In School Marketing Reaching Kids With Education-Enhanced Advertising

Selling to Kids, Oct 28, 1998

Marketing executives must understand the needs of educational systems when looking to advertise in schools. It's one place advertisers are restricted and subtlety and creativity are key.

"We find advertisers should look at school systems as a way to enhance core educational values rather than sell the kids something," says J.W. Messner, Inc. PR Director Rick Kamel. School systems are more accepting of "non traditional marketing ideas if" advertisers approach them in that manner, he says. Relevance to Education

"It's not just in-your-face marketing. A program will not just benefit our clients, but is beneficial to the schools and school districts they work with," says Kaleidoscope Marketing Group managing director, Mindelle Rosenberg. "It is important that we maintain a high level of educational and motivational content in what we market."

Kaleidoscope has developed unique relationships with school superintendents in 2,500 school districts. The Charleston, S.C.-based in-school promotions company specializes in tailoring campaigns for brands and reaches 20 million kids and teens.

If the brand has no place in schools, like chewing gum, Kaleidoscope helps make it relevant. The company recently created a durable homework folder for elementary schools it designed with a chewing gum brand. Kaleidoscope, which has the resources to refine its campaigns to target a specific demographic (ethnic group, geographic area, gender and community income level), uses the following tools for its in-school marketing campaigns:

* Book covers with a motivational message linked to the brand strategy/image (endangered species update/safe for the environment hygiene products);

* Premiums (school supplies, pencils and rulers with a corporate logo, flying discs in physical education classes);

* Post-campaign research for brand awareness and response;

* Product samplings used as rewards, incentives or teaching tools (low fat granola bars at lunch, Gatorade in gym class, Lever 2000 soap and sponge in health class. It is also used for new product launches like V8 Splash, where the drink was featured on the cafeteria menu at elementary, middle and high schools on the West Coast. It was provided free to all students on a particular day); and

* Curriculum-based programs developed with the director of curriculum to ensure relevance to kids. (Lever 2000 provided a health related workbook, sample of soap, bath bag, sponge, and certificate upon completion of the workbook to 3 million kids across the country this year. Teachers received a classroom guide and poster.) Effective Marketing

Kamel said he's found that "40 percent of advertising programs that now exist in schools aren't as effective as the money the advertisers are paying. It's pretty obvious that the whole trend in tennis shoe sponsorship is becoming saturated to a point where the impact is diminished."

The biggest hurdle that advertisers face is "that there is no set universal standard for school systems regarding advertising in the nation," Advertisers are therefore forced to customize programs, like Kaleidoscopes, for each district, "a very cumbersome task," says Kamel, who recently launched a seminar, Advertising and Education: Tapping the New Market Matrix, for Messner, a nationwide advertising marketing and public relations firm headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich. The Programs

Some of the school marketing programs Kamel has helped devise include:

* Billboard ads on the outside and inside of school busses;

* Hallway dioramas;

* Advertising-supported report cards where advertisers pay for printing and mailing of the cards and include a food coupon with a grade stipulation. Grades are tracked by a student's number. Grade improvements could double the value of the coupon;

* Newspaper sponsored newsletters where a local newspaper sells school-approved advertisements for newsletter and prints it in one of the newspaper's sections; and

* Functioning marketing department for a school system. (Mindelle Rosenberg, Kaleidoscope Marketing Group, 843/853-9700; Rick Kamel, J.W. Messner, Inc., 800/748-0319) What Schools Need

School systems have five basic needs, says J.W. Messner PR director Rick Kamel, who recently launched a seminar, Advertising and Education: Tapping the New Market Matrix, for Messner, a nationwide advertising marketing and public relations firm headquartered in Grand Rapids, Mich.

* Revenue

* Favorable public opinion

* Credibility with advertisers through successful programs ("Just because you have 30,000 kids, advertisers are not going to want to bang on your door," says Kamel.")

* Program for marketers

* Big picture view

Source: Rick Kamel, J.W. Messner