ALR Project Profile: The Red Flag Campaign for the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Action Alliance

ALR recently helped create the Red Flag Campaign for Virginia’s college campuses. The campaign combined traditional media with guerilla marketing to educate students about the warning signs – the red flags – of dating violence.

We talked to Kate McCord, the Alliance’s Public Awareness Manager, about the campaign and what made it so successful...

Let’s start at the beginning. Why is a campaign like this necessary?

The frequency of dating violence in college relationships makes it necessary. In more than 20%, one partner physically or emotionally mistreats the other through excessive jealousy, coercion, isolation, victim-blaming and even sexual assault.

 

Why was launching the Red Flag Campaign so exciting?

It was the first statewide awareness and educational campaign specifically addressing dating violence among college students.

 

When did you start the project? Who did you work with?

We began in Fall 2005. We worked with college students, campus personnel and community victims’ advocates. We also worked with Noah and ALR Design as well as PR specialist Margot Friedman with Dupont Circle Communications. The Verizon Foundation provided funding to start the project.

 

What were you trying to accomplish?

We wanted college students to ask themselves, “What are the danger signs? What are the red flags to look out for? What can friends do to intervene?”

 

So, where did you start?

We started from scratch. We had no idea what our campaign would look like. Poster campaign? Billboard campaign? Ad campaign? We decided on a campaign of six posters showing real college students, and a website. We piloted the campaign on 10 Virginia campuses last October.

 

What were your thoughts about your target audience?

They are a very savvy group. To reach them, we needed to be on the cutting edge and very innovative.

 

What was your creative breakthrough?

We decided to incorporate red flags in the posters, not just as a metaphor for the warning signs but also as a visual reminder. The copy on the posters read, “When you see a red flag, say something.”

 

Where did the guerilla marketing come in?

Once we’d created the campaign, we wondered about ways to bring more impact to the posters. To create buzz around campuses, we planted 400-500 miniature red flags – no explanation – in high-traffic student areas a week before the posters went up.

 

Did that work?

Yes, in a huge way. We were really struck by how much the red flags raised the visibility of the posters.

 

How did you test it?

All 10 campuses put up the posters; four of the 10 also used the red flags. Through student surveys we found that at the schools that used the red flags, 51% of respondents said they were aware of the Red Flag Campaign. At schools that didn’t use the red flags, 25% were aware of it.

 

Did the local communications and design community notice the campaign?

Yes. The Richmond chapter of the AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Artists) recently gave it a merit award in the poster category. Also, people at the U.S. Department of Education – a division that’s dedicated to alcohol/drug abuse and violence prevention – asked if the could feature one of the campaign posters in an article for its online publication, “Catalyst,” as an example of innovate social marketing.

 

What’s next?

We’ll launch the program with the posters and mini flags at 15 Virginia college campuses this coming October, and begin marketing the campaign to other colleges nationally. And, hopefully, we can begin to stem the tide of interpersonal violence in dating relationships.

 

For more information about the Red Flag Campaign, visit http://www.theredflagcampaign.org.