FINAL WRITTEN EVENT

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“44% of sexual assault victims are under the age of 18.” 1
This statistic plays a crucial role in the mission of our project, because high school students
are most often 18 and under. This problem is prevalent in Blacksburg High School and yet seems to
go unnoticed; therefore, we feel the need to bring it to the attention of the community. We believe
that sexual violence shouldn’t be labeled strictly as a problem on college campuses, because there
exists much overlooked evidence that sexual violence occurs in high school as well.
We believe that education on the subject should start in high school to prevent further
occurrences while students are still in high school rather than waiting until college to recognize the
problem. As a part of our research we connected with the National Sexual Violence Resource Center
(NSVRC.) Their mission is to provide leadership in preventing and responding to sexual violence
through collaboration, sharing and creating resources, and promoting research. To assist the
NSVRC, the Blacksburg High School DECA chapter has organized a campaign called kNOw means
NO. With a variety of awareness events and media communication, BHS DECA plans to effectively
represent the NSVRC by raising awareness and communication about sexual violence as well as
raising funds to donate to NSVRC.
The topic of sexual violence covers different circumstances ranging from verbal to physical
abuse. Sexual violence is a big yet overlooked problem at Blacksburg High School, and several
II.CAMPAIGN THEME OR FOCUS
A. Statement and description of the issue to be addressed
B. Rationale for selecting the issue

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students we spoke to have been victims of both verbal and physical abuse. Sexual violence can occur
during school as well as in social settings amongst peers.
For example, Student A is a victim of verbal sexual
violence. Student A received a disturbing text message
(names have been changed) that reads, “Hey this is Joe
Happy Holidays, and all I want is to f*** your brains out.
Don’t even respond, just come over ready for the greatest
pleasure of your life.” Sadly, sexual violence extends past just verbal abuse at BHS.
As we began looking into sexual violence at BHS, we spoke with a close friend, and we were
shocked to discover something we didn’t know. She told us of a personal experience that helped
motivate us in our effort to bring awareness to this issue. We’ll call her student B, and she was
willing to tell us her story about how she was a victim of physical sexual violence in a social setting.
She tells us that she was physically assaulted by a close friend while at his house, and told us of the
pain this caused her; that she felt that she had no one to turn to, not even her friends, because she
thought that people would look down upon her. This student’s specific situation speaks volumes
about the severity of this issue in our school. The goal of our project is to bring light to this issue
and recognize that it’s happening while also educating students with facts to prevent further cases.
After reviewing student A and student B’s cases and discussing this issue with members of our
student body, we decided that it was time to #starttheconversation at Blacksburg High School.

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Our chapter chose our primary target
population to be BHS juniors and seniors, and our
secondary market as freshmen and sophomores as
well as BHS faculty, staff, and community.
To understand our school demographics, we must
first look at the make-up of our community.
There are approximately 43,609 people living in Blacksburg as of 2015 and 9.7 percent of
which are children between the ages of 0-18. This means that Blacksburg has approximately
4,230 children. We also noticed that Blacksburg’s Caucasian population is 84.39% with an
average household income of $51,810. This shows that Blacksburg is a higher income community
with low diversity. Within Blacksburg High School there are 257 seniors and 289 juniors as well
as 291 sophomores and 314 freshmen; the whole student body consists of 1,151 students. Since
we have a large student body and a heavy topic to present, we wanted our campaign to be
interactive as well as approachable. We aimed to make the project something the students
wanted to participate in as well as learn and become passionate about.
Print Media-Bruin News: The Bruin News is a student created and published
newspaper at Blacksburg High School. Once every month, the Bruin News is
C. Description of the target population
III. LOCAL MEDIA AND OTHER PROMOTIONAL POSSIBILITIES
A. Local print and broadcast media available

