Why brands such as Ikea, Draper James, Rent the Runway are touring college campuses

The trend: A wide array of retailers are touring college campuses.

• Draper James is wrapping up a tour of four Southern universities—Auburn University, University of Arkansas, University of Mississippi, and University of South Carolina—where it set up pop-ups at Hilton Graduate Hotels near each college. It chose the schools based on its ecommerce sales and social media followings and set up shop around major games or during parents’ weekends to drive mothers and daughters to shop the sales together, per Modern Retail.
• Australian brand Princess Polly took a branded Jeep around campuses in Arizona, Boston, and California where it handed out $20 gift cards that can be redeemed in its stores, along with free tote bags, baby tees, and various other items from beauty, health, and wellness sponsors.
• Rent the Runway’s “RTR On the Road” tour visited eight large universities—including Clemson University, University of Georgia, and University of Texas at Austin—throughout October where it hosted a pop-up on campus, gave away goodie bags filled with beauty products from partners such as Dossier, and recruited for its college ambassador program, per WWD.
• Ikea’s “Ready for College” bus tour visited 30 college campuses across the country throughout late summer and early fall. Consumers could go inside a branded school bus to explore a showroom featuring items dedicated to dorm rooms, engage in activities like a planting station, and customize their Ikea Frakta bag, per The Spruce.

The rationale: The tours offer brands a low-cost way to deliver compelling experiences that build buzz and drive word-of-mouth awareness.

• Some, such as Rent the Runway, are using the tours to shift students’ perceptions of the brand. The retailer sought to show students how they could use its service to rent pieces like jeans, tops, and day dresses they could wear around campus, as well as to solicit feedback on the types of merchandise they’d like to see on Rent the Runway.
• Others, such as Princess Polly, aim to build brand awareness. “By visiting key campuses and student hotspots, we’ve created hype not only around each new store opening, but for the brand as a whole,” Lena Games, the brand’s U.S. public relations & marketing director, told Modern Retail.

The IRL touchpoints enable brands to cut through the noise, give students the ability to experience their products, and build connections with a Gen Z consumer segment that is expected to see its spending growth outpace all other generations by 2030, per Nielsen IQ.

Our take: College tours put a novel spin on the tried-and-true pop-up model. They provide an ideal setting to build brand awareness, capture attention, and create content that can extend far beyond campus.