Jack Wallington shares his tips and insights on gaining loyalty from a youth audience along with a look to the future at The Brand Engagement & Innovation Theatre at Marketing Week Live 2015.

2. Youth forms the single most switched on, focused, smart and widely passionate audience with its
own cares and issues. Young people do have money to burn, but they are highly selective when
deciding where to burn it.
Jack Wallington, Director of Community, shared tips and insights from recent
successful campaigns at The Brand Engagement & Innovation Theatre at
Marketing Week Live in April 2015.

3. We all have a stream of engagement:
If you tune into a young persons stream, you can…
• – Target relevant banner ads.
• - Inform with research, ask questions and collect data.
• – This is hard and involves insight, PR, viral, emotional
entertainment or long term social content.
• – Join in the social conversations and add useful content.
• – Help them swim faster and better.
Or get it wrong and wee in it – we don’t have a cat photo for that!

4. Being a youngster is one of the craziest times of
anyone's life.
No one has a spare minute anymore. We have to earn
their attention.
Young people are always changing. Our brains are still
developing until the age of 24, if not later into our
twenties. We are learning every day, and with that,
opinions change in a blink of an eye.
The only way to stay on top of the ever-changing options
is to really listen, and listen often.
Food, lectures, revision on laptops, using
mobiles, and socialising. BUSY BUSY BUSY!

5. Meticulously research, test and
plan with young people in
charge. Understand the time,
pressures and shifting ideas by
really listening.
Learn the stream of engagement.
Forget what you know about
planning, today’s youth have their
own lives and plans – it’s time to
work with them, not against them,
using data as your guide.
Standard advertising works well,
but techniques that are tailor-made
for social work so much better.
Work out how you can enhance
teen’s super powers, in a way that
works for them.
The next pages show you five campaigns that nailed these top three tips and generated amazing results.

6. This campaign surfed the stream of engagement, it ran along
side students’ conversations with targeted ads.
Include strong call to actions, never be too text heavy, and
create a compelling story.
Getting your message to the right people in the right place.
Don’t waste time in targeting the wrong people.
This campaign drank from the stream of engagement; it put
students in charge using native content and research to
build useful information.
Co-branded ads created trust and value. How and where
you display your message is what matters. Get it right and
you’re winning.
Shake up your research methods to build engaging content
and increase the likelihood of purchase.
Using student ambassadors to test the products, gaining
genuine opinions about how great the product is.
in direct sales
in 3 months
uplift in students
considering HP

7. This campaign diverted the stream of engagement, by extending the weekly show’s audience on
The Student Room in a forum where young people gain 24/7 support from peers and experts.
By harnessing The Student Room’s audience, the surgery engaged with the right audience, in a
place where students were already talking about their issues and giving advice to others.
Sharing relevant emotive content intrigues the mind. Sharing this enables others to get involved
and starts conversations.
Understanding young peoples’ needs, decisions, and issues and knowing where they come from
is empowering. Give them a voice to help you understand them better.
uplift in students
considering HP
This campaign swam the stream of engagement, with long term content marketing and
social interactions, building stronger relationships.
By using The Student Room’s official rep, Student Finance engaged directly with
students who had concerns over money at university. Student finance navigated
students to their content and provided useful and relevant information.
Providing fresh content in a way students understand, and can relate to, works. Using
language they use every day and avoiding jargon will empower them and make them
feel like they have some control over their day to day stresses.

8. This campaign sped through the stream of engagement, by helping young
people swim faster and better through the student journey. UEA offered a £9k
fully paid for scholarship to make a student’s business Idea a reality.
By using co-branded creative, users felt more at ease with the competition and
trusted UEA through the whole campaign.
Positioning call-to-actions on the homepage, with announcements running all
over the site, and scheduled articles achieved high profile exposure.
With start-ups booming and entrepreneurial spirit everywhere, this competition
asked students to submit business ideas that would change the world. The
reaction was outstanding even amongst students that weren’t eligible.
Call Jack on: 01273 646 533
Email: Jack.wallington@thestudentroom.com