By Caitlyn Crenshaw–

When Krissy Vickers “saw a girl [on campus] with a Pink bag,” she found it was Victoria’s Secret promotional shopping day in the SAC.

Vickers, a freshmen psychology major, said that she is planning to go the Victoria’s Secret store in the mall soon, “because I got the free stuff and the gift card.”

Victoria’s Secret intentionally developed their brand loyalty through the campus shopping day, Vickers said. “With all the deals it makes it look better, but you’re still spending so much.”

But Victoria’s Secret isn’t the only company looking to college campuses as a potential customer base.

“We live on-campus,” declares Youth Marketing Connection, an advertising firm specializing in targeting youth and college students, on their website to prospective clients. Corporate commercialism, whether or not officially endorsed by universities, has integrated into the lives of college students – not only as consumers, but as employees.

According to the New York Times, “this fall, an estimated 10,000 American college students will be working on hundreds of campuses.”

They will be working for major corporations as student brand representatives, endorsing the newest products by wearing a logo-embellished T-shirt, drinking a specific energy drink or having the a certain company’s latest smartphone.

Although this gig comes with many perks for the students, who receive a salary and freebies to endorse the latest products to their peers, the unofficial advertising of corporations not endorsed by the university has the potential to affect the official sponsorships and contracts of the university. Elizabeth Stultz, a senior psychology major at the University of Louisville, said “in a way, their advertising could take away from the official campus things.”

However, Mark Hebert, director of media relations for the university, said “because we haven’t received any complaints or anything from Chik-fil-A or Wendy’s or such, there is no real problem.”

Frank Austin, a senior Spanish major, commented that advertising on campus is “an effective method.”

Saying it is effective may be an understatement.

According to Re:Fuel, a media and promotions firm that specializes in marketing to youth, “college students spent about $36 billion on things such as clothing, computers and cell phones during the 2010-2011 school year alone.”

Austin explained the intangible lure to buy the products these companies promote is likely related to peer pressure.

When you see someone else around campus with a particular cell phone or energy drink or brand of jeans, you think, “other people are doing it, it must be the thing that goes on around here and it’s normal,” Austin said.

Mark Highbaugh with Marlimar Interactive said of the patent pending My University Mobile program that is currently launching on U of L’s campus, “retailers love this program because it delivers the offer to the hand of the student, literally through your mobile device. That’s the way that students want to communicate.”

The program, which signed an official contract with the university in late summer “is totally permission-based. Students and employees who choose to can redeem it, or not redeem it,” according to Highbaugh.

My University Mobile puts commercialism into the lifeline or mobile device of college students.

This program, Highbaugh said, “is like gold to retailers because they can reach new people that may not have ever even heard of their store before.

However, similar to the unofficial commercialism around campus “the most important motivator for retailers is an opportunity to develop a growing loyalty, fan base, customers who will come back in.”

Some students object to being bombarded with corporate endorsements as they walk through the sidewalks to class. Austin objects to their advertisements because “Right now, it’s just Red Bull, but you never know. A cigarette company may try it, too.”

Some of campus’ commercialism has its advantages. For example, the My University Mobile program, according to Highbaugh “shares revenue with the university and the university gives that money to student services, and the SGA gets a small portion.”

Hebert said “the university can’t control advertising that isn’t linked to the university through sponsorships or requests. If a company hires students to walk around with t-shirts on that advertise their product, there’s little we can do about that.”

Unofficial commercialism on campuses by large corporations is fueled “just because they have the money or the power or the resources to market whenever or wherever,” said Stultz.

“However, there are guidelines for the types of businesses that we allow to do direct marketing on campus,” said Hebert.

There may be guidelines for direct marketing, but there are no guidelines against a student, working as a brand representative, showing off his or her new laptop to their friends, classmates or Greek brothers or sisters.

Stultz justified corporate marketing focused on college students by saying that “they’re just drumming up business for their product.” Not only are they drumming up business for students’ four years of college, but they are establishing consumers with brand loyalty, who have much more of life ahead of them and many more grocery trips to go.”

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Photo: Nathan Gardener/The Louisville Cardinal