Any ad exec knows the key to a successful advertising campaign is simplicity. And it doesn't get any simpler than the campaign launched by the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence.
Rape is a crime.
That's the message behind a series of televised public service announcements the council began airing in February in nine Florida metropolitan areas, including Tallahassee. The point was to let women who'd been victimized know they weren't to blame, and to let men who'd done the victimizing know they surely were. It seems to have worked. At a news conference Thursday at the Capitol, officials from the council and the Florida Department of Health announced a boom in the numbers of calls to the hot line. Based in Tallahassee, the call center gives rape victims referrals to services in their areas.