• by Larry Dobrow , Featured Columnist, July 20, 2006

Back-to-school efforts target kids, parents--or both

If you're reading this story to get tips for an online back-to-school campaign--well, you're kinda out of luck. Even as recently as two or three years ago, marketers generally stuck to the offline world's established back-to-school schedule. They'd start planning their ad and media blasts in July, and then go live right around Aug. 1, at almost the precise moment retailers started to bombard consumers with Sunday newspaper shopping supplements, not to mention TV and radio spots. The end result? Lots of static, lots of ad-weary parents, and lots of last-minute trips to the local mall.

In 2004, however, online marketers dispensed with the conventions of years past. Figuring that it can never be too early to plant the seed of an idea in consumers' minds, companies like Target accelerated the schedule and started their campaigns as early as mid-July. This year, Target went live with its "Parents Survival Guide" for back-to-school in mid-June--or, for those keeping track at home, before the previous school year concluded in many areas of the U.S.

AT&T adopted a similar approach, crafting online pitches targeting college students before they even returned home for the summer. The company devoted substantial resources to hyping its high-speed Internet products--targeting students moving from on-campus housing, where Web access is usually provided by the university, to off-campus apartments. While the success of such efforts won't be fully known until September at the earliest, companies have started to believe inaction poses more of a risk than premature action.

"You might think you're jumping the gun based on what [the timing] was like when you were a kid, but back-to-school generally starts on July 1. If you're not there and ready to go, you're going to miss out," warns Evan Slater, director of trends and intelligence at WestWayne, an Atlanta-based ad shop.

Timing issues aside, it has become borderline impossible to sketch out a comprehensive how-to guide for online back-to-school efforts. For one thing, the actual users of the products range from kindergarteners to college students, and even the most inept marketer wouldn't recommend a one-size-fits-all approach.

Also, marketers still aren't entirely sure whether to orient their pitches toward students or their parents, or some combination of the two. The answer to this question largely depends on the size of the company's online media budget: Those with the cash to do both generally do. But if the dollars are short, Mom generally wins out. "You go after the one with the credit card," quips Judy Bitterli, co-chief executive officer of Direct Impact.

Paul Pennelli, director of Web products for college-age specialists Y2M: Youth and Marketing Networks, agrees--to an extent. "You've got to have a message that resonates with parents," he notes. "But remember that students are always going to find creative ways to exert influence over the process, especially when they're staying at home." According to y2m's "2006 Matriculation Survey," 43 percent of students claim they are solely in charge of back-to-school shopping.

Tonally, back-to-school campaigns tend to veer into warm-and-fuzzy territory, usually at the expense of promotional hyperbole. "You're dealing with a customer during a relatively stressful and emotional period. You're dealing with somebody's baby," says Slater. "It's not a time when you need to confuse him or her and complicate things with huge messages. Just be there for the consumer and offer whatever guidance you can." The best online campaigns, then, are often the ones that attempt to forge a genuine emotional connection, or empathize with the situation a parent might be going through (say, a child going away to college for the first time).

Pitches aimed at parents must also highlight the durability and value of the particular item and, whenever possible, how it might facilitate the learning process (no, online sneaker merchants won't find that last tip particularly useful). For pitches aimed at kids, however, marketers should emphasize the "cool" features, especially anything that facilitates social networking or gaming.

Which raises another concern: that back-to-school product categories don't lend themselves to easy generalizations. Among the usual suspects--laptop computers, consumer-electronics gadgets (portable music devices in particular), school supplies, and apparel--there exist significant disparities in price and purchasing habits. Parents and guardians generally want their charges to try on a new pair of pants; iPods require no such fitting session.

Still, even with the increasing sophistication of most online back-to-school efforts, pundits point to a glut of missed opportunities. In their attempts to outwit the next guy, marketers occasionally forget about the great equalizer: price. Take online sellers of school supplies, who often assume that gouge-happy campus bookstores are their main competition for students' dollars. "That might be true for small residential colleges in New England. But for the average student at a commuter school or in a community program, price is a big issue for them," Pennelli says. "If you're in the school-supplies space, you can distinguish yourself on price."

And if you really want to send Web marketing wonks into a tizzy, ask them whether companies are taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by their massive reservoirs of customer data.

"Companies who do sales online have information about hundreds of thousands of people who are ready to make a purchase," says Janet Megdadi, director of retail development at content syndicator WebCollage. "When they do their online research, they're close to making a purchase. It's not like they're just sitting there watching a TV ad. I have no idea why companies aren't doing more to specifically target those people by using the information they already have."

Adds Bitterli, "Marketers who get it are the ones who understand the world of direct marketing. If you come from print or TV, you're not used to dealing with customers on a one-to-one basis, which hurts you on the Web."

Along those lines, Martin Anderson, general manager of comparison-shopping upstart Price-Runner, believes many marketers are only now on the cusp of exploring technologies that could goose their back-to-school efforts. "There hasn't been targeted keyword buying during back-to-school season like there's been during Christmas shopping season, but some of the companies we work with are trying it this year," he says. "And how about back-to-school-related content through RSS feeds? What we see this year is going to be a whole lot different than what we see next year."