Confessions of a Back-To-School Marketing Mom

I'm still trying to recuperate from this past weekend, both physically and emotionally, but thought I should get around to updating my blog tonight nonetheless. This past weekend we dropped my first born daughter off at college for freshman orientation week which started this past Sunday along with many other parents across this country. Not only was it our first college move-in experience, but it also happened to be in New York City at NYU.

We first drove to my sister's house on Saturday who lives about a hour north of the City and who we spent the night with. She happened to invite a few of my old friends over which caused us to be up a little late. Therefore our time getting into the city on Sunday was not as early as we had originally planned. Nothing really new for us though.

When we arrived in NYC I have to say that NYU was pretty well prepared. They had blocked off most of the parking places in front of the dorms and had traffic cops which allowed you to pull right up to unload. However, once uploaded, you had to move your vehicle out ASAP and then check out your options.

Next steps included signing up on a waiting list for a cart to put your stuff in and then waiting on a line that was out the door and down the street for the elevators. Since there was four of us and my daughter's room was only on the fourth floor we decided to skip the elevator line and instead carry her stuff up the stairs ourselves. On my first way up with stuff in tow I passed a mom who was walking up to the 12th floor! She said she had no choice but to do the elevators since they were 12 floors up!  I have to admit that my husband carried the majority of the heavy stuff up to her room which concerned me because it was your typical humid, NYC summer day.  Thank god he quit smoking last year and with the help of some water bottles that we brought with us, we're all still alive today.

Once the stuff was in the room we started unpacking and setting it all up. Now this was our first college move-in experience and even though I thought we were pretty much prepared and thought of everything, there were things we didn't. In old buildings, especially in Manhattan, you don't have many electrical outlets, so we needed more extension cords and power strips. Students today come with too many electronics...laptop computer, printer, TV, fridge, microwave, lamps, etc. One of her suite mates next door even brought a Wii!

The dorm does provide free cable TV hook-up, but it just so happened in our case that the box was on her roommates' side of the room. So we needed a really long TV cable to make it work! No way could we have known this before we came nor the fact that her roommate, who happens to be just from Long Island, would beat us to the move-in.

Thank god for Kmart, which was just a few blocks from the dorm. My husband walked there to get the last minutes things that we needed and then had to go back out a second time. There was also a Radio Shack in the area so they got our business on trip #2.

Now Kmart and Bed Bath and Beyond are the two biggest retailers in the NYU area and they had a shuttle bus set up to take people back and fort on move-in day. Bed Bath and Beyond went another step further and hosted a party at their store that evening for all NYU students which they offered 20% off on their total purchase. The party latest till midnight that night and there were supposedly free snacks and other give-aways. I think this is a brilliant marketing promotion, however, my daughter didn't attend the party. By the time we left her she pretty much had everything she needed. Plus her particular college was hosting a party that night which she did attend. I did however see many families walking around that day with full Bed Bath and Beyond bags.

There is currently a joint online sweepstakes promotion targeted to college bound students called Shop Smart for College Sweepstakes sponsored by Bed Bath & Beyond and Staples. They have a grand prize for students and another grand prize for parents. It's only open till September 2nd, so you need to check it out soon.

We have been somewhat conservative with our spending all summer long as I believe most Americans have. But I have to say that over the past month we contributed quite a bit to the local economy by just getting her ready for college. I'm not sure how most moms do it, but even with the best planning when it comes down to the final days you just start buying so that you have everything you can think of that she needs.

I was quite aware of the huge back-to-school marketing push this year that included many various promotions. We visited and bought from many different retailers, all who were marketing to the college-bound students. They included Wal-Mart, Target, Kmart, Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's and Penny's. So, you see what I mean? Did we miss any of the big ones?

We received many direct marketing messages from these retailers, some that included a checklist of "stuff" college kids need. I'm not sure if that was really helpful to us parents or if it just added to the list of "stuff" my daughter felt she really needed.

Next year I have to do this all other again with daughter #2. I think I'll be a little more marketing savvy then (even though I'm in marketing now). Plus daughter #2 is much more easy-going that daughter #1 so it will hopefully be easier. Or will it? We'll see.