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delivered to every student at BHS. The newspaper covers various articles about
events in the high school as well as in the community.
Roanoke Times: Roanoke is the fifth largest metro area in the state of Virginia
(out of 15.) The Roanoke Times is the leading newspaper in the New River
Valley and the top source for news and information in Southwest Virginia. Each
week they have a circulation of over 40,000 papers and it is sold in over 1,500
locations.
Collegiate Times: The Collegiate Times is the oldest newspaper in Blacksburg,
founded in 1903. They print on Tuesdays and Fridays each week during the
academic year and distribute 8,000 copies in high-traffic locations all over
Virginia Tech campus.
News Messenger: The News Messenger is a twice-weekly newspaper serving
Blacksburg, Christiansburg, Montgomery County, Va., and Virginia Tech.
BHS School Messenger: Blacksburg High School School Messenger is an online
email service that is sent on an as-needed basis. When needed, a school
messenger is sent to every parent email, student email, and faculty email.
Broadcast Media-
Nash FM 107.1: Nash FM is a Cumulus broadcasting network for the New
River Valley. They broadcast 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

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K92: K92 is the most popular and widely listened to radio station in Southwest
Virginia. Most of their listeners are under the age of 24; therefore, they fall
under our primary as well as our secondary target markets.
WDBJ 7: WDBJ7 is the most watched local news station in Southwest and
Central Virginia. WDBJ7 serves 26 counties in Southwest and Central Virginia.
They are the CBS affiliate for areas including the Roanoke Valley, the Lynchburg
Area, the New River Valley, the Smith Mountain Lake area, Southside including
Martinsville, Danville, and the Alleghany Highlands.
WSLS 10: WSLS's award-winning team brings the news for the Roanoke-
Lynchburg market. WSLS 10 is the NBC affiliate serving Southwest, VA.
BHS School Announcements: Every morning at the beginning of school,
announcements are made over the intercom to inform the entire BHS student
body, faculty, and staff of important reminders and upcoming events.
District 3 Leadership Competition: An announcement was made at our
District 3 Leadership competition to inform our whole chapter as well as other
chapters in our district of our project and to get them involved.
In addition to the the print and broadcast media outlets, we utilized eight other promotional
activities to promote our campaign. These additional promotional activities further allowed us to
spread our message throughout Blacksburg High School and the school community.
B. Other possible promotional activities

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Hallway Bulletin Board:
Throughout a given school day there are over 1,150 students in the hallways of Blacksburg High
School. There are four main hallways at BHS that connect with one common hallway at the center.
We placed our posters in this central area to ensure that students would pass it various times.
Hallway TV Advertisements:
At BHS there are TVs in all of the hallways and common areas. We put advertisements about our
campaign on the TVs that ran on a loop all day long with other information about activities going on
at BHS. This form of advertising was ideal for our project because all students see the TV slides;
therefore, the information was distributed to both our primary and secondary target markets.
Classroom Presentations:
There are 35 senior and junior English classes, with an average of 25 students to a class.
Classroom presentations offer the unique opportunity of interacting with students on a more
personal level. By visiting all the junior and senior English classrooms, we were able to meet with
every single person in our primary target market. This allows the students to have the campaign
focus explained to them on a very personal level. This would provide the opportunity to get
feedback from the students and allow their questions to be answered. Student-driven messages
allow other students to respond positively and relate to the subject, and having fellow students
present the theme invited others to embrace it.
Social Media Outlets:
About 78% of high school students have smart phones according to recent research from Harvard
University. Twitter is quickly becoming one of the most prominent social media outlets amongst

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high school students, allowing for a continuous feed of live updates from people one follows. The
users only follow accounts they want to hear from, and people can post, “retweet,” or “like” others’
tweets. Facebook is still the most popular form of social media, with over 1 billion users; 98% of our
senior class is on Facebook. Facebook allows users to communicate with friends, organizations, and
pages that they like or are affiliated with. Organizations can post information, create events, and
send notifications to people who have “liked” or “joined” their page.
Movie Showing:
We held a movie showing of The Mask You Live In. It is a documentary
that follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to
themselves, while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity,
and how those standards of masculinity can lead to increased sexual
violence. The entire student body and community were encouraged to
attend, which allowed the opportunity for BHS students, faculty, staff,
and NRV community to come together and become further educated
about sexual violence and how it correlates to masculinity. The students and community would be
gathered together to discuss the theme of the project, which would then accommodate for a
question and answer session after the movie to talk about the film as well as any other questions
about the project, movie, or this issue at BHS.
White Out Basketball Game:
The White Out Basketball Game was a fundraiser for the NSVRC (National Sexual Violence
Resource Center) as well as an awareness event for our project. We declared the theme of a home

