The most powerful influence doesn’t feel like advertising — it feels like shared recognition. JBL set out to deepen brand familiarity with Gen Z college students by showing up inside the moments that define their year, not talking over them. The goal: position JBL as the audio brand that naturally amplifies student voices, passions, and everyday college life.
Relatability was the strategy. JBL recruited 21 student creators whose influence comes not from massive followings, but from trust earned inside tight‑knit campus communities. Authenticity was the mandate. These micro‑influencers were empowered to create in their own voice, on their own platforms, with minimal scripting and maximum freedom. Fun was the rule — six creative posts per creator, no rigid formats.
JBL Campus became a year‑long storytelling engine built around universal Gen Z college experiences: move‑in chaos and dorm‑hall noise, game days and rivalry weekends, holiday travel, creative passions, and the in‑between moments that shape campus life. From August through June, creators documented a full academic year in real time, demonstrating how JBL products fit seamlessly into their lives — studying, traveling, celebrating, and creating.
At its core, JBL Campus was about empowerment. By trusting students to lead the narrative, JBL didn’t just market to the next generation of athletes, creators, and leaders — it collaborated with them, amplifying authentic stories that made the brand feel present, personal, and culturally fluent on campus.
JBL Campus was designed as an always‑on, creator‑led program that mirrored the academic calendar. We partnered with 21 college students across 20 campuses — averaging 84K Insta followers — and activated them across Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Each creator delivered six rounds of content aligned to key moments in the college year, from fall move‑in and homecoming to finals, travel, and personal passion projects.
Rather than impose rigid creative guidelines, JBL encouraged creators to show how JBL products naturally enhanced their lives on and off campus. This freedom resulted in 550 pieces of original content that felt native to each platform and community, sustaining engagement over ten months instead of spiking and fading.
To extend reach beyond organic campus audiences, JBL layered in high‑impact activations, targeted lifestyle influencers, and paid amplification. Select creators supported marquee moments including the KU vs. UNC rivalry game in Lawrence, Kansas, and a JBL Campus presence at SXSW adjacent to the University of Texas. These events generated culturally relevant, real‑world experiences that translated into high‑value social content.
Paid and geo‑targeted media amplified top‑performing posts, allowing the team to continuously optimize creative, formats, and messaging throughout the year. The result was a scalable micro‑influencer model that combined authenticity with performance — delivering both cultural credibility and measurable brand impact in key college markets.
JBL Campus delivered straight‑A performance by turning ten months of always‑on storytelling into record‑breaking results. Compared to previous benchmarks, the program exceeded every KPI, proving the power of sustained micro‑influencer investment.
Across 550 posts, 21 students (31 total creators vs. a goal of 15–20) generated 260.1M impressions, surpassing the 72M goal by +361%. Engagement reached 40.6M actions, shattering the 1M goal by +4,000%. Content drove 634.4K clicks, exceeding the 90K benchmark by +704%. Overall, the campaign delivered a category‑beating 578% higher engagement ROI.
Beyond social performance, JBL Campus activations created massive earned media impact. Events like KU vs. UNC and JBL’s SXSW Campus integrations generated more than 260 earned media clips, resulting in 2.9B PR impressions and an estimated $27M in advertising equivalent value.
By authentically embedding JBL at the intersection of music, technology, and college culture, the program transformed student voices into measurable brand growth — and proved that influence is strongest when it’s genuinely shared.