Back-To-School Essentials (2019)

Content Warning
The imagery/content of this PSA may be inappropriate for younger or more sensitive audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.

Back-To-School Essentials
Basic information
Media type	Film
Year	2019
Country	United States
Industry	Non-Profit Organization
Client	Sandy Hook Promise
Agency	BBDO New York
Director	Henry Alex Rubin
Back-To-School Essentials (Youtube)
Case Study (Vimeo)

Back-To-School Essentials is a 66-second public service announcement produced by Sandy Hook Promise and BBDO New York for the Sandy Hook Promise in 2019. The film was directed by Henry Alex Rubin.

Background

Sandy Hook Promise is a non-profit organization focused on preventing gun violence (and other forms of violence and victimization) before it happens by educating and mobilizing youth and adults on mental health and wellness programs that identify, intervene, and help at-risk individuals after a school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14th, 2012, that claimed the lives of 20 first-graders and six educators.

As with its previous PSAs, including the award-winning ‘Evan’ that was viewed over 100 million times and the Emmy-nominated ‘Point of View’, Sandy Hook Promise thinks that by focusing on early identification, action, and intervention, it is possible to prevent tragedies, including its Know the Signs programs.

In 2018-2019 surveys, 57% of American teenagers worry about a mass shooting at school, over 90% of public schools participate in active shooter drills and 4.1 million students went through a real lockdown in 2018. This is in stark contrast to the fact that less than half of U.S. adults find gun violence in schools to be a very big problem. In 2018, there were 24 K–12 school shootings that killed or injured people in the US, including Parkland and Santa Fe shootings.

The objective of the campaign is to "roll out a strategically timed social campaign to jolt a country fatigued by gun violence and rally them to join, donate, and take action."

Sypnosis

The video starts off as a cheery and often-familiar back-to-school ad, with multiple kids in a school taking turns showing off and explaining must-have items like backbacks and binders and how helpful an item they got is in school, but in the background of each scene, stages of a school shooting play out, and it slowly unfolds to highlight students using everyday back-to-school items to survive a shooting. The ad begins with a boy introducing his backpack, followed by a girl showing off her binders, while in the background, a teacher is locking a classroom door. Then, a male introduces and puts on headphones in the library as kids are rushing and screaming; this panic style also shows when we witness a boy running through a hallway introducing his sneakers in the background of panicked students. Then, in the following two sequences, we see kids demonstrating to us how useful their jackets and skateboards are while using them to tie up a gym door and break a glass window to escape. Following that, we see two students behind a door, carrying scissors and pencils as weapons in case someone tries to break in, while more screams and gunshots ring out in the background. As the audio fades, we watch a girl use one of her socks as a tourniquet to wrap another girl's wounded and bleeding leg. In the final scene, a girl is on her phone and hiding in a restroom stall. We see her write the text "I love you mom" on her phone while crying, right before we hear someone walking into the restroom. The PSA concludes, "It's back to school time, and you know what that means." Followed by the text "School shootings are preventable when you know the signs."

Reception

The ads generated media coverage worth $7.6 million and spikes in searches and social media mentions, becoming a Twitter trend in the US in the first week of launch. The ad gathered 26 million views in 24 hours and 4400 media stories that garnered 3.9 billion overall PR and media impressions. Most importantly for Sandy Hook Promise, the campaign drove $100k in donations within the first 24 hours of launch.

Awards

On September 19, 2019, "Back-To-School Essentials" won the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Commercial of 2019."

Credits

• Starring: Gage Magosin (boy with headphones)
• Creative Agency: BBDO, New York
• Chief Creative Officer, Worldwide: David Lubars
• Chief Creative Officer, New York: Greg Hahn
• SVP Senior Creative Director: Peter Alsante
• VP Creative Director: Bianca Guimaraes
• Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Jim Connolly
• Associate Creative Director / Copywriter: Gary Toit
• Associate Creative Director / Art Director: Lance Vining
• Director of Integrated Production: David Rolfe
• VP, Group Executive Producer: Alex Gianni
• Associate Producer: Molly Ross
• MUSIC PRODUCER: Julia Millison
• BUSINESS MANAGER: Grace Kelly
• SVP Senior Director: Lindsey Cash
• ACCOUNT MANAGER: Elizabeth Jacobs
• ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE: Melissa Blache
• PLANNING DIRECTOR: Ben Bass
• BRAND STRATEGIST: Michael Schonfeld
• VP, DIRECTOR OF DATA: Chris Daniele
• Production Company: Smuggler
• EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Drew Santarsiero
• DIRECTOR: Henry Alex Rubin
• Co-Founder: Patrick Milling -Smith
• Co-Founder: Brian Carmody
• LINE PRODUCER: Lead Allina
• DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: Autumn Durald Arkapaw
• Editorial Company: No6 Edit
• Managing Director: Corina Dennison
• SENIOR PRODUCER: Laura Molinaro
• EDITOR: Jason Macdonald
• ASSISTANT EDITOR: Renn Cheale
• TELECINE COMPANY: Company 3
• TELECINE ARTIST: Tim Masick
• Producer: Alexandra Lubrano
• CONFORM / VFX / FINISH COMPANY: No6 Edit
• CONFORM ARTIST: Ed Skupeen
• Flame Assist: Mark Reyes
• GRAPHIC DESIGN COMPANY: No6 Edit
• PRODUCER: Laura Molinaro
• GFX: David Gerber
• MUSIC COMPANY: JSM
• CEO/CCO: Joel Simon
• Executive Producer: Jeff Fiorello
• COMPOSER: Jason Krebs / Joel Simon
• PRODUCER: Norm Felker / Andrew Manning
• Sound Designer: Nathan Kil
• MIX & RECORD COMPANY: Heard City
• ENGINEER: Jeremy Siegel, Keith Reynaud, Evan Mangiamele, Elizabeth McClanahan
• Managing Partner: Gloria Pitagorsky
• Executive Producer: Jackie James & Sasha Awn
• PRODUCER: Andi Lewis
• Sound Designers: Evan Mangiamele, Jeremy Siegel, Keith Reynaud,
• Assistant Audio Engineers: Tom Morris, Seth Brogdon, Evan Anderson, Ronnie Stapleton
• Casting Company: Doreen Frumkin
• VO TALENT: Lawton Paseka (for radio spots only)
• Media Agency: PHD Media
• Bob Estrada, Client Business Lead
• Nichole Verost, Associate Strategy Director
• Gretchen Smith, Digital Performance Director
• Alison Horowitz, Strategy Supervisor
• Caren Axelrod, Associate Director, Social Media
• Harry Keeshan, President, Video Investment
• Seth Glosman, Managing Director, Integrated Investment
• Paul Salman, Director, Video Investment
• Amy Turner, Associate Director, Published Media
• Amanda Knoll, Supervisor, Published Media
• Grace Collins, US Director, Local Investment
• Jeanne Boland, Group Director, Local Investment