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basketball game “white out,” as a way to get students involved with our project. The whole student
section, as well as many of the parents, participated in the theme. We also had free admission to the
basketball game for those who attended the movie showing, hoping to collect money for the NSVRC.
At halftime we made an announcement to inform everyone in attendance of our project and to tell
them that there were donation jars for the NSVRC set up at the admissions booth and concessions.
Town Awareness Day:
As a way to involve our whole Blacksburg community, we sent an email to our mayor asking if
we could make this project bigger by creating a Town Awareness Day recognizing the prevention of
sexual violence. Unfortunately, we haven’t heard back from the mayor; however, we still plan on
implementing this portion of our campaign regardless of when we receive a response.
Marquee:
To advertise our movie showing, we had a message put on the digital marquee in front of our
school on a main road so that we could reach the members of our secondary target market who are
part of the BHS school community. This includes friends and family of BHS students who don’t
attend the high school.
Hallway Bulletin Board:
Our DECA chapter came together and created an eye-catching bulletin board that sits in the
common area of our school a main gathering point that every student will pass through at least once
every day. This location was the prime spot to place our bulletin board, because both our primary
and secondary target markets will be reached.
C. Media mix and rationale for media and other promotional activities

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Hallway TV Advertisements:
We utilized the TVs throughout our school as a form of advertisement for our project. The
slides on the TVs informed our peers of the mission of the project as well as gave them important
dates of our events. We kept the slides clean and simple but eye-catching so that reading them
while walking through the halls was easy for the students and faculty and got their attention at the
same time.
Classroom Presentations:
Our Blacksburg DECA chapter decided to visit every single junior and senior English class, as
well as several other miscellaneous classes (Government, AP environmental science, marketing) or
classes in which the teachers felt especially passionate about our project. In a period of ten minutes
we presented our project to each class, telling them why we chose this topic, showing them
statistics, and asking them to get involved in order to make a change in our school and community.
In total we reached 35 English classes and every student in our primary target market as well as a
good majority of students and faculty in our secondary target market.
Social Media Outlets:
In order to reach our target demographic
audience, we used specific social media outlets.
Our primary target market and a portion of our
secondary target market was reached through Twitter. Students at this age are most involved on
this social media, and by sending out tweets we could alert our followers of upcoming events and
important information surrounding the project. A portion of our secondary target market was

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reached through Facebook. Most of the faculty, staff, and BHS community is active on this social
media because of their age, therefore we found it to be fitting to reach them.
Movie Showing:
We decided that showing the award winning film The Mask You Live In would be beneficial for
our community to see, because it gives a different perspective on the issue of standards in society.
The film focuses on recognizing standards of masculinity that men are supposed to live up to in
today’s society and how this pressure leads to increased sexual violence. Our audience showed up
for the movie showing and everything was going as planned until the technology department alerted
us that the computer we had brought wasn’t compatible with the system, so we had to tell our
viewers of the situation and reschedule. However, the second time around we knew exactly what to
do and even had a larger audience.
Whiteout Basketball Game:
We dedicated a home basketball game to our project as well as used it as a fundraiser for the
NSVRC. The theme of the game was “whiteout,” and after advertising it on social media and
promoting it via word of mouth marketing, we had a large turnout of both parents and students all
of who participated in the theme. The basketball game was directly after our movie showing, so we
offered free admission to any students and parents who attended the movie and planned to attend
the game. We also had donation jars set up at the ticket booth and concessions, hoping that those
who got into the game for free would donate to our cause. There was an announcement made at
halftime to inform those in attendance of our project and what we were doing and urge them to
donate to a great cause.

