Despite 417 mass shootings in the last year and thousands of people losing their lives as a result, the issue of gun violence in the U.S. was completely absent from the election debate. When Election Day was around the corner, Change the Ref wanted to make sure people truly knew who they were voting for.

Most mass shootings happen because of weak gun laws. And who makes these laws? The candidates we vote for. So, the only way to prevent them from happening again is by voting for candidates who support gun violence prevention. That’s why Change the Ref, a non-profit organization with the mission to end gun violence, created Ballots Against Bullets, a campaign designed to educate voters on where candidates stand on gun reform.

The challenge was to find straightforward and powerful images that clearly showed the consequences of not having laws to protect against gun violence. This required spending months researching and collecting real images from mass shootings in the United States, even getting in touch with police stations, libraries, and newspapers to find those which would be most impactful. We knew every image had to be emotional, capturing the aftermath of the violent scene.

Then, we created a simple yet effective layout that focuses on the ballot without stealing the impact of the image. The design was inspired by actual voting ballots but was simplified by leaving only the necessary information that delivered the message. The result was a series of powerful visuals that shine a spotlight on politicians who could have prevented those same shootings from happening if they had supported stricter gun laws.

The campaign was live in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election in markets where the elected officials were incumbents in the race. Through print ads and OOH executions, the goal was to remind voters to choose wisely as they made their final decision on what candidate to support in the local and state races.

There was no budget for the campaign, which was created using images from local law enforcement and edited by our teams.