Texas State PINK campus reps Kassidee Ryder and Kiarra Regalado show off their PINK gear in August at Stellar Coffee Co.

As students embark on a new school year, one of Texas State’s newest organizations, the Victoria’s Secret PINK campus team, looks forward to promoting school spirit and empowering other students with its new apparel. 
Kassidee Ryder, a mass communications junior, and Kiarra Regalado, a public relations junior, are the inaugural PINK campus representatives at Texas State. They both found out about the PINK campus teams from friends and other universities with their own teams.
According to Ryder and Regalado, Victoria’s Secret PINK is always looking to expand its market audience that consists mostly of college students. To accomplish this, the program is brought to new college campuses every year.
In the spring, after receiving an overwhelming amount of campus rep applications from Texas State students, PINK ran a poll on its Instagram story to let its followers decide if the campus program should be implemented at Texas State or at the University of Central Florida.
After a close competition, Texas State won with the most votes. From the pool of Texas State applicants were Ryder and Regalado who got the opportunity to interview for the PINK campus program. Ryder said the high volume of applicants wanting to become a PINK campus rep entails a long but enjoyable process.
“It’s mostly just they’re trying to figure out who you are, how you represent yourself and how you would represent this brand,” Ryder said. “Then [you will] get to make mood boards that you think represent you just so they can get a creative aspect of it … it was super fun the whole time. It wasn’t like ‘oh my gosh, this is a lot.'”
After being selected as the school’s representatives, they attended training to learn the ins and outs of being a representative. Training days focused on topics like social media and marketing skills and learning how to be a mentor for their fellow PINK team members.
Typically, training takes place in person over the summer at the PINK headquarters in Ohio. However, this year’s training was pushed online because of the pandemic. Despite not experiencing their first training in person, Ryder and Regalado enjoyed learning about being a social media influencer and how to build a brand that appeals to a college audience.
“It was really fun. They tried to make it as interactive as possible, so I really enjoyed that. We got to meet a lot of influencers and people into their own brands,” Regalado said.
After training, Ryder and Regalado began the countdown for applications to be opened to Texas State’s student body in hopes to grow the campus’ very first PINK class.
One of the newest members, Peyton Jameson, a health science junior, joined the team at the start of the semester as Texas State’s PINK trendsetter. As a trendsetter, Jameson’s duties include staying up to date with the latest Victoria’s Secret releases and finding trendy ways to style clothes for photoshoots.
Jameson is most excited to connect with her team at PINK and take on the new school year as part of an organization.
“I’ve never been a part of anything like this, so this is all new for me so it’s exciting learning new things,” Jameson said.
The campus reps wanted to make sure they built a team of people who are as passionate as they are about promoting the PINK brand and gaining real-world experience in social media and branding while in college.
“We’re just looking for girls that really want to do this for the right reasons,” Ryder said. “We’re here to help market Victoria’s Secret PINK. We’re not here to do this like ‘go get free stuff.'”
To establish the Texas State PINK team name on campus and among students, Ryder and Regalado plan to host tabling events on the Quad and around campus. They have already hosted giveaways and events at local businesses like Stellar Coffee Co. and Kahvie Cafe.
“This opens up a lot of opportunities for people who want to get involved with influencing and want to be involved with promoting other brands so I think that’s very helpful to people,” Regalado said. “It just opens up a lot of doors for people who are wanting to go a further route with PR and just working with huge titles as well.”
As campus reps, Ryder and Regalado also have the opportunity to impact the design and marketing of PINK products. The reps will have a say in the design of PINK’s Texas State apparel collection.
Although the university does not gain any profit from the collection, the reps said the collaboration is a big step in giving Texas State recognition. As they prepare for the school year, the members of the PINK team look forward to spreading school spirit and getting to show their Bobcat pride.
“PINK is just a huge brand, and getting Texas State’s name out there — I mean, I think it’s the best university ever. I think it’s so great. I think that people should know how great it is and I think us working with a huge brand like that really helps to make people see ‘oh we’re not like a small university,'” Ryder said. “We’re out there, we’re big, we’re fun, we always have stuff going on. It’s a great school.”
For more information on Texas State’s PINK team, visit its Instagram @texasstatepink.