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Town Awareness Day:
We are in contact with the town of Blacksburg about scheduling a town awareness day in
support of the prevention of sexual violence in our community. We believe that the awareness day
will be scheduled for sometime mid March.
Marquee:
To advertise our movie showing, we had a message put
on the digital marquee in front of our school on a main road
so that we could reach the members of our secondary target
market that are part of the BHS school community. This
includes friends and family of BHS students who don’t
attend the high school.
There were thirteen people who were the
powerhouse behind helping us create and carry out
our campaign. We wanted to involve as much of
Blacksburg High School by utilizing members from
our own DECA chapter, but also members from
other organizations within the BHS student body.
We aimed to have our message spread quickly and
impact as many students as possible. Each member
IV. CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION AND IMPLEMENTATION
A. Organizational chart, member involvement and job description

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of the team had specific responsibilities and goals. In working together, we were able to successfully
reach our primary and secondary target markets.
School Promotions Director:
Genty oversaw the creation of the hallway bulletin board and the TV
advertisements. He also worked with the school newspaper staff to share our
campaign with the student body.
Community Promotions Director: Jane Chadwick
Jane was in charge of finding volunteer students to help with the
classroom presentations. She was also in charge of public relations and media
attention for the presentations. Jane worked along side Austin Jones, our
student body representative to coordinate our efforts. Lastly she was in charge of collecting data to
prove that sexual violence awareness was necessary at Blacksburg High School.
School Events Director: Brayden Shushock
Brayden was in charge of running all the major school-wide events
such as the movie showing, basketball game, the presentation to
administration, and the implementation of the classroom presentations. He
worked with other school organizations to schedule and coordinate the
events with the school and the student body.
Social Media Director: Genna Porth
Genna was in charge of all social media for the campaign. She handled
our Twitter, insuring that our followers and student body were up to date on

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all the events and promotions through out the campaign. She drafted and scheduled her Tweets to
insure maximum potential reach. She sent out the link for our survey and answered questions
through our Twitter and Facebook.
Photography Specialist: Avery Stolte
Avery worked with the photography classes and students to take
pictures for documentation of our campaign. She helped with editing,
choosing angles for pictures, and deciding what photos would have the most
impact.
Technology Specialist: Lydia Modelyn
Lydia was the head coordinator for everything technology related in
our campaign. She worked with the theater department and the students in
charge of the sound box in the auditorium to ensure we had the correct lighting and set up for the
movie showing.
Classroom Presentation Manager: Marissa Wharton
Marissa approached the English teachers to inform them about the
future classroom presentations that the volunteers were going to be making.
She created the PowerPoint for the classroom presentations. Marissa managed
the list and was in charge of delivering the information to the students. She
also assisted in helping us find students who were willing to talk to us about their past experience
with sexual violence.

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Social Media Consultant: Hannah Altizer
Hannah worked along side Genna to manage the Twitter and Facebook
accounts. She helped to come up with our social media slogan
#starttheconversation, and she utilized her past DECA experiences in the VA
only event of Social Media to further the success of our social media outlets.
Assistant of Production: Meredith McCann
Meredith worked with Genty to decide when the best time would be to
publish our school news article, and she helped to design and set up the bulletin
boards and TV ads. Meredith was also in charge of the movie showing of The
Mask You Live In. She requested the auditorium, worked with Lydia in setting up
the sound booth, and worked on spreading the word about our showing. Meredith also requested
the rights for the movie so we could legally show it to a big group of people without infringing on
any copyrights.
Logo Producer: Andrea Shemeley
Andrea worked with design programs such as InDesign and Photoshop
to create a one-of-a-kind logo for our campaign. She took our campaign title
“kNOw means NO” and designed a logo that we then utilized on all aspects of
our campaign. She designed the logo in various formats so that we could use it
in any way we needed.

