WINNER FOR
PUBLIC SERVICE IN ADVERTISING
The gun industry and Gen Z are both thriving on YouTube. but only one of them has a right to be there.
The Ask
Develop a content strategy and comms plan to recruit young people (15-25) to Team Enough, a youth movement and Brady United affiliate that formed out of the Parkland shootings.
Problem
To be successful in recruiting, Team Enough needs a signature issue that can create measurable change.
Objective
Team Enough leads Gen Z in the fight to expose and close the gunfluencer loophole, ending gun industry advertising.
Strategy
Make YouTube feel what it would be like to lose Gen Z, like Gen Z has lost so many of its own to gun violence.
Gen Z
& Gun
Violence
Gen Z has come to expect inaction from lawmakers, even while they plead for their lives. While recruiting Team Enough most often hears, “If they were going to do something, it would have happened after Sandy Hook.”
But we also know that Gen Z is passionate about revealing the truth behind all things (McKinsey). Being “your friends’ self-appointed FBI agent” for their Tinder dates is a badge of honor.
For Team Enough to be successful in recruiting, they need: 1.) a signature issue, 2.) to show up in places that Zoomers care about, 3.) to create measurable change that people can participate in.
Enter YouTube.
Gun ADs
Move to
YouTube
Gun ads aren’t illegal, they’re just banned on basically every platform. You rarely see Smith & Wesson ads because you can’t air them on cable or run them as YouTube pre-roll.
You would think if gun ads were banned, gun ownership would see a decline, just like smoking rates fell following cigarette ad bans in the 1970s. But, instead, we have more guns than ever, because YouTube doesn’t enforce its gun ad ban on influencer marketing. The gun industry took advantage and funneled all its advertising money into gunfluencers posting ‘reviews’ on YouTube.
Massive influencer marketing firms like Leviathan Group have cropped up to launder money between the gun industry and gunfluencers. The gun industry is hiding in plain sight, targeting young people, leading to increased gun sales and more of Gen Z silenced by gun violence.
taking the
fight
to youtube
Why YouTube specifically?
YouTube is the most popular platform with gunfluencers because it’s the most likely to draw users down a rabbit hole of gun content. Months after researching this work, our teams’ YouTube feeds are still inundated with guns.
If we call out social media in general, every platform will go silent or point fingers. But if we go after the worst offender, we can make specific demands while giving YouTube’s competitors an incentive to take a stronger stance.
Comms Plan
open letter to YouTube
& OOH Near Youtube HQ
Audiences: YouTube employees and news media
We’ll begin the campaign with an open letter to YouTube, calling on them to close the gunfluencer loophole. YouTube’s average employee is on Team Enough’s side, so OOH near YouTube HQ will move employees to apply pressure internally.
Letters to the editor (or ad buys) in the NYT, WaPo and the SF Chronicler will earn media to bring the gunfluencer loophole front and center in our national conversation.
leading
boycotts
of YouTube
Audience:
Gen Z/potential Team Enough members
On the anniversary of mass shootings, Team Enough will lead boycotts of YouTube, pushed out using an easily shared social campaign.
On the Team Enough website participants can automate their boycott, scheduling their YouTube block to prevent just-out-of-habit opens.
calling out brands running as pre-roll
for gun industry ads
Audiences:
Brands advertising on YT & Gen Z
Team Enough will show Gen Z how to call out brands that are running as pre-roll for videos glorifying AR-15s. The brands - who tend to have no idea their videos are being served this way - will put pressure on YouTube to make a change.
leading
flagging raids
of gunfluencers
Audience:
Gen Z/potential Team Enough members
Team Enough will organize a ‘gunfluencer of the week’ for the community to flag on YouTube. Gunfluencers frequently break YouTube rules, but they can often skate by because only the truly absurd violations of policy get reported.
AN anti-content
strategy
to disarm the algorithm
We’ll deplatform gunfluencers by mobilizing media, YouTube employees, advertisers, and Gen Z. With pressure from all sides, we can put an end to the gun industry controlling the conversation around guns online.
Team Enough will be able to recruit people to its cause because they’re making measurable change that Gen Z can play an active part in, rather than feeling like bystanders in a conversation about their lives.
team
Sources
The Trace: Why are gun ads so uncommon?, Gun sales estimate, The gray area of gun influencer disclosures
CDC: Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking Cessation
USA Today: Comcast bans gun, ammo ads (2013)
NYT: YouTube bans ads promoting gun sales (2018)
McKinsey: Generation Z and implications
leviathangroupllc[dot]com/tribe (I don’t want to help their SEO but check them out if you want to be horrified by the directness of their gunfluencers-for-hire messaging)
More Work
