Gary Colen, Alloy Media + Marketing, presented a case study based upon the work they had done with Helio, a new wireless brand in targeting college students.

First off we need to look at the market. The college market is usually defined as one market. but it's really hundreds of markets. If you look at a target, you have a college student, part of a larger group, money to spend, media editor, brand experimenter, strong friend-fluence.

College students are sometimes a good test market. They have grown up with technology and love to experiment. Also the college market is always growing. Today there are 17.4 million students.

They looked at how students spend their 'fun' money. Food is the number one, followed by entertainment, clothing, cell phone, personal care products, cosmetics. The average college student spends $32/month on cell phone service.

Their research showed that a large majority of students avoid ads on the internet, text messaging ads, direct mail and ads on social networking sites. College students are also prone to test new brands and often seek the advice of others when making purchases.

Helio recruited 21 on-campus ambassadors. These ambassadors received extensive training about the wireless market and the Helio brand. This included a visit to the Helio HQ.

Once on campus they began an incremental exposure plan. The reps used Facebook as a primary communication tool. They used the tools that the students use. The major goals included:

- Brand Impressions
- Product Engagements
- Event Attendance

Helio soon became a natural part of the Rep's daily lives. They integrated Helio into their social network profiles.

At the end of the day it's about having a great product. Helio was fortunate that they had a great product with a good feature-set.

Unfortunately Greg didn't have a Helio device for us to play with :-(