ISU greek chapters may submit YouTube videos encouraging current ISU students to join the greek community as part of the MORE video contest.

The goal is to have more student currently enrolled at Iowa State participate in Greek Getaway, a weekend event in which high school and college students stay within ISU chapters to get a taste of greek life.

But the project originated from an unlikely source: a group of five students in a journalism and mass communication course.

“We created the MORE video contest in hopes that people will look at the videos and see we are trying to better Iowa State,” said Rachel Gerdes, College Panhellenic Council vice president of communications and senior in journalism and mass communication. “Because Greek Getaway is free to current students, we want to generate more buzz and more interest.”

Working along with Gerdes and four other classmates, Makenzie Heddens, junior in journalism and mass communications, helped make the MORE video contest into a campus-wide campaign.

“For class, we had to do a [public relations] campaign and had to research what kind of tactics would work best promoting Greek Getaway,” Heddens said. “Mass e-mailings don’t seem to work. We were trying to find something that’s different that would intrigue people more.”

The class that sparked this idea is JLMC 424, Public Relations Campaigns.

“Its a hands-on real life class where we find a client or an event, and work with the people involved to do research, focus groups and go off of that to help whatever campaign it is,” Heddens said.

Each house in the greek community may submit a video for the contest. Each video promotes being greek, Greek Getaway and the benefits. This campaign does not promote the individual houses, but promotes being greek in general.

“Greek Getaway a great place to learn about being greek,” Gerdes said. “With Greek Getaway, there are no strings attached and its really fun.”

The videos for the MORE campaign are due March 22, and the governing councils will choose the top 10 videos to put onto YouTube.

Through promotions, flyers and other campaigning techniques learned in class, the team promoting this event will be raising awareness on campus the week after Spring Break.

“We want to get a higher attendance for Greek Getaway, and we wanted to tap into the audience that hasn’t been touched yet, which is current students,” Heddens said. “Lots of people are unaware they can still join even if they are in college. By starting this campaign, we hope this campaign will happen in the years to come.”

The idea of the MORE campaign was thought of by a few of the students within the group; and with Greek Getaway within the proper time frame, they decided it would be a great event to promote in a unique way.

“We chose the name MORE because by getting involved, it’s saying you want to do more with yourself; do more with being involved, which helps advance your career and future,” Gerdes said. “What more do students want from [Iowa State]? Is greek life something that can help you get more out of Iowa State?”

With the contest created by students, involving students and helping students, this group plans on helping the success of Greek Getaway with the hard work and effort put in to get the job done.

“We have been working a lot directly with the Office of Greek Affairs, as well as people from the Interfraternity Council and the Collegiate Panhellenic Council … YouTube is a media source that is so easy to use, that’s what helped us decide to use that to promote this event,” Gerdes said.

The winner of the video contest will be chosen by Jennifer Plagman-Galvin, director of Greek Affairs, as well as other members of the office staff of Greek Affairs. The winner will receive a gift card to a restaurant in Ames. To view to videos, go to youtube.com/moreisu.

“We want students to realize there is so much more to being greek, and with the MORE campaign, we want students to become aware of this,” Gerdes said. “Being greek is so much more than being a social tool; it’s also about having beliefs, values, strong academics and involvement in a nationally recognized community.”