Retro-marketing to Generation Y: Selling Study Abroad to Students

In 2007/8, a ‘new’ UK university business school sent ten students from a single internationally-focussed programme to study abroad. In 2013/14, almost three hundred students from across the board applied to go abroad the following year. Historically uninterested in studying abroad, Accountancy students became the fastest growing group of participants. This case examines the radical implementation of a post-modern, marketing-led approach to developing and promoting work and study abroad opportunities in one of the most challenging contexts: British higher education. Uniquely combining ‘retro-marketing’ techniques with student engagement methods to target a specifically-developed segmentation of Generation Y students not only increased participation generally. It also drove individuals’ ambition and commitment, at the same time as eliminating entirely ‘premature return’ of culture-shocked students. These ‘consumers’ were converted into the programme’s greatest advocates using peer-to-peer co-creation. Several counter-intuitive aspects of this initiative are explored and paradoxical juxtapositions are identified.