GUNS DOWN AMERICA | GUN SURVIVOR REVIEWS | 2022
This Is a Condom Ad / GUNS DOWN AMERICA "GUN SURVIVOR REVIEWS"
A gun review video on YouTube. Specs, performance, how it feels to handle. It plays out just like any other review. But this reviewer actually survived being shot by that exact gun.
The problem
In America, gun content gets watched 6 billion times a year on YouTube alone, and most buyers check reviews before purchasing. Yet in a country where 45,000 people die from guns every year, there's almost no system in place to stop that content. The NGO Guns Down America decided to attack this structure head-on.
The insight
When gun control advocates speak directly to the gun community, nobody listens. So the only option was to hijack their format instead. The flip in thinking: the people who actually know a gun's performance best are the ones who got shot by it.
The idea
Gun violence survivors Kate Ranta and Nicole Jones review the very guns that shot them. They talk through the specs in the same style as popular reviewers, then share their own experience. The videos were posted to a sub-channel called "Guns That Work," placing them right in the middle of the gun community. The director was Flynn Drew. Alongside this, the campaign is also calling on platforms to add warning labels to gun-related content.
What happened
The campaign earned millions of impressions and won one Gold and two Bronze Lions at Cannes Lions, plus a Gold at the Clio Awards. Even being shared by people who disagreed with it fed into the spread.
Afterthought
A review video that looks completely ordinary suddenly shows a different face. At that turn, I actually stopped breathing for a moment. Speaking in the other side's arena, using the other side's language—that's both a strategy and the courage of someone who survived.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Gold 2022
