By Abdulraheem Akanbi Lawal

“Item 7 is guaranteed”

Few phrases possess the ability to unlock what would turn out to be a highly adopted and responsive campus-wide mobilization strategy. It achieves a high level of resonance that seems irresistible to the average student. It is simple and somewhat transactional. These three words exist partially oblivious to the mass adoption of an incentive-driven approach to campus attendance. Adored, warmly received, and quickly becoming a template to reckon with, its far-reaching effects are already creating more rude awakenings.

“Item 7 is guaranteed,” as well as its several variants, has been grossly utilized as the sine qua non of PR, filling up event halls. Often, both parties shy away from this realization, with attendees maintaining an indifferent countenance, acting untamed, or rather, dissembling as though the event organizers had utilized an attenuated bait. Whatever you think of it, there is no gainsaying the fact that this practice subtly promotes the incentivization of campus event attendance.

Campus life is hardly short of events and activities that compete for students’ time and attention. Activities like social events, academic or niche based events are not scarce to find, with each program offering different value to prospective audiences. While this exists, rarely are these interests appealed to without a disturbing emphasis on incentives.

It might seem a bit unapparent, but we could allude to the fact that it exists—an emerging new normal. I am inclined to believe that the core audience need not be convinced with bare complimentaries. Item 7, as well as other event incentives, serves as complimentary refreshment. Incentivized attendance, therefore, inherently breeds no contempt; its undermining tendency does when the complimentary incentive is portrayed as the most compelling reason to attend. One would begin to wonder at the scores of “intellectuals” who had found their way to campus programs and event halls because of Item 7.

Low turnouts aren’t always the issue. More often, the value for time has been poorly communicated. PR, as it stands, goes beyond fancy graphics and captions that fail to convey a satisfactory message; it is, rather, a nexus between the interest of audiences and what is being communicated. Subpar PR, however, doesn’t convey the full message enough to reach personal convictions within students.

Students’ curious minds yearn to get a resonating message from most campus event PR. Sometimes, all that is lacking in PR is a strategy to effectively convey the value events have to offer. PR aside, event organizers don’t want their plans and efforts to be mocked by empty halls and have therefore reverted to the ever-responsive kludge—Item 7.

In retrospect, Item 7 might have been the hook that led students through the doors of the event hall, but if the programme cannot provide a superior hook, a reason to care once they are inside, then perhaps Item 7 was never the real problem; perhaps the programme was.

Expectedly, several students have stumbled into genuinely value-packed sessions in the course of securing an Item 7. This sends another message: why make Item 7 the cynosure when the event is itself self-sufficient? It is an irony which draws more attention.

To state explicitly, Item 7 draws the crowd while the event filters the audience from the crowd.

A thin gap exists between the audience and the crowd. The latter measures presence, while the former measures interest, and here lies the core essence of this piece: the need to retain more audiences than crowds and fewer crowd-turned-audiences, consequently reducing the illusion of audience and value alike.

On the flip side, emphasis on Item 7 could be interpreted as a gluttonous-toned message and, as a result, repel prospective attendees. 

Tacit as it may appear on the surface, an economic interplay lies within—an interplay of time scarcity, opportunity costs, and alternatives, all attuned to the quid pro quo: something-for-something.

Students weigh their scales of preference, give up time and resources, abandoning alternatives for the most rewarding, worthwhile events. Worse still, students negotiate the type of Item 7 to be offered before affirming their interests.

Item 7 brings the crowd, and the crowd brings an audience. But what if Item 7 doesn’t actually bring the crowd? What if the promise of a crowd is what brings Item 7? What if the students are the commodity?

All these uncomfortable questions are not, but provocations birthed from the dogged emphasis on Item 7. Item 7 attracts students. Students create a crowd. The crowd creates visibility. Visibility attracts sponsors. Sponsors make Item 7 possible. And the cycle continues. 

On a final note, businesses use promotions and rewards to encourage participation. Campus events are not exempt from the economics of persuasion, and since the end goal of most events is to share value, create impact and gain visibility. The way forward, therefore, should not be to abolish Item 7, but to dethrone it.

Recent adoptions have involved early PR by way of graphics and broadcasts for months, building up to an event. This instills early interest, insight, and curiosity ahead of the program and ultimately helps to capture an audience before the incident.

Other alternatives can include sharing real-time excerpts of events, giving hints about the next discussion in the event lineup , and laying more emphasis on what students may have to lose by not attending. Of course, the popular “Item 7 is guaranteed” may still be employed to boost interest. Perhaps the larger task is to make the incentive an addition rather than the attraction itself, for this portrays us better as true intellectuals.

After all, Item 7 may get the crowd through the door, but only value can turn the crowd into an audience, sustain the audience and promote intellectual engagement. 

ABOUT CONTRIBUTOR 

Abdulraheem Akanbi Lawal is a 400-level Medical Laboratory Science student, thinker and observer of human behaviour. He explores the ideas, contradictions and little absurdities that often escape ordinary attention; the habit of finding a story where others see only an occurrence, blending observation with wit to provoke thought and invite pause.