For a young producer at McCann New York, the deadly shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018 was deeply personal. Gabrielle Levy had graduated from the school just a few years earlier and grew up with many of the students who were killed, wounded or traumatized by the shooting.
Within a week of the tragedy, it became personal to a group of creatives at McCann New York, too.
Following the news that a teenager gunned down and killed 17 students and staff members at her alma mater, Gaby came to work visibly distraught. A coworker reached out to comfort her, and their conversation quickly turned to action. They worked at an advertising agency with resources, after all. Maybe they could find a way to help survivors fight back against gun violence.
They brought their nascent idea to the chief production officer, who led them to the CCO. Soon the room was full of people, and president Devika Bulchandani was pledging her support.
“If ever I needed reassurance that good existed, this is it,” Levy says. “The support I received – the immediate ‘yes’ – is something that will be with me forever.”
Unfortunately, this was familiar territory for Sean Bryan, co-CCO. He had called up the Brady nonprofit organization to see how he could help after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut several years ago. This time he phoned a group of Stoneman Douglas survivors, who were organizing a march against gun violence.
“We got on the phone with these 16-year-old kids,” recalls Bryan. “And they were the most directed, together group of clients I’ve had in a long time.” They told him they were planning a national rally and already had permission to march in Washington, Chicago and L.A. They had a poster and a logo they were pretty happy with. But then they added: “You know what we don’t have? We don’t have a symbol, the way breast cancer has the pink ribbon and cancer has the yellow wristband. We don’t have any money and we need it in a week. Can you do something?”
Bryan said: “OK, I know the brief!”
Together, they created a bright orange price tag printed with a key statistic: $1.05. That’s the amount of money Florida Sen. Marco Rubio accepted from the National Rifle Association (a reported $3.3 million) divided by the number of students in the state.
The price tag was designed with a few goals in mind: it had to be easily accessible, visible in a crowd and flexible for every U.S. state. McCann shared it online, where anyone could calculate the price for their own state, print a customized tag and even donate; the website included a call-to-action for students to “buy back” their lives.
Sarah Chadwick, co-founder of the nonprofit March for Our Lives and a Stoneman Douglas survivor, says the students never intended to partner with an advertising agency. But when her family friend Gaby reached out, they started brainstorming. “Students were very much involved in the creative process,” Chadwick added. “We made it known that we had to help with and approve the design before it happened.”
The catalyst for the concept? A viral tweet that Chadwick penned about politicians valuing campaign donations more than students’ lives. “I had absolutely no idea how big and essential that tweet would become for our movement,” she says. “Even after it went viral, I didn't truly understand the power that those words held.”
During the D.C. march, Chadwick delivered a stirring speech about the price tag and lifted it up on stage, a key moment for the campaign. “I looked out into the crowd and saw thousands of people wearing them. It was incredible,” she says.
Levy, who marched with her siblings and alumni, was overcome when she saw her friend hold up that tag. “My sister would probably tell you that I fell over. It was very emotional to see that something we worked on meant enough to them to incorporate into their movement.”
Experiencing the moment with her family was significant: the shooting haunts them more than a year later.
“I’m a triplet so I have nightmares about the fact that if it had been during my year, there would have been three of us in that school at one time, and the odds are not good,” she says. “I do have nightmares about the fear of what it would be like in that situation…A lot of my friends do; it’s terrifying, and you can’t get around it.”
While the campaign was successful at raising awareness, the work isn’t done. McCann’s team is now focused on getting out the youth vote to affect change. Bryan says: “We have to get a generation of politicians in who are elected to do something about this. That’s the long-term goal. The price tags were a great first start but it’s exactly that – a start. We’re determined to help these kids finally push this boulder up the hill that has been so hard for so many others.”
Stephanie Paterik is executive editor of Adweek and a member of the Epica Awards jury
This article appears in Epica Book 32, published in September 2019, featuring all the winners and selected high-scoring entries from the previous year's awards.