This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Illinois State chapter.
Her Campus recently got an exclusive with the new-to-campus PINK team! Jenna Brauer and Paiton Florey are the two Illinois State University campus representatives and together they run the PINK ‘street team’. Girls all over ISU had questions for the team, so HC got answers!
HC: How did PINK get to the ISU campus?
J: You all got us here! There was a voting process on PINKnation.com and there was so much attention from ISU that we got PINK Campus Reps!
HC: How did you become a PINK campus representative?
J: I heard about it on the pink nation site and decided to give it a shot! I was so excited when I got chosen for an interview and even more excited when I got chosen to be one of the two reps!
P: I went to the PINK Nation website and sent in my resume. I wasn’t expecting to hear anything further, but was happily surprised when I received an email that I had been chosen for a Skype interview. I interviewed with PINK and was chosen to be one of the two Campus Reps here at Illinois State University.
HC: How are you related to Victoria’s Secret? Do you have any affiliation to the store?
P: We are representatives of the brand PINK. We aren’t store associates. Part of our job is to drive traffic to the store, obviously, but we are campus representatives and a marketing team. We want you to shop at VS, of course, but we are not affiliated with any of the stores.
HC: Will there be ISU clothing branded with PINK?
P: We hope so! At brand training, they explained to us that getting the legal rights to use the Illinois State logos and mascots is a long, difficult process. But the more excitement there is on campus (lots of social media activity, interaction and high attendance at PINK events, the faster that process should go.
HC: What kind of stuff do you giveaway?
P: For PINK Spirit week, we raffled off yogas, half zips, sweatpants, and more! We have even more merchandise to give away throughout the next few months. We have small things to give away, like sunglasses and make up bags, but also be on the lookout for some sexy bras and panties coming your way, too.
HC: Is it always free or do people have to pay to enter contests?
P: It is always free. As campus representatives, we can’t exchange currency for any of the things that corporate sends us. However, if you do see something you like, feel free to go to the PINK store or online to purchase it for yourself!
HC: How often will you hold an event on the quad?
P: We will have events basically every month. Not all will be on the quad. Some will be social media events, while others will take place in different venues. All information will be available to you through our social media pages, so follow and like us!
HC: What is your favorite thing about being a PINK rep at ISU?
J: Being able to interact with all the girls on campus. It’s fun to be able to see how excited people get when they win freebies and come to our events.
P: My favorite thing is being able to represent such an awesome brand here at ISU. I love PINK and the things that they represent, and I also love getting girls involved on campus. My hopes for the future are to become an event planner. I love that I get to start working towards that by planning PINK events on campus.
HC: What happened with the recent sorority contest that caused such an uproar?
J: We originally announced the rules that the picture with the most likes AND shares would win the competition. We got asked a totally informal question on a different post on Facebook, so it was answered informally as well. The problem with that, is that we didn’t state the rules exactly how we stated them the first time we sent them out. This caused a lot of confusion because girls didn’t realize they could also use “shares” and not just “likes”. On top of that, some girls didn’t find it fair that we counted “shares” in the first place, because the same girl could share the photo a ton of times. We totally agree that the rules should have been stated differently, but for this time, we think all is fair in share and likes!
HC: How did you go about fixing this? What are you doing to prevent it from happening again?
J: For future competitions we will use the input received from girls and only count the likes. We decided to give the first place winners the original prizes, and to make up for the confusion, we gave a smaller prize to the second place sorority as well. We hope you can all understand that we are students just like you, and since it is so new to all of us, accidents are bound to happen. This is all a learning process and experience for our future careers! We appreciate your input, and we will be putting it to use in the next social media competition to make sure all of our PINK fans at ISU know how much we love them.
HC: What are you most excited for this year that PINK has planned?
J: All the social media contests! It’s exciting to see how many girls are actively following and interacting with us on our social media, and it’s good for us to reward them for their loyalty.
P: A special event in December, involving the VS Fashion show!
Help support Illinois State University PINK
by “liking” their Facbook page
and following them on Twitter here : https://twitter.com/ilstulovesPINK