Gone are the days when students briefly visited the cafeteria for coffee and a pie before hurrying off to the next lecture with a pencil and notebook. Campuses have turned into viable commercial centres, and students have turned into technological whiz kids with probably more time and access to the internet than any other group in our society, completely changing the student media landscape.
“The student market is quite a busy space,” says Natalie Dixon, associate publisher and editor of SL Magazine. “Campuses have become a pretty commercial and competitive space. Students are savvy to marketing and marketers need to be very strategic in how they appeal to students.”
This is a lucrative but competitive market. Any media aimed specifically at targeting students, such as SL Magazine, also competes with general magazines such as GLAMOUR SA, Cosmopolitan or FHM, says Dixon, whose magazine’s circulation is about 20,000.
“You are also competing with airtime and Coca-Cola,” she adds.
And brands like these are visible everywhere on campus. Primedia’s Campus Media owns outdoor mediums on 30 campuses countrywide and reaches some 400,000 students.
“It’s not like in the old days,” says Campus Media marketing director Chris Day.
“Cafeterias are now literally like shopping centres and they are growing in size. It has become the commercial sector of campus and is no longer confined to indoors. It is now outdoor, campus radio, interactive campus promotions.”
One of Campus Media’s biggest clients is First National Bank which markets its “lifestart” product to students as part of its strategy to build future loyal banking clients.
Campus Media is launching a digital campus television channel in February in a project worth R15-million.
“We have created a network of outdoor screens, ranging from four square metres to 11 square metres in size. They will be placed in the commercial sector, backed up by screens indoors,” says Day.
In total, there will be 250 screens on 22 sites. It will broadcast adverts in between campus news such as Student Representative Council election campaigns, sport news and local gig guides while also allowing the local film production departments to flight their content.
“Many students have no houses and no cars to pay off and a lot of disposable income,” says Day.
But then there are also cash-strapped students, especially those who pay for their own studies, Dixon points out.
“Students are not one neutral mass,” she says. “Students are fickle and it’s a very fickle and difficult market to reach.”
One trend that certainly cannot be ignored is students’ net savvy.
Student Village started a website for students in 2001 which currently boasts more than a 100,000 registered users, attracts about 70,000 unique users per month and records about 1.5-million page impressions per month.
“Our website, studentvillage.co.za, is more along the seam of social networking,” says Student Village managing director Ronen Aires.
It contains celebrity news, fashion, music, advice columns, part-time work opportunities and on-campus pictures.
“This is a buzzing community where students go and make friends. It’s not just an information site and that’s why we are leading a trend that is happening overseas.
“In our market, students have internet access for free. They are internet-wise on campus and there are hundreds of computers available,” Aires adds.
Student Village also owns Graffiti Student Media which offers vehicle branding and mobile media offerings including branded tables in student centres and illuminated notice boards.
On the print side, Student Village publishes an annual graduate career guide called GRADX for final year students and an annual magazine, Future Leader, preparing matrics for their tertiary studies. It also has an online graduate career and lifestyle guide at www.gradx.net where students can apply for jobs and interact with companies mentioned in the magazine.
Beeld, Financial Mail and Mail & Guardian all recently entered this market in the hope of building loyal readers for the future.
While Financial Mail has a campus supplement that is distributed with the magazine to subscribers 30 weeks a year during terms, Beeld produces Kampus Beeld once a week at the University of Pretoria, the University of Johannesburg and NorthWest University.
“We were not catering for that market,” says Beeld marketing and communications manager Gavin Rheeder. “After launching our Jip supplement for teenagers, we realised we needed to enter the student market.”
Some 40,000 copies of Kampus Beeld are distributed for free as a four-page wrap-around cover with Beeld newspaper.
“We wanted to lure young readers to our newspaper and we wanted to attract new readers every week,” says Rheeder, whose Kampus Beeld started three years ago.
Financial Mail‘s FM Campus is a publication for students and lecturers and talks about business and current events in an academic context. It profiles graduates in their new jobs and student entrepreneurs, and explains the ins and outs of big companies to students.v
“It’s an investment for the future. We believe there would come a time in the future when we would be making money,” says FM Campus editor Alita Byrd whose publication has some 5,000 subscribers on campuses countrywide.
“The FM was looking for ways to reach out to younger people and ways to introduce students to business and increase their financial literacy. There are smart graduates coming out of university but they don’t really have real-world smarts.”
But she says it is a complex market to reach.
“Students do not necessarily have deep pockets and there are also distribution challenges because students move all the time.”
M&G Media Limited, the owners of the weekly Mail & Guardian, recently acquired Campus Times, launched in 2004 as a free quarterly publication with a circulation of 10,000.
A new monthly version of Campus Times, containing news and entertainment for students, launched in November with an initial print run of 100,000 per month and an estimated readership of 200,000.
“The tertiary student market is the most under-serviced sector by the media in South Africa,” publisher Tracy Steward said when the acquisition was announced.
“Tertiary students are a brand-conscious generation, with the majority having disposable income to spend on goods and services. With all these advantages, Campus Times provides the perfect medium for companies to tap into the energy, vibrancy and economic potential of this student sector.”