Back-to-School Essentials
Sandy Hook Promise2019
Back-to-School Essentials is a 2019 public service announcement for Sandy Hook Promise, created by BBDO, New York.
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The line
It's back to school time. Know the signs.
Why it works
The most devastating bait-and-switch in PSA history. What begins as a cheerful back-to-school haul video — new backpack, new sneakers — curdles item by item into a school shooting in progress: the new skateboard is for barricading a door, the new socks a tourniquet, the new phone for a last text to mom. Created by BBDO New York for Sandy Hook Promise, the nonprofit founded by parents of Sandy Hook victims, it aired in September 2019 and won the 2020 Emmy for Outstanding Commercial over work by Apple, Amazon and P&G. It is studied for weaponizing a familiar genre against its audience's complacency — the horror lands precisely because the format is so recognizably banal — and for advocacy advertising that converts discomfort into a specific action: learning the warning signs.
Techniques
- Shock and provocation A cheerful back-to-school haul video curdles item by item into a school shooting, turning a banal format against viewers' complacency.
- Fear appeal Confronts parents with the threat of a shooting at school, then offers a concrete way to help prevent it: learning the warning signs.
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