School Days: Reading, ‘Riting and Ride-Alongs

WHEN LITTLE LUDWIG was told his first-grade class was going to be part of a pilot program, he assumed he’d be landing 757s at O’Hare International Airport. His disappointment when handed the program materials was palpable: The package contained shrink-wrapped school supplies, with a ride-along coupon envelope for his parents.

Little Ludwig (whom DIRECT keeps on retainer to evaluate youth-focused marketing efforts) may be the only person disappointed by the program. Schools, DMers and the coordinators-Atlanta-based Response Media-anticipate win-win results. At the start of the school year, Response Media oversaw the insertion of 100,000 sample-and-offer ride-alongs into selected school supply packs sold by Educational Products Inc., Douglasville, GA. Schools buy the packages from EPI at a discount and resell them to students as a fund-raising exercise. This past September marked the first time ride-alongs have been included.

For the test program, Response Media solicited only blue-chip children’s marketers. “We were very selective about who we presented the pack to,” says promotional media sales coordinator Jason Warshaw.

At no time do the names of the students leave the school offices: EPI does not want to be in the list or database business.

So what opportunity does this leave for DMers? Given the total reach of 1.2 million kids, plenty. Under terms of the pilot program, coupon packs-a 6-inch-by-9-inch envelope with a cover message alerting parents to the value-added coupons-were dropped on top of a selection of school supplies. Response Media wanted to give parents a chance to control what advertising messages their kids saw.

Segmenting within the program is limited to grade-based selects: pre-kindergarten through first grade, second through sixth grades, or across the board. Of the participants in the initial run, only one- Sesame Street magazine-chose not to go into all the packages. Although no product samples were included in the test, the company will consider placing them outside the envelope, provided they don’t damage the supplies.

When the ride-along rolls out in full force for the 1999 school year, it will encompass the 1.2-million-piece run of the EPI program. The market area mix is Southwest (41%), Southeast (20%) and Midwest (19%), with a presence in the Central (11%) and Western U.S. (7%). The company’s underrepresentation in Western and Northeast schools should be alleviated in 1999, as several states are targeted as growth markets.