Letter from America
Manhattan marketing Jason Morrow contemplates the hard sell Admissions season is always a fascinating time of year in New York schools although the level of anxiety surrounding the whole process is worryingly high. Like most other schools in the city, we attend many different education fairs and information evenings for prospective parents and students. These range from small, relatively civilised events to huge shows in which the trademark NYC rough and tumble of marketing and competing for attention are very much on display. I think my two favourite moments from this year’s cycle came at an event in Brooklyn on an unseasonably hot October Saturday. Forty to fifty schools and other educational service providers were crammed into the cafeteria with a few fans providing the only relief from the increasing humidity. A number of schools had brought their mascots – the first time I had seen this – and it was particularly entertaining to watch a Spartan and wolf literally jostle for prime position over the course of the afternoon. The wolf generally came out on top in these exchanges and I shall be interested to know later in the year if these successes had any impact on that school’s recruitment. The school hosting the event had invited several groups of Middle Schoolers to sell drinks and candy to visitors and exhibitors as part of a course they were taking on entrepreneurship. I’ve spent more than I care to remember over the years buying products I was fairly sure I’d never use from Young Enterprise companies and similar school endeavours, but nothing had quite prepared me for the hard sell techniques of these students. It all started
gently enough with two students approaching the stall with a selection of the drinks, chocolate and other sweets they were selling. My colleague politely asked about the project and then explained that we were fine at present, but would visit their stall later if we wanted to buy anything. Over the course of the next three hours, we had repeated and increasingly assertive visits from their sales teams, which alternated between persuasion and pressure to make some purchases. It culminated towards the end of the day in a return visit from the original students to chastise us for wasting their time by not buying anything and for clearly not appreciating that they didn’t even want to be at the fair, but had to be to earn extra credits, so we should have at least supported them by buying a soda. Judging by how little was left on their stall at the end of the fair, I suppose the hard sell must have produced some results for them but it also left me feeling nostalgic about the more gentle and faintly embarrassed Young Enterprise pitches trying to sell me a £2 candle with some glitter and a bow for £10 or some designer paper clip jewellery for equally bargain prices. The whole school admissions process in New York leaves me with great sympathy for the parents and children trying to navigate a way through it. One of the greatest challenges for these families is trying to determine the real quality of a school’s curriculum or programmes amidst the often very polished and compelling sales pitches they encounter. There is also an abundance of curious and often misleading opinions
Spring 2018
61
