Rush South Made: Our Summer 2026 Internship Campaign

If you’ve been on the internet in August at any point in the last few years, you know RushTok. Sororities at SEC schools drop these insanely produced, cinematic recruitment videos and the whole internet stops scrolling to watch. Millions of views. National press coverage. Girls running home crying with bid cards. It’s a whole thing.

We’re in Knoxville, Tennessee. Home of UT Knoxville. Basically the epicenter of this entire cultural moment. And we’re a creative agency that makes cool sh*t for a living.

So obviously we had to put our own spin on it.

Introducing Rush South Made

Rush South Made is our summer 2026 recruitment campaign. We took the format of a real sorority rush video and applied it to our agency. Same cinematic production quality, same fast cuts, same slow motion shots, same cinematic energy. But instead of a sorority house it’s our office, instead of bid day sparkling cider it’s a keg, and in stead of a pool party it’s foosball.

We even created our own Greek identity for it: Sigma Mu (ΣM), which stands for South Made. We made rush shirts. We painted a bid day banner by hand. We ran a full Rush Week with themed dress up days and gift card prizes for best dressed each day. We took the whole team out on a boat. And we threw a Bid Day party at our office on July 17th with custom matching bid day shirts, personalized bid cards, balloons, streamers, and confetti.

Why We Did It This Way

We could have posted a “now hiring” graphic, but we didn’t want to. We believe that the best way to attract creative people is to actually be creative. A ‘now hiring’ post tells people what we’re looking for. This campaign shows them what we’re about. There’s a difference.

We recruit a lot of our interns and early career team members from UT and other universities, and those people are already watching RushTok content every August. So instead of hoping they’d stumble across a job posting, we made something they’d actually want to watch, in a format they already love, at the exact moment they were paying the most attention.

It’s also just a genuinely honest look at our culture. We travel a lot. We shoot content in cool places. We work hard and we have a lot of fun doing it. The rush video format let us show all of that in about 90 seconds without it feeling like a recruiting pitch.

The way we recruited says a lot about what we’re looking for. We’re not hiring people to fill a seat. We’re looking for creatives who notice when something is clever, who appreciate when a brand does something unexpected, and who would rather make something worth watching than send an email. This campaign is our way of saying: if you get it, you’ll get us.

What Rush Week Actually Looked Like

Rush Week ran July 13 through 17. Sororities typically do themed days during their own work week before formal recruitment to build hype and show potential new members what their house culture is all about. So, naturally, we did the same!

Monday was Cute PJs Day

Monday was Cute PJs Day, a slow and cozy start to the week. It’s also a bit of a pun since we’re dreaming about our new interns. The team walked into the office to find the whole space decked out in pink and orange balloon decor, which set the tone for the whole week.

Tuesday was Pink Out Day

Tuesday was Pink Out Day. Pink is one of our biggest brand colors and it shows up everywhere in our office, so we just went all the way with it. Pink wigs, pink face paint, pink everything. Old City Coffee also came out that day and printed Sigma Mu logos onto our coffees, which was a really fun touch for the whole team.

Wednesday was Tropical Day

Wednesday was Tropical Day, inspired by our Marco Island office. We took the whole team out on the water thanks to Nautical Boat Club, one of our amazing clients, and got some incredible content in the process.

Thursday was Hometown Day

Thursday was Hometown Day. When you’re based in Knoxville, people tend to assume the whole team is local. We actually have people from Canada, California, Kentucky, and everywhere in between! Hometown Day was a fun way to show that off.

Friday was Bid Day

Friday was Bid Day. Everyone got their custom Sigma Mu Bid Day shirts, opened their personalized bid cards, and celebrated at the office.

Our videographer was there all week capturing everything. The main video drops soon, timed to land when our target audience is already deep in RushTok content.

The Part Where We Ask You to Apply

We’re looking for our next class of interns. We want people who grew up on social media and actually understand how it works, who know the difference between content that performs and content that just exists, and who want to work on real campaigns for real clients alongside a team that cares about the work.

Think you’d fit in at South Made? Apply for our next internship class and show us what you can bring to the team.

Apply for an Internship