Seniors Plan Yoga Event for Their DECA Project

On Tuesday Feb. 15, the auxiliary gym traded in basketballs and cheering for yoga mats and peaceful silence in order to promote a clothing line called Lululemon Athletica as part of a DECA project. The event was developed by Seniors Lindy Blackman and Kirsten Clark. Blackman and Clark were to create a plan to promote a company of their choosing, just like the rest of the Marketing 2 classes.

But what separates this DECA event from others is that it started as a promotional plan not to be acted on by students. While other students were making window displays and planning a budget, Blackman and Clark were making calls and tweeting about their upcoming promotional event.

“As a DECA project we are supposed to design a promotional plan that is purely hypothetical but Kirsten and I wanted to take it a step further,” Blackman said. “I think it will really set us apart from what other schools are doing.”

Due to their love for yoga and fusion workouts, a mixture of cardio and strength training, Blackman and Clark wanted to promote what they thought was the most important part of the workout: the outfit. Both Blackman and Clark own clothing made by Lululemon Athletica, a company that designs shirts, pants and other accessories, as well as equipment geared towards yoga, and chose to highlight them after visiting the Lululemon headquarters in New York.

“We wanted to do something outside the box,” Clark said. “In New York the Lululemon store does free yoga classes every morning so we wanted to try that in a different way, almost as a test-run.”

They started by contacting a local retailer of Lululemon clothing to see if there were any yoga instructors interested in helping out. What happened next both pleased and surprised them. The store manager called an ambassador of Lululemon Athletica who agreed to come to the school and teach a free class.

“It was a really mellow and quiet experience,” Senior Caroline Doerr said. “I’m involved in DECA as well and it was a really different and interesting thing for them to do but was fun at the same time. It wasn’t like they were pushing us to buy the product, it was all very subtle and nice.”

While there are some yoga classes, such as the new workout trend of Hot Yoga where the temperature is turned up to 80 degrees or higher that are meant to tone and get you in shape, this was not one of them.

“It was very stress relieving and calm,” Clark said. “There were lots of moments where everyone had their eyes closed and we were supposed to imagine ourselves in fields or flying. It was emotional yoga.”

As a promotional bonus the Lululemon ambassador handed out pamphlets about yoga and health and brought in clothing for students to purchase. The turnout of around 30 people exceeded Blackman and Clark’s expectations.

“We chose yoga because it’s something that a lot of people our age don’t do on a regular basis so we were surprised at the turnout,” Blackman said. “We even had a boy! I’d say it was successful overall.”

To view a photo gallery from this event, click here.