• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, May 26, 2011

Tapping into the social-buying craze, Textbook rental powerhouse Chegg is launching its own daily deals program for brands seeking to target the elusive college crowd. The forthcoming deals offering is part of a broader "branded partnership" initiative that includes marketers such as Capital One, Dr. Pepper, MTV and Microsoft.

Leading that effort will be Elizabeth Harz, Chegg's newly hired head of business development, previously senior vice president of Global Media Sales at Electronic Arts. Her background also includes sales management positions at Yahoo, CNet and ZDNet.

Harz would not discuss details of the daily deals program, which will not kick off until August. But she said it would include both local and national offers and would incorporate the group-buying model popularized by Groupon, where discounts are provided on the condition that a minimum number of buyers participate. It will rely on the Web, email and mobile to distribute offers.

According to her, the step was prompted by feedback from college students looking for a deals program more tailored to their age group. "This is an under-served part of the market, and college students are certainly into getting deals," said Harz. Overseeing the push into daily deals is only part of her wider responsibility of building up Chegg's advertising and marketing revenues.

Beyond its core online textbook rental business, the company also operates a course-selection service and a site providing tutoring and test prep help. With an IPO rumored to be in the offing, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Chegg is looking to connect marketers with the 15 million students it reaches across its services.

"Chegg has a very unique relationship here because it was built by and for college students, and we will work with brands to expose them to students in a very useful way," said Harz.

To date, early marketing efforts have included teaming with Dr Pepper last year to sponsor a contest to redesign the box Chegg books are shipped, in using colors and graphics tied to the beverage brand. The winning design was featured on 100,000 boxes sent out last fall.

Chegg also works with Live Nation on the "Textbooks & Tickets Tour," offering free concert tickets to students. Now it is partnering with another company to sponsor free shipping of books for a portion of customers as part of an upcoming promotion.

"All of these partnerships will have a social aspect because of the way this demographic leads their lives," said Harz. In the daily deals space, of course, Chegg will be competing with another company founded by and for college students: Facebook. The social-networking giant last month launched its own deals program, with offers geared to events and social activities more than products.

Even so, with its existing on-campus user base and more than $200 million in funding from investors, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Chegg is well positioned to carve its own niche in the daily deals market.