When junior Sarah Kapenstein posted her resume on a job search site, she did not expect to be offered a position that wouldn’t require her to leave campus.
In December, the online music service Napster contacted Kapenstien, a political communication major, and offered her a job as one of two campus marketing representatives at GW to increase students’ awareness of Napster’s free service to students.
“I’m able to develop my own programming – an opportunity I did not have in college before this one,” Kapenstein said.
In addition to Napster, major companies including Apple, Red Bull, and Coca-Cola hire GW students as marketing representatives who advertise products to their peers.
GW business administration professor Lynda Maddox said the practice of hiring student representatives is common around college campuses nationwide and has grown in popularity in recent years.
The job of a student representative can entail anything from sponsoring events on campus to offering prizes and incentives for students to sign up for services, Kapenstein said. She said she likes the job because of the freedom to make decisions about her work without needing approval from a supervisor.
“The biggest reason Napster wants young adults doing this job is because each campus is different, and students at GW know what will work best for other students at GW,” Kapenstein said.
For her services, Kapenstein receives a $500 stipend each semester and normally works five hours per week, though she may increase hours as she organizes more co-sponsorships. She also received a Napster-To-Go account and a portable music player as compensation.
Christian Woodward, strategic account executive for Apple Higher Education in D.C. and Virginia, said Apple has used campus representatives for 15 years. Apple’s campus representative model differs from that of Napster’s.
“We don’t leave it up to our campus representatives to run our business at GW; rather, the campus representatives complement the work of seasoned marketing professionals,” Woodward said.
Woodward said having students working for Apple who live on campus helps the company know what college students are interested in.
Neither Apple nor Red Bull student representatives would comment to The Hatchet for this story, saying that company policy forbids them from speaking to the media.
Maddox, a professor of marketing and advertising, said that while the practice of using campus marketing representatives is becoming more common, ethical questions arise when companies hire students who market products to their peers without disclosing their employment.
“Though this model completely removes the marketing label, we must ask, how ethical is this practice?” Maddox said.
Maddox added that some credit card companies, alcoholic beverage companies and tobacco product companies are known to take part in such practices. Maddox said this type of concealed “buzz marketing” has been criticized in the industry.
Paige Guedri, a 2004 GW graduate, was the first student representative hired by Coca-Cola to market its products at GW. Her responsibilities included brainstorming promotions, introducing new products on campus and supervising how Aramark displayed Coca-Cola products on campus. Aramark operates the venues in the Marvin Center food court.
“Coke had a hard time planning promotional events students would be interested in without input from students,” she said.
Today, Guedri works as a marketing director for a local construction restoration and remodeling company. She said her experience as a student representative was “icing on the cake” when applying for jobs.
Marilyn Liebrenz-Himes, associate professor of business administration, described campus representative programs as “win-win” for both parties. She added that a company must be well-known among the college-aged crowd for the programs to be successful.
Liebrenz-Himes said, “You will want to make sure a company is legit and make sure the opportunity is beneficial for both the potential representative and the student body at large.”
