According to Marc Kornberger, director of Student Village, “The collective strategic focus of the partnership is to offer a globally superior tech platform to empower brands in the accuracy of their influencer marketing efforts.”
Youth marketing has grown to become a larger focus for marketers, with influencer marketing becoming an essential brand communication tool, as peer-to-peer influence has been the youth’s key source for informing their purchasing decisions. Influencer marketing to date has been focussed on a broad spectrum of influencers that could only be selected as appropriate for campaigns, based on ranking, topics, and industries they engage in.
“It’s vital to the current influencer landscape that brands do away with a blanket strategy and focus on relevant community influencers because the youth market is guided by those closest to them,” Kornberger says.
Together the brands are also aiming to create an opportunity for young, up-and-coming influencers to establish themselves and use the platform as a launch-pad. With celebrities being a brand's first focus to reach the youth previously, brands will now be able to target students through their significant peers as well.
Murray Legg, co-founder of Webfluential, comments on the partnership saying, "The youth market provides a perfect opportunity for brands to engage with their audiences through effective influencer marketing campaigns. Millennials spend so much time on social networking sites and online via their phones, creating an ideal setting for people to influence people. We feel that Student Village is a perfect partner to execute on campaigns of this nature and add value to the brands and customers that they serve."
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