Freshers 2022: The biggest student brand event in 3 years

Right now thousands of students up and down the country are looking ahead to their first days at University this September. Students have had little to no direct brand engagement over the last two years and 2022 is looking set to be the first Freshers season since 2019 without COVID restrictions- and we can see it being a big one!

Freshers is arguably the most popular time in the student calendar to engage on a peer-to-peer basis, and this year it won’t just be the first year students wanting to get involved, many 2nd and 3rd year students have missed out on their Freshers experience and will be looking to make up for lost time. There are over 2.4million students across the UK with a collective spending power of £80bn, and despite COVID, student spending during Freshers increased c10% year on year to around £406/week (UCAS Media, 2021). Students head to their Freshers’ Fairs open and ready to engage with brands and it’s the ideal opportunity for brands to get their attention.

One of the most popular B2C channels to reach mass student crowds in one place are Freshers’ Fairs. They have earned their place as one of the strongest platforms for brands to interact with students, bringing with them some of the largest solely student crowds at venues across the UK.

With anywhere from 4,000 to 15,000 students per event, a well executed Freshers campaign can deliver a number of benefits, including increasing brand awareness, boosting product sales, getting subscriptions or sign ups, gathering data and product sampling, giving brands the opportunity to tailor a student campaign that delivers whatever you want to achieve.

Student marketing doesn’t end at Freshers. Lots of brands we work with use Freshers as the catalyst to begin building a long term loyal youth customer base. For many brands, Freshers is the starting point of their wider year round marketing strategy and the first of many brand conversations with students.

If you’re a brand looking to get in on the action and want to discover how you can make Freshers work for you, then we are here to help. As student marketing specialists, we can help you identify the best way to interact with students during Freshers and beyond. You can find some inspiration about the different ways that you can reach students in big numbers to further boost your sales, reach, brand awareness, and other goals here.

We are the experts in student marketing and enthusiastic about delivering brand marketing campaigns that align with your goals and hit the right notes with students, so to find out about how we can help you for Freshers 2022 just drop us a message: info@thecrowdagency.com