College Students Spend on Socially Responsible Brands

U.S. college students (ages 18-30) prefer to spend their hard-earned money on brands they perceive to be socially responsible, according to findings released today from Alloy Media + Marketing’s 5th annual College Explorer Study, conducted by Harris Interactive. The study found that, while humor is good and big names still sell, students prefer an honest and effective social responsibility campaign to celebrity endorsements when it comes to spending.

This year’s college enrollment is the largest on record, overall spending has jumped by $8 billion and their discretionary spending power has grown 12 percent to $46 billion.

“The college student market is now well over 17 million strong , and continues to grow in size and importance for marketers as the considerable influence they’ve gained in the past few years as technology early adopters bleeds into other areas, like social responsibility,” says Dana Markow, Vice-President, Youth and Education Research at Harris Interactive. “Watch for the ‘greening’ of the college market and their $182 billion in aggregate spending power to have a big effect on brand positioning and campaigns in the coming year.”

When asked about factors that drive their purchase decisions, 33 percent prefer brands that give back to the community, are environmentally safe, or are connected to a cause. Together these socially responsible characteristics surpassed paying more for a brand with a great image (16 percent) or preference for a brand used by celebrities (2 percent) by wide margins in their influence on discretionary spending. Substantially, one in four students has purchased a product this year specifically because it was socially conscious.

Earlier this year, a survey of 18-34-year-old college students and recent grads found that online advertising does indeed motivate them to make a purchase, and that the age group spends a significant amount of time online conducting research before purchasing - and when they do purchase, it’s tends to be online, with 98 percent of college students saying they have made a purchase of a product or service online.