The broader topic is gun violence – something we, in India, could also relate to, and it is a global problem. It is also a morbid topic to deal with, in communications.
But within that broader theme, three advertising efforts approach focused sub-themes in three dramatically interesting narratives.
Two out of the three are about school shootings, something we cannot relate to in India since it is largely alien to our country, but it is also something we can definitely empathize with, given the magnitude of violence and the crushing sadness of what the efforts are fighting against.
The first is from May 2021, by Ogilvy, for the advocacy group Change The Ref.
The narrative device is extremely powerful given how counter-intuitive it is: Bring back lockdown!
Given how lockdowns curtailed our freedom that we all took for granted pre-pandemic, calling for the lockdown to be brought back needs to have a very strong reason. And that reason is voiced by a school kid, on the back of a fact: ‘It took a pandemic to reduce school shootings for the first time in years.’
The girl also says, ‘Lockdown has helped keep us alive‘!
Ogilvy’s team connects two seemingly disparate things—pandemic-induced lockdown and school shootings—and finds a linkage between them to make a hugely impactful point!
The second is from early June, and from Sweden, by the digital agency Social Industries, for the client, Non-violence Project, a Geneva-based non-profit educational initiative.
This is my favorite among the three given how it subverts our expectations right under our nose. The film’s narrative is a series of shots of parents, children, and parents plus children. What we are about to witness after the total blackout at 1:16 is portended very normally (obviously using closer shots) earlier too, but we are able to finally connect that when something is shown on screen for the first time at 1:18. And then it hits us, with a phenomenal impact, followed by the line that makes a direct, literal reference too.
The non-profit has a 10-point proposal related specifically to the current situation in Sweden (the country has a very high incidence of gun violence, something that has risen steadily since 2000) that addresses the problem at a school level.
But it is a pity that the main page of the campaign has just 944 out of the needed 10,000 signatures to take it to the Swedish Parliament! The amount of creativity put into the film was probably not put in the plan to disseminate the film, I reckon.
The third effort is from late June, by the agency Leo Burnett, once again for the advocacy group Change The Ref.
This film uses subterfuge to power its narrative (yes, one can question the ethics behind it).
Change the Ref founders Manuel and Patricia Oliver lost their teenage son Joaquin in the deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
They decided to conduct a graduation ceremony for the 3,044 students who could have graduated in the year 2021 had they not been killed in school shootings! Given the pandemic, they had an alibi for creating a graduation ceremony without actual students and only empty white chairs incidentally arranged like a cemetery!
And then, they invited two guests to deliver the graduation speech on stage, by telling them that it was for a school called ‘James Madison Academy’ (which does not exist, by the way)!
The guests were, former NRA (National Rifle Association) president and current board member David Keene, and political commentator and pro-gun activist John Lott.
As they speak, the agency juxtaposes both speakers’ words and deeds on the screen (unknown to them, obviously) along with sounds of 911-call audio and gunshots! The result is the campaign video that makes the two speakers extremely foolish because they have no clue what they have been lured into.
This is an uncomfortable subterfuge that helped create this campaign, but it is also difficult to feel sympathy for the two guests given how they have (along with many others, understandably) enabled the system that led to the 3,044 students’ death in deadly shootings. The creative device that rests on this lie is, no doubt, questionable, even as the impact of the output is extremely powerful!