Why brands like Draper James & PrettyLittleThing are crisscrossing the country on college tours

Brands are using these college tours to try and cut through digital noise, reach Gen Z directly and cater to young shoppers interested in in-person experiences. While some brands — like Princess Polly and PrettyLittleThing — are already popular with customers in their late teens and 20s, other brands — like Draper James — are using their tours to raise awareness with that group in the first place. The companies also use these tours to recruit for their college ambassador programs. More largely, their tours come at a time in which Gen Z is growing its spending power, a stat Nielsen IQ puts at $12 trillion globally by 2030.

Here’s a closer look at why brands are holding tours and how they’ve structured them.

Boosting sales & awareness

Some brands are using their college tours to boost sales, raise awareness and/or reach new audiences.

Draper James typically caters to women ages 35 to 45, but it’s betting on these tours to reach younger customers who can “build lifetime value with the brand,” Piper Parsley, the brand’s vp of brand marketing and e-commerce, told Modern Retail. Draper James focused its college tour on four schools: Ole Miss, University of South Carolina, University of Arkansas and Auburn University. The brand is already well-known in the South, so it thought the region would be a “good place to start,” Parsley said.

Draper James picked locations based on its e-commerce sales and social following, but it also wanted to take advantage of a tradition at many Southern schools: dressing up for football games and special events. Draper James set up pop-ups at Hilton Graduate Hotels near each university to appeal to students and their families in town for major games or parents’ weekends. It hoped that mothers and daughters would shop the pop-ups together.

The Australian brand Princess Polly, meanwhile, is focusing its tour more on giveaways and brand-building as it looks to raise its profile in the U.S. After going to Arizona in September, the brand moves onto Boston in November, then Northern California in December. At each stop, the brand gives students a $20 gift card for an in-store purchase, along with free tote bags, baby tees and various items from beauty, health and wellness sponsors. The brand stores everything in a Jeep that it drives around campus.

Princess Polly began as an e-commerce site in 2010 but has since opened stores in the U.S., including two in California, one in Massachusetts and one in Arizona. It doesn’t have a store in Australia but is using its tour to introduce its brand to more American shoppers. “By visiting key campuses and student hotspots, we’ve created hype not only around each new store opening, but for the brand as a whole,” Lena Games, the brand’s U.S. public relations & marketing director, told Modern Retail in an email.

Meanwhile, WSS, formerly known as Warehouse Shoe Sale, is going on the road as part of its 40th anniversary celebration. For its tour, WSS rented out a food truck to give out free food to community members. One of its stops was at the University of California, Riverside — although it’s visiting many locations, including YMCAs and a Boys and Girls Club.

WSS provides discounts on big-name brands like Adidas and Nike, a message it hopes will resonate with young shoppers. “We always provide the best value, and students have to think with their dollars, right?” Blanca Gonzalez, WSS’s svp and gm, told Modern Retail. “We always want to make sure that we connect with college students.”

Holding conversations & recruiting talent

Education and outreach are also large motivations for these tours.

Throughout its college tour, which lasted from October 5 to October 28, Rent the Runway shared more information about how the company works, promising that it’s more than just formalwear. “I think it’s a misnomer about Rent the Runway, that it’s just for special events,” co-founder Jennifer Hyman told Modern Retail. Rent the Runway used the tour to tease items students can wear to class or at the dining hall — pieces like jeans, tops and day dresses. It also asked students what they’d like to see on Rent the Runway and started adjusting its merchandise accordingly.

Similarly, PrettyLittleThing, which launched in 2012, is using its college tour to showcase its latest collections but also get feedback from young shoppers. “It’s given us a unique opportunity to engage with our community face-to-face,” CMO Nicki Capstick told Modern Retail. PrettyLittleThing is opening its Los Angeles showroom to customers for the first time this year, but most of its business is online. “By bringing the PLT experience directly to [students], we’ve strengthened our relationship with our customers,” Capstick said.

Brands are also using college tours to recruit students for their college ambassador programs. Rent the Runway, for instance, shared more information about how students can join its program, which has tens of thousands of members, Hyman said. The company is restructuring its program to focus more on “content creation,” she added.

Meanwhile, PrettyLittleThing is hosting meet-and-greets with its current ambassadors, and Princess Polly is boosting sign-ups for its own program.

Some women attending Draper James’ pop-ups were “so interested in the brand that they asked if they could intern for it,” Parsley said. Others asked the brand to come back and do a trunk show for their sorority.

Encouraging content creation

Importantly for the brands, students are posting social media content from the activations, further spreading awareness. One user on TikTok, for instance, posted a video while in line for a PrettyLittleThing college activation that racked up 36,000 likes. Other users posted “get ready with me” TikToks ahead of Draper James’ pop-ups.

Brands are re-sharing students’ UGC while also taking photographs on site to repurpose for social media. Princess Polly, for example, offers students who visit its Jeep the opportunity to be featured on its own social channels, “a highlight for many participants,” the brand said. One of its Instagram posts from San Diego State University shows students posing in front of — and on top of — the Jeep. “We miss you already 🖤,” the caption reads. “We had so much fun with you all!”