Meet the typical college student.
She's wearing flip-flops, jeans and a $10 T-shirt, but she's carrying a $400 designer bag. She's talking (or text-messaging) into her cellphone - probably making plans with friends to catch a movie or "Desperate Housewives." When she gets back to the dorm, she'll flop onto her bed and crack open the latest issue of Cosmopolitan.
This portrait has been brought to you by the folks at Student Monitor, an 18-year-old Ridgewood, N.J., company that surveys students on campuses across the country.
The company sells its research to corporations that need to know what these budding consumers, between the ages of 18 and 22, want to buy, see and listen to.
"The college audience is an affluent audience," says Josh Weil, vice president for business development at Student Monitor, where his father, Eric Weil, is managing partner.
"Mom and Dad are doing OK in Ridgewood or wherever. They send Junior to Bucknell (University). He's earning (part-time) income. This is a customer ESPN and ABC want to reach."
Companies want to get to students first. The reasoning?
"If you buy Old Spice body spray when you're 18, you're going to buy it when you're 24," Weil said.
Student Monitor's five full-time employees share a suite of offices with Josh Weil's dog, Emma, who comes to work every day.
Eric Weil started Student Monitor in 1987 with three partners, after working in student marketing for another company. Josh, now 30, joined two years ago, after working in advertising sales for an Internet site aimed at teens.
The privately held company does not release revenues.
Student Monitor runs two big "Lifestyle and Media" surveys a year, polling 1,200 students at 100 four-year colleges. The surveys are done by professionals, who pay students $10 for a 45-minute interview. In addition, the company does monthly trend reports based on phone and Internet interviews.
It also does custom surveys - to test, for example, how a client's product is doing on campus.
One of the biggest trends Student Monitor follows is use of the Internet.
"They spend 14 hours a week online," Weil says. Of that, about a third is devoted to academic work.
But the computer is not the only screen they worship.
"There's somewhat of a fallacy that young people don't watch TV because they're on the Internet," Weil says. "Really, that's just not true."
They put in 11 hours a week with their favorite shows: "Monday Night Football," "SportsCenter" and "Entourage" for guys; "Lost," "My Super Sweet 16" and "Desperate Housewives" for girls. And they all like MTV, Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and "The O.C."
Between the TV and the Internet, how much time do they spend actually, you know, studying?
Weil won't say. That's proprietary information that clients have to pay for.
OK, then, just tell us this: Is it more or less time than their parents hope?
He smiles slightly: "Less."
Overall, today's college students are a bit coddled by their baby boomer parents, Weil says. They're also open, optimistic and less cynical than earlier generations.
Plus, they're media-savvy. When they see Simon Cowell drink a Coke on TV, they understand that Coca-Cola paid to be part of "American Idol." But they don't mind being marketed to "if it's relevant to them," Weil says.
And big companies will "spend insane amounts of money to try to come up with new products" for young consumers, he says.
Student Monitor has found that students buy high and low - mixing expensive products with the cheap. Some girls, for example, will splurge on a pair of $150 jeans or on a Coach or Louis Vuitton bag.
"To see a discretionary purchase of that amount is surprising," Weil says. "You're 19; what do you need a $400 bag for?"
Then they'll buy cosmetics from the drugstore.
"They have to sacrifice somewhere," Weil says. "They figure they can look as pretty buying Maybelline."
Sometimes the company is surprised by what's not hot on campus. An example is satellite radio, which Student Monitor expected to be big.
"We haven't seen any big penetration," Weil says. "We're not really sure why it hasn't taken off."
For Josh Weil - who, at age 30, could still pass as a college student - working with youth-oriented products is a lot of fun.
"I like the fact that I can feel young all the time," he says.
