediately deleted already). Delivering an app-exclusive reward scheme will help your brand succeed in the student market. GBK’s loyalty program captures the two expectations successfully, with fun challenges and attractive student deals.
Caution: Voxburner and Mobile Marketing Magazine note that 67% of 16-24 find in-app adverts a huge turn-off – more annoying than buffering times – so be sure to avoid this. Push notifications also may be more irritating than useful, as the same study identified that 28% of young people always turn off push notifications and another 60% do so when they feel that notifications are excessive. Lastly, young people demonstrated a big resistance to paid apps; three in four are reluctant to spend money to download apps.
Mobile Shopping
Ensure your website is responsive and works on all devices, whether it runs on iOS or android, smartphone or tablet. Convenience is key to mobile shopping for young people. Mobile payments should function smoothly, as, according to Voxburner, 30% of UK youth planned to increase spending on digital content earlier this year. Although 39% of 18-24 year olds regularly shop online, almost a third of shoppers will quit at the checkout if their preferred payment methods are not offered – credit and debit card remain the most popular payment methods. Other top reasons for abandoning the purchase were technological malfunctions and being asked to register before checking out. While 68% of Britain’s 16-24s are far less concerned with sharing private data online, this can still stand as a barrier to purchase. Search filters should be used when laying out many products to ensure speedy browsing, maximising the overall satisfaction of your audience.
Mobileoptimised Websites
Ideal but not crucial. Only 53 out of the 100 top youth brands have optimised sites for the mobile user. While this number increases to nine out of ten among the top ten brands (including Youtube, Google, BBC, Wikipedia, and Amazon), these companies are mostly online-based businesses. Developing mobile optimised sites is not only about making them responsive to a smaller screen, but also how slick the user experience is, providing quick and easy navigation. Most crucial is functionality, as over half of mobile users will move on to a different website if it takes more than three seconds to load. Less content and fewer elaborate design elements can reduce load time, while key features sought by mobile users must be easy to locate. Unpleasant mobile experiences can damage brand perception, with most customers unlikely to return.
QR codes
Perhaps not. QR codes are meant to conveniently save the effort of manually typing a URL, but a Voxburner study has identified that 61% of 16-24s are aware of QR codes but are unlikely to use them. There are several reasons why QR codes are unappealing to the youth market. Firstly, users are reluctant when they don’t know where the code will take them; sure, QR codes save the effort of manually typing a long URL, but with URLs there is less room for security risks. Secondly, the process of pulling out their phone, loading the scanner app, then scanning the code seems a tad too long. QR codes can still be successful for coupons and vouchers, when your user is already engaged with the information and therefore willing to put in the effort. Otherwise, all the effort to open a website that offers no reward becomes simply a disappointment.
Handy apps and efficient mobile checkouts are the two top must-have tools to capture students’ attention. When marketing via mobile to students, the key points to adhere to are efficiency and relevance. As long as clear and beneficial messages are provided through the right channels with clear and direct benefits, students are more likely to stay actively engaged.
Linda, UCL (author)
BAM becomes CLV’s advertising agent
We are proud to announce that BAM Student Marketing have acquired rare Exclusive Partnership opportunities with student accommodation provider, Campus Living Villages, providing brands with the unique chance to exclusively connect with over 8,670 students across the UK and over 35,000 Worldwide.
Campus Living Villages (CLV), is a fast growing student accommodation provider who owns, manages or is developing over 35,000 beds across Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the UK, their growing portfolio features over 8,670 beds and includes 14 sites across the country with the biggest sites at the University of Bedfordshire (2,012 beds) and the University of Salford (2,458 beds).
Through our new Exclusive Partnership, brands will not only have access to market to students within their University halls of residence but also through packages where brands can exclusively market their product and services, excluding all direct competitors, to CLV’s growing student accommodation portfolio.
Right through the academic year there are some exceptional opportunities for brands to place their product directly into the hands of CLV’s residents. Unlike other opportunities and sites, CLV are where students reside, so brands can be even more certain to catch them.
In addition to the media exclusivity, brands will benefit from having their own bespoke media package created for them to communicate with the students within CLV.
For more information about advertising through CLV’s media options, to become an Exclusive Partner with CLV or the benefits and opportunities to advertising to students directly through their halls of residence, contact us today!
BAM wins UK’s student shopping events
Student marketing agency, BAM, are working with commercial property giants, Land Securities, to offer brands a platform to connect with more than 70,000 students.
The new partnership will give retailers the opportunity to target students across the UK through a series of student night shopping events at six of the most popular shopping centres including: St David’s (Cardiff), Trinity Leeds (Leeds), The Galleria (Hatfield), Gunwharf Quays (Portsmouth), Bluewater (Kent) and Buchanan Galleries (Glasgow).
Retailers will have the chance to get up close with students thanks to Land Securities’ strong relationship with the venues. Brands wishing to take advantage of these high student numbered events can find out more information, by downloading our Student Shopping Events Media Pack.
Tim Bodenham, Managing Director at BAM, says: “Previous events have seen in excess of 25,000 students attend St David’s shopping centre in just four hours, so we identified straight away that there is a fantastic opportunity to get retailers working with students.
“We are looking forward to working with Land Securities, bringing our knowledge of the student market to further develop an already established platform of student events at some of the UK’s leading shopping centres.’
BAM has a proven track record of forging lasting relationships with Students’ Unions and universities, and has gained 17 years worth of unique insight into the student market.
To find out more about the opportunities these events brings to student focused brands, please download our Student Shopping Events Media Pack.
BAM wins UK’s student shopping events