Chicago Ideas Week is a small, year-old ideas conference trying to find its voice in a field dominated by established organizations like TED and the Aspen Institute. CIW promotes creative solutions to difficult problems—and in Chicago, there is no greater problem than illegal gun violence.

Rather than run a traditional advertising campaign, the problem-solving ethos of CIW was put into action using donated and ambient media, and a Twitter hashtag, to build a platform that sourced ideas from the city, and the world, to help tackle Chicago’s gun issue.

Our client (CIW) promotes creative problem solving. That their ads themselves should solve a problem seemed like a natural conceptual fit.

The #WhatIfChicago campaign, and the social movement it generated, elevated the dialog around the gun issue, delivered smart new thinking to the government’s doorstep, and significantly raised the profile of Chicago Ideas Week. The success of the program also spurred a roundtable discussion among government and civic leaders, leading academics, the police, and crime victims, and was live-streamed on NBC. From a numbers standpoint, the campaign generated approximately 407 million media impressions over a 2-week period. More importantly, several of the ideas sourced from the campaign are currently being considered by the city as policy initiatives.