Use of Student Plants to Pitch Products Rising 274
theodp wrote to mention a Seattle PI article about software and niche companies using college-age hucksters to get the word about their product out. From the article: "Microsoft is among a growing number of companies seeking to reach the elusive but critical college market by hiring students to be ambassadors -- or, in more traditional terms, door-to-door salesmen. In an age when the college demographic is no longer easily reached by television, radio or newspapers -- as TiVo, satellite radio, iPods and the Internet crowd out the traditional advertising venues -- a microindustry of campus marketing has emerged. Niche firms have sprung up to act as recruiters of students, who then market products on campus for companies such as Microsoft, JetBlue Airways, The Cartoon Network and Victoria's Secret."
I have an idea to appeal to college students (Score:5, Informative)
Been happening for a while (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Apple Campus Reps (Score:1, Informative)
Make your stuff cheaper? (Score:5, Informative)
to sell, or contract to sell, goods at unreasonably low prices for the purpose of destroying competition or eliminating a competitor.
Re:Already a term.. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Apple Campus Reps (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I do more now too. Demo table events, talking to faculty.. some of the best stuff comes from this. You never realize how much a college has to offer until you've talked to everyone.
My personal feeling is, while you could turn it into a salesman position. I think such jobs are best served by NOT being a sales drone. Listen and connect, if you have something that will help him the sale almost makes itself after that.
Buzz (Score:5, Informative)
The reporters were surprised at how enthusiastic people were about doing unpaid work on behalf of these companies. Though Bzz offered a reward program, not many people cash in on it. The reporters came up with quite a few (mostly complementary) explanations. First, Bzz claimed that it only marketed 20% of the products that came to them, leaving the impression that their agents were only being asked to pimp the really good stuff. Then you have that eternal desire to be "in the know", to suggest a product or a restaurant to your friends and having the suggestion stick (see Linux advocacy). Finally, it seems that if you ask people to choose among basically equivalent items, when one of those items is somehow "theirs", they tend to value that item more highly. So just by giving agents a sample of the product, the marketing company can create a positive impression.
Officially, Bzz doesn't require its unpaid agents to spin the product in a positive light. All they ask is that people talk about the product. This helps sell people on the idea of being advertisers, since they're just being asked to talk about their opinions, rather than slavishly following the party line.
I think this is a small step up from some forms of astroturfing (for example, hiring beautiful women to go to bars and order Drink X), but not a big one. The worst part about these techniques is that they constitute an abuse of trust. Such activities allow a big corporation to sneak their "message" into what people assume to be a candid exchange of information. Whether the messengers are being paid in dollars, "points", sexual favors, or pats on the back isn't terribly relevant to me. The issue is that one party to the conversation has a hidden agenda that the other party isn't going to be on the lookout for.
Look at it this way: the marketers advertised so incessantly at us that we mostly tuned them out. We turned instead to the people around us for information. Now the evil bastards want to exploit the one remaining source of "unbiased" information. I mean, sure we're all biased, but the point is, we're plugging for our own biases, not those of the product manufacturer. They've finally found ways to exploit our trust in each other for personal profit, and they give fuck all if they're damaging that trust as they do so. Fight this.
The activities in the article are shameless in their own ways, but at least the targets have a better chance of discerning that the people plugging the product are paid product pluggers.
Re:Microsoft needs work, but Adobe needs a miracle (Score:2, Informative)
Why can't they just make a quality product? (Score:2, Informative)
Since this is the
Oh wait, replace "Microsoft" with "Google", and that's what I meant to post...
http://www.google.com/jobs/studentsg.html [google.com]
(Not exactly the same, I know...but in college, free pizza wins loyalty)
Re:Apple Campus Reps (Score:3, Informative)
I did this for Orange (Score:3, Informative)
The ambassadors would make a couple of bucks (I can't remember how much, I'm thinking 20PLN) for each contract they got and were able to give their clients deals they wouldn't get at the salon. There were clearly a couple of stars, people who would get 30-50 contracts/month, while a lot of them worked just enough to pay for their own cell phone usage.
At the end of the program, a lot of the stars were offered steady work - why would we want to get rid of a good salesperson?
Re:Why can't they just make a quality product? (Score:1, Informative)
One Note, Part of a $500,000 Download at LSU. (Score:3, Informative)
Part Two of the program is a $500,0000 per year site license, as noted here [brlug.net], which brings the Microsoft Tax to everyone on campus. This is a program that eats up 1/8 of the $150/year student tech fee for the ability to download the most basic of software, productivity software, email client and this goofey one note. Someone on the thread does the math and estimates Microsoft will pocket about $300 per software set they distribute, which is well above the usual Dell rip-off. Of course, it is much much more than a download of Mepis, which has more and better applications.
In typical Microsoft style, they are touting the rip-off as "free software". They spammed every student on campus with an email that mentioned a commitment but no costs and had the nerve to stand in the middle of free speech alley and proclaim "free" downloads. What a turn off.
Surprisingly, it has not worked very well. People are outraged when they learn the cost. Few people want to risk their only working computer to "upgrade" software they already own, as free software advocates can tell you. Most people walked by the barkers at free speech alley and could care less. Did they really think people care about Outlook? I was one of the few people who bothered to talk to them and I agree with the BRLUG poster above, the reps were poorly trained and did not know their product. Spam backfires. Most people are going to look at the Microsoft dream play, where a fellow student tries to hawk a program, as weird and disturbing.
Re:If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:3, Informative)