As a campaign that relies on visual messaging and cues, print served as the best medium to reach our audience appropriately, so they can engage meaningfully with the work and it's CTA. Creatively, print was also a clever medium, because we were using clips of old newspaper articles to create an ad for a newspaper, instilling a "full-circle" moment on our audience.

We displayed the ads in Florida newspapers, which is one of the leading U.S. states in mass shootings, and one whose governor is well-known for his lack of action on reducing gun violence.

Mass shootings are America’s worst pandemic. Since 2015, over 20,000 people have been shot and wounded or killed in a mass shooting. In 2023 alone, over 700 people were killed, with over 2,400 wounded. Both the number of mass shooting incidents and the number of people shot in them increased since 2015, reaching a high of 695 mass shooting incidents in 2022. In 2023 the country just barely minimized the number, with 604 mass shootings taking place.

Change the Ref’s goal is to promote better gun safety laws in the U.S., using provocative advertising techniques. As the U.S. is facing a critical election year, the brand wanted to leverage the heightened public awareness around U.S. politics to call out some of the most well-known offenders who oppose proper gun safety measures, possibly contributing to the heartbreaking outcomes we see in the campaign. The campaign targeted traditionally conservatives states will higher gun violence rates.

Change the Ref wanted to raise awareness about the importance of holding elected candidates who opposed gun control accountable for the mass shootings that happen under their watch. The objective was to find images from the same newspaper that showed the politicians’ stance on gun safety laws, and then the eventual disaster that followed due to the lack of state and federal laws that could prevent violent citizens from obtaining a weapon.

They wanted the campaign to serve as a blunt message to U.S. voters on the effects that come with electing politicians like the ones we targeted for the campaign, and expose the politicians for the consequences from their lack of support on gun safety.

We gathered published images of politicians posing with assault rifles, holding them as if they were shooting. We then connected them with other images from the same newspaper, this time of mass shootings that took place in their district during their time in office. At the bottom, we provided a QR code that leads to a microsite where our audience can learn about these wrong candidates and pledge not to vote for them.

As a campaign that relies on visual messaging and cues, print served as the best medium to reach our audience appropriately, so they can engage meaningfully with the work and it's CTA.

We displayed the ads in Florida newspapers, which is one of the leading U.S. states in mass shootings. Since its launch, we’ve received 29,766 pledges to not vote for the wrong candidate, while giving everyone the confidence and information to make an educated decision.