Research
Among college kids, a new activist era
By Diego Vasquez
Jun 30, 2008 - 1:06:40 AM

Call it the Facebook election: In this presidential campaign the use of user-generated media has become hugely important, from last year’s YouTube debates to the candidate pages and support groups littered across social networking sites. Though the candidates are still fumbling around with online advertising, they’ve picked up on the importance of these media to a large group of potential voters, college kids. And Barack Obama seems to be connecting with them. Alloy Media Marketing’s 2008 Alloy College Explorer report finds that 92 percent of registered college-age voters plan to go to the polls this November, and a clear plurality favor Obama over Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton (who was still in the race when the study was conducted). Sixteen percent of college students say they’ll be gathering their campaign ’08 information mainly from social networks and UGC sites, and fully 88 percent are engaged with social media. It’s not so much what Obama says but how he says it – his “yes we can” catchphrase resonates with African Americans particularly, 50 percent of whom say they believe they can have a positive impact on the world, compared with 35 percent last year. Samantha Skey, executive vice president of strategic marketing at Alloy Media + Marketing, talks to Media Life about how college students use media, how they’ve become media distributors, and how campaigns are targeting college kids.

 
What did you find most interesting or most surprising about this study?
 
What’s most interesting is the ongoing belief on behalf on college students that they’re the generation that will change the world. We saw that for the first time last year and it was reaffirmed this year, and it correlates well their emphatic support of Barack Obama.
 

What is the most important thing for media buyers and planners to take away from it?
 
I think it’s important to look at how college students consume media and to think about the media experience as very utility-driven. Also, think about the mindset they’re in when engaging with specific types of media.
 
We’ve often thought about the college media experience as multi-platform, and it’s clear they use media to achieve goals: speak to friends, make plans, promote causes they care about, produce an identity they’re proud of. They’re very active media consumers sometimes, but I think what we sometimes lose in the discussion is they can also be passive media viewers. They can sometimes just sit back and watch a movie.
 
They are interactive, and they use different media platforms for different things. They’re very focused on the most productive use of media available. They’re condensing more media activity into a shorter amount of time, so it’s important to think of the mindset going on with each of these media engagements and integrate advertising accordingly.
 
It’s more important to look at what they’re doing rather than where they’re doing it. That will become more and more critical. That sort of platform-specific mentality will be challenged.

You might think that college students' internet use has reached a saturation point, but you report that social media usage is way up from last year, to 88 percent. When will it start to level off and why has it continued to see such growth?
 
I think we are in a way starting to see it level off, although usage has increased. The efficiencies [of social network usage] are increasing as well, college students are doing more in less time. What we saw last year was the number of friends for college kids had increased while the number of social networks used had decreased. Which means they’re maintaining one or two profiles rather than, say, 17.
 
It is becoming more efficient, but there’s more they can do. There are more activities they can employ, and adoption is so rapid. They’re using some of the utilities that exist for more and more types of engagements.
 

One-third of college students have themselves become media distributors, according to the study. How will they impact this election?
 
One of the most exciting and interesting findings in the study, and it shows something we anticipated, is that this generation is incredibly capable of passing along a message they believe in.

And since they’re good at creating content, they’re great marketers. That’s a major message we’ve been looking at.
 
I think the impact on the election, it will be hard to measure for sure, but I think you’ll see that a lot of young people are getting the information they need to determine their vote online. And many are converting their peers. With our data, what’s interesting is they are change agents themselves, whether it’s for Hillary, Obama, McCain or Ron Paul, they take on that responsibility to educate their peers.
 
Also, the majority of today’s college students are very connected to their parents, so it’s a great opportunity for either candidate to sway two generations together. The Obama campaign has so far generated that kind of parent-student support.
 

How have the candidates specifically targeted this college population?
 
We all know they’re employing TV in a more targeted fashion, going after specific audiences. And they’re certainly employing social media; never mind the Obama campaign, the Obama supporters are employing it very effectively.
 
They’re using all the things that candidates have used in years past, but the new one is really social media. The internet was around during the last two elections.
 

Why do we see such a large segment of registered voters in this group (92 percent) saying they plan to vote? How does that compare with past elections?
 
This study only has last year and this year, but anyone who has paid attention to voter turnout in the college audience knows that number is more than double anything we’ve ever seen.
 
But it’s important to know that we don’t really know how many people are actually registered, but these days the message seems to be that it’s un-cool to not be registered to vote.
 
So I’d say a good number really are registered, but that number [92 percent] may be a bit inflated because it can be embarrassing to not be registered these days.
 

Obama's support among the college crowd has doubled since last year, rising to 43 percent compared with 21 percent for McCain and 18 percent for Clinton, who was still in the race when the study was conducted. Why does this group connect so strongly with Obama?
 
The web is only relevant because he’s connected deeply with this audience.

Social media would be irrelevant if it wasn’t for his brand essence, to use an ad term. His consistency in messaging is a strength; millennials can spot BS. His consistency has been phenomenal, and it resonates with college students like some of their favorite brands.
 
Also, the value proposition that he offers to them is critical, he’s really showing them that they can be agents for change. We started off by saying this generation feels they can change the world, and Obama shows them he’s in sync with that. He’ll give them the freedom to do so, and he makes that clear with them
 
And the third would be authenticity. The ability to speak about things that are uncomfortable is something college students will always respond to, whether they vote for him or not. You want to dig in on topics, stock speeches are not enough. And the clear connection with his wife is really popular among college students. It’s sort of aspirational for a lot of young people.
 
And his campaign has made information available and made it easy to pass along.
 
Young voters are aware of a couple of his policy positions, but not more than three on average, they’re looking more at the entire package.