All By Students Notebooks

All By Students

All By Students (ABS) Notebooks is a college marketing company that partners with universities across the United States to spearhead a free school supplies initiative for students. Their flagship product, a free five-subject notebook, is given to university students at the start of every semester. Full-page advertisements act as subject dividers that offer further student freebies and discounts.

As of Fall 2008, these partner brands have helped make these supplies free for students: 3M, at&t, CDWSTA Travel, Discover Card, Ford, GEICO, General Mills, ice.com, Idearc, Monster, My Rich Uncle, P & G, Palm, Real Networks, Saturn, Sears, NBA, Unilever, Vault.com, Volvo, Warner Bros, and Wrigley.

The notebooks are designed to reflect the brand of the school distributing them - usually by adopting their colors and logo. The first eight pages are reserved for college-specific information such as campus maps, important telephone numbers, and academic calendars.

Beginnings
ABS was founded in late 2006 by Avi Steinberg and Alejandro Bremer from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Their goal was to channel brand marketing dollars to products that benefit students and enhance the college learning experience.

Distribution
In fall 2008, ABS distributed notebooks at 70 campuses to 750,000 students including Harvard, MIT, Penn State, University of Pennsylvania, Arizona State, California State University Long Beach, Clemson, North Carolina State University, and the University of Arkansas.In January 2009, 1.1 million students are to receive the notebooks on 110 campuses.

Web
In August 2008, ABS launched a student-focused website[ http://www.allbystudents.com]. The site- an “unofficial guide to campus life”- is a Q and A forum for students to communicate with their peers by asking and answering questions. The site gives students the ability to interact with both students from their own school and students from other schools in the ABS network.