Good morning. It's RushTok time again, and marketers are ready to pledge. The WSJ Leadership Institute's Katie Deighton reports on the latest in on-campus marketing:
What began as a peek into sorority pledge season has morphed into a highly produced, brand-sponsored annual dance bonanza, with this school year's new clips brought to you in part by Poppi, Benefit Cosmetics and Lucky Charms.
To learn more about how this hyperspecific marketing niche is evolving, I tracked down Jake Motyl, founder of college marketing agency CampusLaunch, who has been shuttling between sorority houses to produce sponsored content for clients like Bodyarmor and Nike.
CampusLaunch's "two-layer launch model" pairs brand-filled "hero" videos for a sorority's main accounts with coordinated posts from individual chapter members and local influencers to drive virality. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
What's your process for bringing brands together with sororities?
We align with a brand on the creative concept, and then we align on their school priorities as well. Let's say they have a particular retail location in mind-we'll pick a school and a sorority in that location. Then we're pretty much building out the entire event.
The brands give us a good amount of creative freedom. We don't do the same brand with two sororities at the same school. Sororities love getting these collabs, but they also want them to be unique.
Typically a sorority has five to six fantastic dancers on the cheerleading or dance team, and we collaborate on the vision and the dance. The most viral videos that we have done have been dances that no sororities have done in the past.
The beginning of the school year is a really busy time for you. Could the essence of RushTok be something brands buy into throughout the year?
I'm seeing a lot of demand right now for activations in September, October, November, and then again for January rush. The sororities are still there; they still want to do these activations with brands.
One thing that we're leaning in to is new member events. New members are so excited to be a part of the sorority, so when we do a new member event with a brand, all of those girls are posting about it on TikTok, posting about it on Instagram.
Outside of the possibility of going viral, what's the return on investment from partnering with sororities?
It's cultural relevance. Sororities have huge pull at their schools. Girls want to be friends with those girls, and if those girls are posting about and wearing a certain product, that has a wider impact.
Are you concerned that the "big dance in front of the house" trope will get tired?
We're planning in the future to have professional dancers teach the choreography. These dances are gonna get even more unique and even more crazy outside.
But at each campus we want to have videographers, ambassadors, creators working for us. So we're going to see new trends pick them up faster than a lot of other agencies and brands.
Why don't we see fraternities embracing branded RushTok the same way?
We've done in-person events with fraternities, but if you go into your average fraternity, most of those guys don't post on TikTok.
Chai Hard
Starbucks has been winning back customers with changes that range from bringing back the condiment bar to getting rid of a surcharge for nondairy milk. But its reformulated chai isn't going down as smoothly.
This year's new "premium chai" recipe reflects the chain's fresh focus on customization, using just two grams of honey to give customers more control over sweetness.
Regulars say they don't want it.
They're complaining on Reddit and store sites, signing petitions to bring back the old formula and hassling customer-service chatbots, Heather Haddon reports this morning for The Wall Street Journal. They're becoming part-time sleuths, trying to figure out the recipe to replicate their lost chai.
And they're accusing Starbucks of nefarious intent. By dialing down the sweetener in the original formula, their theory goes, Starbucks is forcing them to spend more on pumps of vanilla syrup or other add-ins to remake their drink.
Starbucks said it doesn't cost more to add classic syrup or chai to the revised drinks, even if flavors like vanilla or brown sugar go for a standard 80 cents extra.
The Magic Number
Global headcount reduction just announced at The Trade Desk, equivalent to about 585 jobs, as the ad-tech firm confronts a series of challenges
Quotable
The WSJ CMO Council
The community where marketing leaders drop the corporate speak and share what's actually happening. The WSJ CMO Council unites leaders from the world's most influential brands including Adobe, Audi, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Taco Bell, P&G and Verizon.
Tap into the connections and WSJ intelligence that move careers forward and separate the prepared from the scrambling.
Request Information
Keep Reading
How New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani encourages creators' adulatory and often viral videos. [NYT]
Fox News parted ways with Maria Bartiromo after the longtime anchor disclosed coverage plans to the White House. [WSJ]
Several tech news publications removed articles by crypto-friendly freelancers following questions about whether the authors actually exist. [Press Gazette]
Marketers are putting a new question in briefs for creators: How well do you influence AI? [Digiday]
AI music platform Suno pulled an ad featuring Mary J. Blige, saying it had entered into a deal with someone who falsely claimed to be her representative. [THR]
Athletic Brewing named Dan Kleinman its new CMO as the nonalcoholic brewer steps up sports sponsorships and national media spending. [Marketing Dive]
IT firm Veeam named Freshworks customer-growth chief Mika Yamamoto as its new chief marketing and customer AI officer. [Demand Gen Report]
Victoria's Secret once again boosted its full-year outlook, pointing to progress against its turnaround plan, even as second-quarter sales growth cooled. [WSJ]
Walmart will begin offering delivery from Dunkin' locations inside its stores, expanding the restaurant delivery service it began with Subway earlier this year. [QSR]
The standard sea of matte-pastel water bottles is starting to be flecked with shiny takes from Australia's Frank Green. [BI]
CMO Today won't be published Monday in observance of the Labor Day holiday. We'll be back in your inbox on Tuesday.
About Us
We bring you the most important (and intriguing) marketing and experience news every day. Write me at nat.ives@wsj.com any time with feedback on the newsletter or comments on specific items. We want to hear from you.
And follow the CMO Today team on X: @wsjCMO, @megancgraham, @dollydeighton, @patrickcoffee and @natives.
Comments