Your Guide to Back-to-School Video Marketing
Backpacks. Notebooks. Pens. Glue sticks. Dorm room posters they’ll regret by spring semester. That’s right — we’re talking about back-to-school season. As the summer wraps up and students head back to the classroom, it’s a great time for relevant brands to connect with their back-to-school-related audiences.
Here, we’ll explore how brands and video makers alike can make the most of their video marketing strategies during this season with data, best practices, and relevant examples.
Why It’s Essential To Ace the Back-to-School Season
Just last year, we talked about the return of back-to-school shopping — and it has only skyrocketed since. When comparing data from Q1 of 2023 to Q1 of 2024, MNTN Research found multiple key performance metrics improved year-over-year (YoY), including average return on ad spend (ROAS), conversions, and visit rates. Since performance is heating up earlier in the year, we can only anticipate that the 2024 back-to-school season will bring the heat for advertisers.
One Statista survey found that back-to-college and back-to-school spending were the two events in 2023 with the highest spending per event. (Yep, even ahead of winter holiday spending, which came in third place.) And this spending occurred across several different categories, including electronics, apparel, shoes, and school supplies.
In 2024, back-to-school retail sales are estimated to reach $81.16 billion in the United States, giving brands a significant opportunity to grow their sales during this time. Whether your brand has electronics, school supplies, or something else entirely, this season is a great time to connect with your back-to-school audience.
Back-to-School Video Marketing Examples
Check out these back-to-school video examples made with QuickFrame:
adidas
This adidas ad showcases the brand’s back-to-school apparel collection through post-production. They’ve taken photos of the items in the collection and used those to create engaging video content with movement, sound, and on-screen elements.
One of the best parts about this video style is its accessibility for brands of all sizes. Even if a brand has never used video marketing before, this is a great place to start. As long as they have product photos, branding, and a website, this kind of content is possible!
Read more about how adidas and QuickFrame have worked together.
Dormify
Picture it: you’re ready to head off to college, and you’re trying to find your new style. You’re not sure what you want, but you do know the same bedroom decor you had in high school just isn’t gonna cut it. So where do you start?
If you’re a consumer who watches this ad, you might just start with Dormify. They use this video to showcase the various products available from their store, ensuring viewers know they have different styles available.
South College
While it (ironically) might not be the first industry to pop into your head during back-to-school season, educational institutions can catch the attention of viewers during this season.
Whether you’re trying to reach high school students trying to decide where to go to college, folks ready to pursue a degree later in life, or people interested in a specific field, like the person in this ad, the back-to-school season can be a great time to connect with potential students.
Read how the University of North Texas aced their CTV performance report with MNTN.
Best Practices for Your Back-to-School Creative Strategy
Earlier this year, we talked about what happens when brands get video marketing wrong. To help avoid that in the first place, we’ve got creative best practices for your back-to-school video strategies.
Create Ad Variations
Creating variations of your ads is a great way to connect with different audience segments and simultaneously avoid ad fatigue. As MNTN Research reminds us, 67% of consumers want a variety of different storytelling approaches to avoid ad fatigue, so providing those different options can meet the needs of both your brand and your consumers.
As we’ll discuss in a minute, you’ve got to embrace the complex audience situation of this season. You’re likely talking to two or more decision-makers, making back-to-school shopping more complex than it might seem on the surface. By using different variations of your video content, you’re more likely to connect with your audience during this often busy and high-stress season.
Using multiple pieces of creative within the same campaign also gives you more to work with during your testing strategies. Specifically with multivariate testing, several variations can help you hone in on which individual elements work best for which audience segments. As you plan your next video production, you can use what you’ve learned to create optimized content your audience is more likely to enjoy.
Use Timely Elements
While it might seem obvious, using timely elements in your seasonal video marketing campaign can be incredibly effective. Whether directly or indirectly, these timely messages create a sense of urgency for viewers, inspiring them to act quicker than they might otherwise.
Create an Emotional Connection
Whether you evoke nostalgia, first-day jitters, or the excitement of walking onto a college campus for the first time, create an emotional connection with your audience.
This emotional connection can create a lasting impression on your audience, causing them to keep your brand top of mind throughout the entire back-to-school season. A 2020 study — “The Emotional Effectiveness of Advertisement” — found that “…providing an emotional message in publicity increases the audience’s attention to the advertisement, enhancing the product’s appeal and generating a higher level of brand recall.”
Use the Right Platforms
From social media to Connected TV (CTV), there are a ton of ways to connect with your audience through video marketing. In order to pick out the right platforms for your brand, you’ll want to understand the kind of content your audience is already consuming.
Early this year, we dubbed 2024 the Year of Ad-Supported Streaming — and it’s already proven true. In the first half of the year, we saw several new ad tech announcements from streaming services and ad partners, assuring us that CTV ads aren’t going anywhere. As the time spent with digital video keeps increasing, we can expect ad partners and streaming services alike to make investments in this area. In fact, CTV is considered the top must-buy video ad format for marketers.
Don’t worry — social media is right behind it. (And we mean right behind it.) While 65% of United States-based marketers said CTV is a must-buy video ad type, 64% said the same thing about social media. These platforms allow brands to directly connect with their audience members, engaging them on platforms they already use, know, and love.
As you’re crafting your video marketing strategy, don’t feel like you have to jump on every platform, especially not right away. Instead, test different platforms to find what’s most effective for your brand and audience.
Embrace the Season’s Complex Audience and Timeline
Marketing has lots of constantly moving parts in general, but back-to-school marketing is even more complex than your average campaign.
During this time, you’re likely not just speaking to a single person. Instead, you’re probably talking to several decision-makers, each with a different role and opinion. For example, if you’re selling school supplies geared at high school students, you’ll most likely need to speak to two audiences: students and their parents. To run an effective campaign, you need to capture positive attention from both of these audiences at the same time.
While a cross-platform strategy is always essential, seasons like this really underline its importance. For example, CTV is a great way to connect with entire households, while social media can provide a more direct line of communication to individuals. By advertising across both CTV and social media, you’ll likely be able to meet the needs of several people in each household, making your impact more significant.
Since there’s not a set duration for the back-to-school season, advertisers often feel uncertain about when to start and end their campaigns. While some college students might be headed back in early summer, some K-12 schools might not hand out supply lists until the week before classes start.
Digital platforms, like Performance TV and social media, empower you to make adjustments to your campaign as needed. Whether you need to update your creative, change the frequency of your ads, or something else entirely, you have the power you need to make the right decisions for your campaign.
Make the Most of the Back-to-School Season
Whether you’re providing the latest styles for K-12 students, essential tech for college newbies, or something else entirely, the back-to-school season provides you with an incredible opportunity to connect with your audience. With the right video creative and marketing strategy, you’ll be able to make an impact that lasts all the way into the winter holiday season.
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