Keep America Safe Toddlers Kill
Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
Issue 42 | March 2017
Agency
McCann New York
Creative Team
Co-Chief Creative Officers Sean Bryan Tom Murphy Executive Creative Director/Copywriter Susan Young Executive Creative Director/Art Director Daniele Vojta Copywriter Sarah Menacho Senior Art Director Trinh Pham
Production Team
Director of Digital Production Jeremy Adirim Jr. Digital Producer Sean Flannigan Post Production Whitehouse Post
Other Credits
Account Director Rosemary Calderone Strategist Priyanka Nigam
Date
October 2016
Background
In 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot both President Ronald Reagan and his press secretary, James Brady. Brady was left confined to a wheelchair and Hinckley was ruled insane and committed to an institution. For years, gun rights advocates pointed to the shooting as proof that unhinged people, not firearms themselves, were to blame for shootings.
The Brady campaign had spent years pointing out that this was simply not the case. People shoot people.
Now, a new PSA from The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence took that reasoning to the absurd extreme.
Idea
Looking at the data, there was a startling revelation. More people in America were shot and killed by toddlers than in attacks inspired by foreign terrorists.
In fact, toddlers kill one American a week.
This fact provided the basis for the satirical video, which shone a spotlight on this pressing threat to national security: pre-school children.
Quoting headline after headline highlighting the problem, the video encouraged Americans to go to the polls and vote for leaders who supported commonsense gun reform.
Results
It is unusual that advertising is quoted during a Presidential debate, but in the third debate on October 19, responding to a question on gun violence, Mrs. Clinton three times referred to toddlers, prompting The Washington Post to note "In bringing up toddlers at the debate, Clinton may have been channeling the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, which recently launched a PSA focused on toddler shootings."
There was much other coverage including reports on NBC News, in The Guardian and USA Today plus intense social media debate.
Our Thoughts
This campaign is the companion piece to The Sandyhook Promise work on pages 42-43. This is less ambivalent than BBDO’s work, with raw anger disguised as satire. Guns don’t kill people, no – toddlers do.
There is probably nothing advertising can do here. Opinions on either side are entrenched. One response to this video was, “How many gun safety or education classes has the Brady campaign sponsored? None. They aren’t interested in saving lives… they’re simply focused on stripping you of your constitutional rights.”
Your constitutional right to carry a firearm and to hell with the consequences.