Monday, January 22, 2007

Rush T-Shirts

by
Josh Orendi & Matt Mattson

Does your chapter have Rush T-Shirts made every semester?

If so, here are a few quick questions...
  1. How much money do you normally spend on Rush T-Shirts?
  2. How much time do you normally spend trying to think of the coolest idea ever?
  3. How many members have you gotten because of the time and money you've spent on Rush T-Shirts?

The only people you are recruiting
with “cool t-shirts” are screen printers.
It is amazing to look at the creativity, passion and dedication that fraternity/sorority members have for... designing T-shirts. I swear, if we didn't plan events and design T-shirts, I'm not sure Greek Life would even exist. We come up with funny, kitschy, goofy, disgusting, often offensive slogans, logos and themes, but we rarely sit back and examine whether those things actually get any results.

Think of it another way... If you just arrived for your freshman year, and some stranger walked up to you and your parents on campus with a shirt that had the word "RUSH" paired with letters from some foreign language on the front, and on the back of their shirt was some risqué slogan that is demeaning to women or sexually suggestive, would you be super excited to pledge your life to him? Probably not.

Your Rush T-shirts belong in the SOCIAL BUDGET. The recruitment budget should be reserved for “results producing activities.” Nobody joins because of a Rush T-shirt. Let’s be honest, the shirts are more for the members than they are for the prospects. Become obsessed with focusing your dollars and energy on “results producing activities.” And if you do make T-Shirts, remember that your Grandma will probably see it someday, and if she doesn't, 30 years from now your 14-year-old daughter will run across a picture of you in it. Just something to think about.

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