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Awareness Associate: Erin Hendershot
Erin helped to raise awareness throughout the student body for our campaign. She did this
by writing the announcements for the school intercom, talking about the project to
a variety people in the student body, and utilizing word-of-mouth marketing. She
also worked on contacting the Blacksburg Mayor in order to set up a town
awareness day. She sent emails to the mayor and his assistants hoping to hear a
response. She has not heard back yet from the mayor, but she plans to follow through with the
awareness day once she does even if it is after the project has stopped.
Whiteout Coordinator: Noah Rader
Noah was in charge of the whiteout basketball game and the fundraising
efforts at the game as well. He was in charge of contacting the Blacksburg High
School Athletic Director to gain permission for us to have a school-wide whiteout
effect the day of the game and to extend the theme to the basketball game as well.
He worked with the Principal, Mr. Kitts, to obtain permission to send out a school wide messenger
to students and their parents, giving notice about the game and informing them about our project.
Noah worked with the BHS boys’ varsity basketball coach to integrate our whiteout theme into the
game by having the players wear whiteout jerseys.
Student Body Representative: Austin Jones
Austin is a Student Body Officer at Blacksburg High School. He was our
contact with the student government association. He made sure that both DECA

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and the student government were aware of what was taking place and that they were both involved.
Administration Representative: Brian Kitts
Mr. Kitts was our representative from administration at Blacksburg
High School. He is our current Principal and was willing to help us in any
way possible by approving ideas, and getting school board approval for our
project etc. He helped us gather data to show that our project was necessary at BHS, and he helped
us to brainstorm ideas for the campaign so that every student would be involved and so that parents
would be aware. Genty worked along side Mr. Kitts so that things would run smoothly.
Faculty Representative: Eric Thomas
Mr. Thomas was our representative from faculty at Blacksburg High
School. He is a junior history teacher, meaning that he had contact with a
large portion of our primary target market. He was also especially passionate
about our mission and was willing to help us with anything we needed. He
announced the importance of our project to his classes, and he let his students volunteer for
classroom presentations.
Public Relations Associate: Leah Hendershot
Leah is a VA DECA Region 3 Vice President. She was in charge of the
district 3 Leadership Competition and allowed us to make an announcement
about our project at DLC, helping to spread the word about our mission to our
entire district. Leah also worked with Genty to gain publicity within our school
and community for our campaign. She informed the news stations, radio

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stations, and newspapers of our efforts, provided them with her contact information in case they had
any further questions, and she wrote various press releases.
Print Media
To increase the publicity for our project and our school’s involvement within the community, we
invited various media outlets to cover our movie showing and basketball game. On Friday, January
19th
2016, we held our showing of The Mask You Live In. We sent out invitations to various news
sources, we only got two responses. The Bruin News both online and print sources sent
representatives to the movie showing and basketball game. Their coverage included interviews with
Jane, Leah, and Brayden to discuss the progress of the event and the success so far, as well as why
we chose the topic, kNOw means NO. The News Messenger contacted one of our DECA members
through email and requested information and photographs from the event.
Broadcast Media
Our primary target market is juniors and seniors at Blacksburg High School who listen to the
radio regularly, watch the news, and are at school on a daily basis. Because of this we chose to also
implement a lot of broadcast media utilizing the local radio stations, news sources, and our own
school PDA system. We sent out requests for air time to four local radio stations and news stations.
We received three responses interested in our broadcast media. Nash FM, a local country station
released a public service announcement about our Awareness Week as well as the movie showing
and basketball game. The local NPR (National Public Radio) station also released a public service
about our event as well, including the activities and encouraging support. The on-air broadcast ran
B. Description of campaign and documentation

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for thirty days prior to our event, every day. WDBJ 7 also responded with interest in our project.
We were in contact with them through email, giving details and testimonies from our project, but
sadly we received no air time from them because a larger national news story broke out in our town.
Hallway Bulletin Board
To help promote our campaign, we chose to have a bulletin board in the main hallway of our
school. The board was created and made the Wednesday before the awareness week so that people
could anticipate upcoming events. The board utilized our logo, included our purpose and how to get
involved, and advertised all of our social media information.
TV Advertisements
To help show the school about our campaign we decided to have a TV slide that would run on a
continuous loop all day in the main hallway of our school. The board was created and made the
Wednesday before the awareness week so that people could anticipate the upcoming events
surrounding our project. The board utilized our logo, included our purpose, told students how to
get involved, and displayed all of our social media information. Including the TV slides in our
campaign was an important promotional move, because the TVs are something new and interesting
in our school, giving us the perfect opportunity to alert the
school of our project.
Social Media
We had two main sources of social media that we used for
this campaign: Twitter and Facebook. We felt that Twitter and

