Noticed the massive advertising blanketing your spring break hotel? Ad banners, barely clad product spokeswomen, and advertisers' kiosks are everywhere spring breakers are -- they want your bucks and they're spending at least $75 million to reach 1.5 million of you over spring break according to USA Today; Alloy Media and Marketing, a firm which puts companies together with students in targeted campaigns for products like Polo and which is working Cancun, Panama City and Grand Bahama Island over break, reports that college students have $175 billion to spend annually.
(If you're the one with the bulging money belt, let us know where you'll be next.)A March 9 New York Times story posits that 18-24 year olds are "typically resistant to traditional advertising" and that advertisers have created campaigns accordingly, as in an (obviously) interactive Army obstacle course on the South Padre beach meant to interest you in joining the National Guard.
Alloy offers advertisers opportunities to reach you over spring break with branded room keys, door hangars, mirror decals, on your in-room TV, in your hotel shuttle or lobby, through nightclub/private party sponsorships, with free samples and at on-beach promotional events and "custom guerilla activities." When corporate folks with lots of bucks to spend pay this much attention to you, it's all good: the companies get their messages out and you get free schwag from companies like Bic and Axe. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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Photo courtesy Alloy Media and Marketing