Back-to-School Marketing 101

Brandweek, July 26, 1999 by T.L. Stanley, Stephanie Thompson

It's a key selling season, a time when, without question, retail rules. As often as not, marketers turn to entertainment partners as a way to stand out in jam-packed malls and grocery stores. But the back-to-school period holds some special challenges, particularly of timing, that marketers ranging from Tiger Electronics to Smucker's to Skechers have had to find creative ways of addressing.

Hasbro's Tiger Electronics launched two consecutive back-to-school promotions with partner Nabisco, in '97 and '98, as part of an overall strategic alliance between the two companies. The programs, dubbed "Cool School Bus," centered around a sweepstakes that gave kids a busload of Nabisco products and Tiger toys. Last year's promotion ramped up to give the prize package, including the wildly popular Furby, to one kid in each of the 50 states. It spanned more than a dozen Nabisco cookie and cracker SKUs.

Linking with packaged goods companies has a tremendous upside, said Marc Rosenberg, Tiger's vp-promotions, because a property will get exposure on millions of packages in grocery stores and a heavy media spend from the partner. But there is a downside.

"There's a phenomenal amount of clutter during that period," Rosenberg said. "It's very tough to stand out."

Perhaps more of an obstacle is the timing. Back to school for packaged goods now means July and August. For a toy company, whose most important sales period is the fourth quarter, that can be problematic.

"It's tough for us to sink major money into a promotion if you can't see some measurable results at holiday," Rosenberg said. "And if you let the promotion go for four months, it just gets stale."

That's where the partners have to be creative, building a relationship in which the promo works for both. Tiger and Nabisco accomplished that by kicking off the program in late summer, but deferring the payoff until late fall, to generate buzz for holiday shopping. "It's a give and take," Rosenberg said. "Sometimes that means you do something that's an investment in the relationship."

Tiger approached the promotion this way: it jumped in full-force, knowing it could get a boost during the normally sluggish late-summer period, and tried to fashion a promo creatively so that it would build awareness in the fourth quarter and, at the same time, give Nabisco an extra bump at the end of the year, not usually the company's high-volume period. "Creativity has to drive it," Rosenberg said, "and it has to be something that wows kids."

Scholastic Entertainment execs faced a semi-dilemma when they were approached about The Magic School Bus by Campbell's and Smucker's. The partners both wanted the perennial preschool favorite for the back-to-school period. To add to that, longtime partners Howard Johnson and Colgate-Palmolive already had re-upped for a third year of sponsorship, with promotional activity that likely would overlap.

"Because the property is edutainment, it does lend itself to promotions around back to school," said Leslye Schaefer, Scholastic's svp-marketing and consumer products. "But I would just as soon spread them out."

Execs did ask Smucker's if another time period would work. When they learned the marketer had its sights set on late summer, they helped craft two separate promotions, one around home videos, and the other, for Campbell's, around The Magic School Bus rain forest field trip activity kit.

"We have to make sure the promotions are distinct enough so that consumers and the retailers feel like there's added value," Schaefer said. If many licensors had their druthers, they would prefer to link with packaged goods and other partners during other periods.

"I think it makes sense to invent something particular to a retailer or chain, and give them their own hook," Schaefer said, "as opposed to fighting in a very crowded promotional window."

When trendy teen shoe brand Skechers structured a BTS promotion this year, which features among other things a tie-in with Motorola for a free Skechers and Journeys national shoe chain-branded pager with purchase, execs were faced with a number of hurdles. First was deciding on a run date, a decision complicated by the varying start dates of schools in different regions of the country as well as among Skechers' various targets, which include junior high, high school and college students. "Keep in Touch with Skechers," after all, was intended to be a national program aimed at the 15-24 crowd.

"We had to find a way to put run dates on the POP materials because if kids putting up the materials at retail didn't know when it started or when it ended they might not put it up at all," said Melisa Wolfson, president of The Creative Couch, Santa Monica, Calif., which specializes in teens.

The second challenge was determining how to break through to their mostly teen target during the cluttered BTS period. Skechers came up with a dual solution: With a start date of July 15 and an end date of Aug. 5, technically considered early for a BTS effort, the promotion would reach its target before they needed the hip shoes for the first day of school and, ideally, Skechers' offer would precede those from its competitors.