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Facebook were two forms of social media that would most effectively reach both our primary and
secondary target markets.
Twitter is a growing social media site that is being utilized by Montgomery County Public
Schools (MCPS) as a result of our new superintendent who wanted to create a Twitter account for
each school, club, and teacher in our county. Utilizing Twitter would help us to spread the word
about our campaign quickly and effectively as well as reach our primary target market. We reached
out to our Blacksburg High School twitter, Blacksburg High School Help Save the Next Girl Twitter,
and our local community Twitter “Blacksburg Stuff,” and asked them to retweet us and send out
their own Tweets about our events. All three Twitters we reached out to responded and helped us
spread the word. This helped to gain interest in our campaign as well as spread our hashtag
#starttheconverstaion.
Facebook is the primary source of social media used to target our secondary target market. We
utilized features within Facebook such as our BHS senior Facebook page to contact 100% of the
seniors and get them involved in the project. We created a Facebook page “kNOw means NO” and
added a majority of the BHS student body, families of BHS students, and the Blacksburg Community
to it. We reached out to fellow Facebookers and asked them to share and comment and like our
posts so that more of the community would see them as well.
To make our social media campaign more interactive, we had a group of students who
constantly watched our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Prior to and during the awareness week,
they would send out Tweets and posts, as well as answer and questions that anyone from the
community might have as well as comment on how it was going and what event was coming next.

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We also used our account to share shocking statistics and facts about sexual assault in teens and
high schools to show that it is a current problem in society as well as in Blacksburg High School.
Lastly, we linked a survey to our social media to gather information to show that our project was
necessary at Blacksburg High School.
Basketball Game/Movie Showing
To finish off our campaign, we wanted to have an event that
would bring in a large portion of our community. Blacksburg
DECA Chapter chose to host a movie showing and sponsor a
basketball game. We chose to show The Mask You Live In a
documentary about how boys and young men struggle to stay
true to themselves while negotiating America's narrow definition
of masculinity and how our standards of masculinity lead to increased cases of sexual violence.
Originally, we reserved the auditorium and our supporters showed up on time only to find out that
the computer we brought to show the movie on wasn’t compatible with our school’s system, and
ultimately we weren’t able to show the movie on that date, but we immediately rescheduled. We
reserved the auditorium for 5pm two Fridays later and showed the movie to over fifty people. Before
the movie began, we did an activity through the “No More” campaign, in which we passed out
sheets of paper that said “No More,” and attendees were instructed to write why they would no
longer tolerate sexual violence. We served dinner and refreshments as well.
Directly after the movie showing, we sponsored a home Blacksburg High School Bruins
basketball game. Through our various social media outlets, we shared that the theme of the game

23
would be whiteout to support and draw attention to preventing sexual violence as well as bring
attention to our fundraiser for the NSVRC. All of the student section, and most of the crowd
participated in the whiteout theme and contributed to our project. The Bruins Basketball team also
wore white jerseys to represent our project as well.
Classroom Presentations
To kick off our campaign we gathered students from BHS DECA and other school groups. We
tried to include a wide variety of responsible students from all the clubs and sports teams at
Blacksburg High School so that we could appeal to as may students as possible. We removed the
students from class to prepare them for their presentations and instructed each presenter on how to
show the information to the classes. Each presentation started with the students introducing
themselves with the “kNOw means NO” logo on the screen.
They told the students that the “kNOw means NO”
campaign was a DECA public relations project and further
explained what both of those things meant. Then the
presenter told them of the intention of the project and that
“kNOw means NO” aims to educate BHS students and faculty
about sexual assault, alert them of how prevalent it is in Blacksburg High School, and prevent
further occurrences. They then shared with the students all of the activities that our campaign was
implementing and how everyone could get involved. Presenters shared shocking facts about sexual
assault cases in high schools nationally, and three specific instances of sexual assault among a small

