Using TV Stars to Turn College Students into Customers

Image: True Religion

​Corporate Challenge: How to turn college students into loyal lifetime customers.

Ironbound Strategy: Being excited about what your future customers are excited about is a potential way of creating value forcustomers, employees, and society.

Ironbound Action:  California based True Religion designs premium jeans.  The brand is bringing TV stars to college campuses such as Spelman, Georgia, and USC, as a way to draw students into customers.  Their pop-up trucks with immersive experiences have been enlisting 3,000 new loyalty members per week.  Students come to see and hear from TV stars, get student discounts on merchandise, and are becoming loyal to the brand.  Creating value for Gen Z, the next largest purchasing demographic, can generate lifetime loyalty.

​* True Religion has $500M+ in annual revenue, with a goal of eventually reaching $1B
 
** 25% of True Religion’s 10 million loyalty members are aged 18-25
 
*** The Gen Z collegiate addressable market is 120M