Gun violence recently surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death for American children, but childish politicians are unwilling to implement a ban on assault weapons or enact tougher gun laws. There have been at least 160 mass shootings across the US so far ( 2023) with 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the US during 2021, according to the latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That's nearly an 8% increase from 2020, which was a record-breaking year for firearm deaths.

“Joaquin’s First School Shooting” is a children’s book addressing a frequent topic that should never occur—mass shootings—and targets the childish politicians who refuse to do anything to prevent them. But aside from being a depiction of tragedy, it’s also an earned media tool designed to loosen the grip the gun lobby has over American legislators. 300 copies were published in the first edition, and many were hand-delivered to U.S. lawmakers by Patricia Oliver, Joaquin’s mother, with the intention of being read by politicians on the House floor—as well as survivors to audiences, and parents to their children.

To maximize awareness of the book and demonstrate the reality of mass shootings through key images in the book, we leveraged the Oliver’s book distribution event on Capitol Hill leading up to Mother’s Day to target top-tier media. We also identified celebrities, influencers and policymakers to discuss, promote and engage with the book, calling on mothers, voters, and the general population to send copies of the book to policymakers. Following initial outreach, we amplified efforts by pitching an emotional op-ed to top tier media written by Patricia Oliver targeted toward parents, calling for a safer world for our children.

In advance of Manuel and Patricia’s book distribution events on Capitol Hill, we sent pitches to priority media offering interviews, digital assets of the book, and physical copies of the book, also preparing a media advisory to expand engagement to national and local news affiliates to determine interest and coverage options prior to the event. We successfully secured top print and broadcast coverage leading up to the event, garnering national attention, and secured interviews and interest for the day of the event from top-tier media.

We garnered 140 multimedia and articles combined, garnering a total of 2.1 billion earned impressions and reaching 22.7M journalists. Media outreach resulted in a feature in ABC News, resulting in over 70 syndications to markets across the country. Patricia Oliver also conducted video interviews in Scripps News, NBC News (which was syndicated across Florida), Daily Beast and Univision. In just a few days on Change the Ref social channels, we garnered 20M+ impressions, 41k+ engagements and 609.2k+ views. In D.C., we were able to deliver the book to prominent politicians, some of whom read or promoted the book, including Minority Whip and Massachusetts Representative Katherine Clark, who read the book on the House floor, which was covered on C-SPAN. She also hosted a press conference to discuss domestic issues including gun violence, where Patricia Oliver spoke alongside Representatives Valerie Foushee and Jill Tokuda. Other representatives who engaged with the book include Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senators Debbie Stabenow and Tina Smith, and Representatives Judy Chu, Laurel Lee, Chrissy Houlahan, Madeline Dean, Maxwell Frost, Robin Kelly and Jeff Jackson. To further amplify awareness and reach additional audiences, we secured select influencers to engage with the book on respective social channels to drive key audiences to send copies of the book to lawmakers. Influencers include @SusanSarnadon (822k followers) and @BetchesSup (606k followers), @MusicCityMom (50k followers), @DelaneyTarr (March For Our Lives Co-Founder; 37.4k followers) and @daddyandpapa (23.6k followers).