24
group of friends at BHS. The presentation encouraged students and faculty to come to the movie
showing and the basketball game to support the campaign and to create awareness.
The intent of the classroom presentations was to reach our whole primary target market by
presenting to all junior and senior English classes, and reach a good majority of our secondary target
market through other miscellaneous classes such as marketing, both of which we accomplished.
Print Media
The school paper “The Bruin News” is delivered once a month to English classrooms. The
paper is also available to students and parents online. We worked with the newspaper classes to
advertise for our campaign in both the print and online resources. The Bruin News has an estimated
reach of 1500. The article had details about our campaign, its theme and the activities we completed.
Broadcast Media
The intercom announcements, NASH FM PSA, and the DLC District Three Leadership
Conference had an estimated reach of 61,875 and an estimated impression of 434,150. The BHS
school announcements had an estimated reach of 1,300 and an estimated impression 13,000. They
ran daily for two weeks every morning throughout the entire school. NASH FM radio station Public
Service announcement had an estimated reach of 60,000 and an estimated impression of 420,000.
We estimated that the listeners would hear the PSA at least once a day, and hear it daily for the
duration of the week it was played. The District Three Leadership conference had an estimated
reach of 575 DECA members and judges and an estimated impact of 1,150. We had two
announcements to the entire conference about our project.
C. Estimated impact on the target population

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Hallway Bulletin Board
Our poster had an estimated reach of 2,000. There was an estimated impression of 72,600.
The poster was placed in the major common area that every student must pass to enter and exit
school and well as pass to get to and come back from lunch. Also, during the duration of the week
when our poster was up, our school had a night where all the 8th
graders and their parents came to
tour BHS. So those students and their parents increased our impressions and reach. We chose this
location because it allowed our poster to have the maximum possible exposure. The design and the
coloring of the poster was easily identifiable with our project.
TV Advertisements
The advertisements that we had in our school had an estimated reach of 1,300 people and an
estimated impression of 52,000. There are four TVs that students pass everyday that had our
advertisements on them, and the ads ran for a total of two school weeks. The TVs are placed in
common areas, the lunch room, and near the entrances and exits of school.
Social Media
1.Facebook-Our official “kNOw means NO” account had several posts updating students on the
progress of the campaign. This page had an estimated reach of 600 people and an estimated
impression of 1,800 people. By utilizing the “Senior Class of 2016” page where every single senior is
a part of it, and making posts on the page, we were able to reach 257 people with an estimated
impression 771.
2.Twitter-Our Twitter page had an estimated reach of 15,700 people and an estimated
impression of 31,400. Our page had 316 followers, but most of our reach and impressions came

26
from big local accounts Tweeting to our account and Tweeting about our campaign and event. We
had several people from the community Tweet to our account and discuss our project and their
opinions about it. Our Twitter campaign was a huge success.
The basketball game and movie showing had an estimated reach of 450 people and an
estimated impression of 450 people. We were able to show the movie to a variety of students,
faculty and the Blacksburg community. We promoted our message and educated the attendees
about sexual assault and how the idea masculinity is a problem in our society today. At the
basketball game we shared with the entire audience the purpose of our campaign, the whiteout
theme and that we were collecting donations for the NSVRC.
Class Presentations
The classroom presentations had an estimated reach of 875 and an estimated impression of
1750. During the presentation the presenters informed the classes about the project and all of its
activities and the students were able to discuss their questions and opinions about the campaign.
We reached every single junior and senior classroom when doing our presentation. We were able to
talk to students about a sensitive subject on a more personal level that made the topic more easily
understood, and opened up the topic for conversation.
Hallway Bulletin Board and TV Advertisements
The poster and the TV ads that were created by BHS DECA and the digital media classes were
V. EVALUATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Evaluation of the process

