Vol 133. Skims: Campus rush 🏫

Case Studied
Building around rush 

College students have been a target demographic for consumer brands for decades. 

Red Bull built an entire campus rep program around late-night study sessions. Victoria's Secret Pink ran a long-standing campus ambassador program built on giveaways and events. And recently, Skims launched a clothing line designed for college students during a very specific moment of the school year. 

This week, Case Studied explores how Skims joined the RushTok craze.

The Brief

Skims launched in 2019 as a shapewear brand co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jens Grede. Since then, it's added an apparel line and posted revenue growth of 438% over three years. 

Like many other consumer brands, Skims recently began focusing more on college Greek life.

Why? One word: RushTok.

This realm of TikTok content is specifically focused on sorority recruitment. It’s been gaining in popularity over the past few years as students began posting their outfits, rush updates, and bid day results. It’s expanded to the point where some students on RushTok have over one million followers. 

With the rise of RushTok, Sorority recruitment became a reliable tentpole moment on the marketing calendar for certain brands. The typical playbook involves influencer partnerships and product tie-ins. Poppi sent customized cans to sorority chapters. Princess Polly designed "rush-ready" outfits paired with discount codes. And Skims decided to build an entire product line around it.

Sponsored
Delegate your 2027 marketing agency hiring to us today. For free!

Smart teams are already locking in next year's agencies so they don't fall behind. They know the RFP process can be looooonnnng — and that to hit 2027 KPIs, the right agency needs to be hired and ramped well before January.

Get ahead of it now:

• ✅ $0 for brands. No fees, no markups, ever to run a search

• ✅ 4,000+ vetted agencies across every channel and specialty

• ✅ Matched to your budget, stage, and goals, not a directory dump

• ✅ Shortlist in ~10 days so you're hired and ready, not still searching in Q1

• ✅ Trusted by Shopify, Coca-Cola, Columbia Records & Burt's Bees

Hand off your search and let us do the heavy lifting, so you walk into 2027 with the right agency already in place

The Execution

Skims designed an apparel line called the Campus Collection with college life and younger generations in mind. It included dorm-ready basics like camis, baby tees, zip-up hoodies, polo sweatshirts, and sweatpants. 

For the launch, though, the brand didn’t follow the usual playbook of seeding products to established influencers. Instead, it partnered with actual college students. 

Skims cast more than a dozen student models across multiple universities including University of Alabama, San Diego State, Duke, Northeastern, USC, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Many of the students that were cast had sorority affiliations prominently listed in their social media bios, keeping the campaign closely tied to Greek life culture. 

@mayahshai

OUT NOW @SKIMS #bamarush #skims #sorority #sororityrecruitment #modeling

Three of the featured students from University of Alabama had become recognizable RushTok faces during Bama Rush, with a combined TikTok following of more than 300,000. 

The Campus Collection dropped on social media just as upperclassmen returned to begin preparing for rush and the rest of the campus was returning for the start of the school year. 

The Results

Specific campaign metrics haven't been made public but the Campus Collection launch campaign generated coverage across fashion and marketing media. Outlets including Inc. and Vogue Business pointed to it as a notable example of how brands are engaging with RushTok. 

The broader RushTok ecosystem that Skims tapped into with the Campus Collection is substantial. Content tied to Bama Rush alone generated an estimated five billion views across platforms in 2025. The RushTok hashtag has accumulated more than 111 million posts on TikTok. And influencer posts tied to rush season have seen 79 million global impressions in comparable campaigns.

The Takeaways

1) Cast for cultural credibility.

Skims led its launch campaign with students who were already embedded in the cultural moment it was entering. This helped create a more organic feel to the partnerships and signaled that Skims understood the Greek life culture, not just the audience.

When entering a cultural space your brand isn’t already in, look for voices that are native to it. Micro influencers who are genuinely inside the world you're trying to reach can lend a different kind of authenticity than paid influencer placements. It can help your brand look less like a sponsor and more like a natural partner.

2) Be intentional about campaign timing.

RushTok arrives on a predictable schedule, and it happens to coincide with the back-to-school shopping season when college students are already primed to buy new wardrobes and accessories. Launching into that window meant Skims was showing up at the exact time its target customer was most likely to be paying attention.

If your brand has a natural connection to a seasonal or recurring cultural moment, build your campaign calendar around it early. The cultural tailwind that comes from showing up at the right time is difficult to manufacture after the fact. And showing up late, or outside the window entirely, can make even a well-executed campaign feel like an afterthought.

3)   Make products for the moment.

Most of the brands that joined in on RushTok seeded existing products to creators. Skims took it  a step further and actually created a product line specifically suited to the moment. That gave them the creative freedom to build something specifically for RushTok, rather than retrofitting existing products for it. 

When a cultural moment becomes big enough to market around, it's worth asking whether you can go beyond just a campaign. If the tentpole reflects a genuine use case for your brand, there may be an opportunity to develop a product that speaks directly to it.

Reach into the inbox: Did you know you can advertise in the Case Studied newsletter? That means having a direct line to 41,000+ senior marketers. Check out rates and availability.