The average college student spends nearly $1000 on textbooks each year – a number that is rarely questioned, as students think that buying from their campus bookstore or online is their only option. BookRenter.com contacted us to develop a ground-level guerrilla marketing campaign that doubled as a wake-up call for college students about the high cost of textbooks while engaging them in real, one-on-one conversations about alternatives.

After meeting with the BookRenter.com team and gathering a feel for their brand and their goals, we developed a campaign that played off the familiar visual of a campus protest. We handled all aspects of the campaign, including concept, design, management and execution. We targeted University of South Florida in Tampa, University of Texas in Austin and San Diego State University in January, as students were starting a new quarter and requiring new textbooks. During our conversations with students, we distributed $5.00 off coupons for each school with a special tracking code that allowed BookRenter.com to see the jump in sales from the campaign, individual to each school.

“Typical college protests usually focus on a polarizing topic that can pin students against each other, but the issue of overpriced books is one that resonates with ALL students and unites them, and it was a topic that once brought up, got a lot of strong reactions from frustrated students,” said Jamie Hall, Marketing Associate at GoMobile. “As a recent graduate, I was angry that a service like this didn’t exist for me!”

In just one week at each school, over 23,000 coupons were distributed with a substantial jump in BookRenter.com online orders!