27
one of the most effective ways that promoted our campaign.
Our posters and TV slides were noticeable compared to
others around the school. We noticed that students stopped
on their way to class to read the board and the TVs, and
then they discussed them amongst their friends.
Social Media
The BHS DECA chapter used two major sources of social media, and they turned out to be
the most successful form of promotion for our campaign. We used Twitter and Facebook and
through those two sources alone reached 99% of our primary target population and 80% of our
secondary target population.
The basketball game and movie showing enabled us to involve a variety of students, faculty,
and members of the community. We were able to educate people about the current problem of
sexual assault at BHS and inform them of our project. The movie showed people that our culture’s
expectations put exceptional standards on boys and men and that the focus on masculinity may lead
to increased violence and sexual violence. The basketball game was a fun way to create awareness
and allow the community to feel like they were a part of the campaign and the fundraising.
Class Presentations
Blacksburg High School DECA incorporated the whole school successfully and reached 100%
of our primary target market through our class presentations. We were able to introduce our
campaign to students in a personal environment that allowed us to connect with the students more

28
than many other campaigns had done. It also allowed for the students to give us feedback and share
their reactions, thoughts, and feelings.
After completing our campaign, the Blacksburg DECA Chapter felt we had an overall positive
reaction and result. There were things we could have improved, but we felt the campaign was more
successful because we took a semi-personal approach to a sensitive subject and allowed students to
react, rather than taking a traditional “hands off” approach to the public relations project.
1. Our first recommendation is to utilize more resources to increase involvement from the local
community. Use a variety of different outlets such as posting things around the local community,
going to local schools and businesses, and talking to impactful community members. This will
enable the entire community to be more involved throughout the campaign.
2. The second recommendation the group would like to give is to be passionate. "You have to be
burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you're not passionate
enough from the start, you'll never stick it out."- Steve Jobs. The main group of DECA students were
passionate about solving the problem of sexual assault in high schools and some were able to
connect on a personal level because they were victims themselves. But other members did not
recognize its importance or connect to it on a personal level. We believe that if every member was
as passionate as the group of students who connected with the topic then the campaign would have
had a more meaningful impact.
3. Our group would like to recommend that the theme of the campaign should be presented with
some prior knowledge. Although the class presentations worked as a way to present our ideas, the
B. Recommendations for future campaigns

29
presenters could have been more educated about the history and facts of sexual assault in high
schools. A video or introduction to the subject of the campaign as well as the campaign plan would
lead to a more successful campaign.
4. The BHS DECA Chapter would also recommend creating a scheduled calendar of events for the
project. If every participating member had a final event schedule, the students would be better
organized, on task, and have a greater knowledge of when everything was happening. The leaders of
our campaign shared the events with the participating members a day or two before they were
happening; if each member had a full schedule they would be better equipped with the knowledge of
our campaign and better able to answer the time-related questions regarding the campaign.
5. Finally, the last recommendation that Blacksburg High School DECA has is to work with
outside sources to expand the campaign. This January we were approached by a member of Student
Affairs at Virginia Tech and several graduate students interested in social justice studies in high
schools and asked to expand our campaign to Virginia Tech and Radford College campuses. There
will be meetings to discuss the problem with faculty from both schools and BHS DECA members
that participated in the project. Together we are developing a campaign that will include college
education of this problem, as well as participation in future campaigns. The new partnership
between Virginia Tech, Radford University, and Blacksburg High School DECA helped us to expand
our campaign not only through out our school but to 42,000 local college students.

30
1. "Statistics | RAINN | Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network." Statistics | RAINN |
Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.
2. "National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) |." National Sexual Violence Resource
Center (NSVRC) |. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.
3. "Sexual Assault Prevention." Sexual Assault Facts. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.
4. "Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Website." Facts and Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 09
Feb. 2016.
5. "Home - NOMORE.org | Together We Can End Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault."
Together We Can End Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Feb.
2016.
6. "Town of Blacksburg, VA : Home." Town of Blacksburg, VA : Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 09
Feb. 2016.
VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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