Urban Outfitters was founded at the University of Pennsylvania and the brand remains comfortable on campuses. The retailer this weekend will wrap up its third UO Game Day tour with a stop at Rutgers University that demonstrates how the brand has stepped up efforts to reflect the differences between campuses as it looks to connect music, fashion and football to engage with college students.
“This year, even more than we have in the past, we've really pushed beyond the traditional campus experience into a platform, so everything from the talent that we selected for each of the locations to the customization opportunities to the campus pop-up to showing up at the game itself is going to look a little bit different for each campus,” said Julia Draper, head of digital and e-commerce at the brand
Urban Outfitters has worked to own the college experience as a brand differentiator. This year’s UO Game Day tour included stops at the University of Arizona and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The effort was built on learnings from prior tours that are reinforced by extensive social listening, reflecting the need to find the nuances in tastes and preferences between college campuses and the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all way to reach college-aged consumers.
For example, Urban Outfitters discovered that University of Arizona students prefer EDM, leading the brand to bring in DJ Alison Wonderland for its event, while the Wisconsin stop featured punk band the Linda Lindas. The Rutgers event will feature hip-hop artists Flo Milli and DJ Miss Milan.
The UO Game Day tour is the latest effort by a company whose marketing has driven double-digit digital growth and new customer acquisition, as executives noted on a recent earnings call.
Built on partnerships
The effort builds on the brand’s first back-to-campus commercial, “All Together Now,” which ran across streaming platforms including Netflix and Hulu, along with social channels such as YouTube and TikTok, and doubled as the brand’s first connected TV spot.
In addition, the retailer’s campus-adjacent stores are spotlighting the product and signage from the campaign. The ad also featured actual college students from Rutgers as part of a multiyear partnership with the university that it is now extending with an experiential activation.
“That's part of the reason why we selected Rutgers for one of our game day experiences. We wanted to really make sure that we were bridging that digital story in a real life way, authentically,” Draper said.
The UO Game Day tour includes tie-ups with Nike, Levi’s and Converse. The retailer has made brand partnerships a key part of its experience and marketing ecosystem, including through an experiential in-store concept, On Rotation, that has featured brands including Vans and Ugg.
“Being able to layer on national brands, where they have their own built-in audience, and it's a complement to the product that we build internally, is really a differentiator for us,” Draper said.
Emerging channels and creators
As value becomes a watchword amid persistent economic pressure, Urban Outfitters is looking to deliver on that in several ways. Beyond promising quality at prices that are affordable for college-aged consumers, the brand is looking to provide value in the form of connection and community that can help it build long-term relationships.
“Digital content is one of the things that I get most excited about because it's a way for the brand to show up in various different channels and touchpoints where our customers are spending their time,” Draper said. “Social-first is obviously critical.”
Urban Outfitters is also looking into new and emerging channels that resonate with younger audiences, including Reddit and ChatGPT, where the brand has tested some advertising. Thumb-stopping TikTok content remains crucial, as do social channels, including Instagram and Pinterest.
“It's not just about showing up; it's about creating content that feels unique and authentic to that platform,” Draper said. “When we created ‘All Together Now’ content across the different platforms, it looked different in each of the distinct platforms, so that it really met the customers' needs.”
As Urban Outfitters continues to focus on engaging with Gen Z consumers, creators are likely to play a key role in the retailer's marketing mix. It searches for creators who have an affinity for the brand, as well as the micro-creators sourced from an integration with the creator platform Kale. But creator fit is less about scale and more about engagement and authentic audience connections.
“We are definitely scaling our creator partnerships. We're continually looking for new people to work with,” Draper said. “They get to tell that [brand] story through their unique voices.”
