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."
As Einstein once said... (Score:4, Insightful)
If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:3, Insightful)
See, most kids these days aren't really interested in voting, in part because they don't really see how it might benefit them, and because many of them are more or less disillusioned with government in general.
On the other hand, how could you NOT be interested in Vicky's Secrets? There are obvious benefits
Re:If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I know that voting is the method to change those two things, but a lot of people see it as an 8000lbs gorilla that can and will do whatever the heck it wants.
Reminds me of the old (reputably true) MLM joke... (Score:4, Insightful)
His answer: "All my friends".
"Push marketing" types, also known as salesmen, keep trying to push crap products onto people. But generally, good products sell themselves.
I've seen them (Score:3, Insightful)
They also wrote a URL for how to download a free trial in sidewalk chalk all over campus, which is technically regarded as graffiti and as such is against campus rules. Fortunately a combination of UPD and the outer bands of Tropical Storm Tammy took care of that. I haven't seen them since.
Already a term.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I have an idea to appeal to college students (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft needs work, but Adobe needs a miracle (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd love to see *ADOBE* really cut their prices for students... God forbid an graphic design student actually want to buy a copy of Photoshop...
Everybody Wins (Score:1, Insightful)
Student Salesman: Gets money
College Students: learn more about products, get discouts thanks to their friends being reps.
Companies: More sales.
My high school had this around prom time... 10% off your tux rental for each refereal... refer 10 and its free.
Re:Already a term.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My grandpa used to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumer based economies rely that most of the money that people earn will be spent, thus keeping allowing more things to be produced, employing more people and round and round we go. Of course, the government takes a chunk of every dollar when its earned and then again when its spent. Its fun to watch how much of a dollar goes to the goverment once its been spent and earned a couple of times.
Times have changed since your Granpa's day. Globalisation means that this cycle is undergoing a readjustment.
Take Wal*Mart for example. Everybody wants goods at the cheapest price, but locals want living wages. The net effect is that manufacturing is moved off-shore to produce cheaper goods that local people can buy, but as they is now less money in the local economy, there are few jobs, meaning on average have less money to spend, meaning they want even cheaper goods. There are some economists who predict that Wal*Mart will cause the biggest change in US standards of living in the history of the country.
The trick is, of course, that we are simply shifting to a new equilibrium. If nobody has money to buy goods, Wal*Mart will suffer, so they won't let its prices drop too far. Eventually prices will stabilize to a level where local people and local industry will live in harmony with outsourcing to cheaper countries. Notably, these cheaper countries will slowly become less cheaper. Outsourced and Local wages will eventually meet in the middle (in some industries, they already have).
I know many of us have been bitten by out-sourcing to India, but we (as a society) have shown time and again that, despite all the lip-service, saving that few dollars on the cost of weekly tinned food bill is more important that local jobs.
You can't have the benefits of globalisation without the downsides - its part and parcel of the same model.
Re:Make your stuff cheaper? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think there's a difference between "unreasonably low prices" and "prices students can afford".
Clearly, if they have to be that low for students to buy the stuff, there's a reason for lowering prices. Unless they're making a huge loss on every sale.
How many CRs here on Slashdot?. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's too big a forum for marketers to ignore completely, so there'd have to be a few either monitoring or contributing. Any brave enough to come out of the closet and tell us about it?
Re:My grandpa used to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
What's actually made in the USA these days? We've essentially fulfilled THAT particular Snow Crash prophecy.
Of course, we haven't been split into a mass of corporate-owned fiefdoms yet, but that's mostly probably because none of the corporations want to limit their "markets."
*Taken as an umbrella metaphor for "service-based" industries like landsharks^Wlawyers and conslutants rather than "production-based" such as manufacturing.
Re:I have an idea to appeal to college students (Score:2, Insightful)
At Umich, XP costs $14.15 and Office costs $42.45. The copy you get claims that you can only install it twice, but I've been using the same copy of XP through several reformats as well as a total of 3 computers. Once it called my bluff, but a simple call to support and an explanation that I was reformatting got me a new serial which hasn't brought up a single problem since.
Re:This is the Victoria's Secret thread (Score:1, Insightful)
Doh!
Parent comment is wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exaggerated pricing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Already a term.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is called Astroturf.
Actually, there's a much older term: "shill".
Re:If this actually worked, then kids would vote (Score:2, Insightful)