Two people wearing black life vests stand beside a yellow kiosk labeled 'The New Life Vest' with life vests hanging inside.

Turning growing numbness into urgent activism.

What’s easier? Entirely changing how we live our lives or changing our gun laws? The obvious answer was the common sense logic we used to break through America’s increasing numbness to gun violence and incite positive change.

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Good Wins

The Challenge

No matter your politics, with 632 mass shootings and 44,000 gun deaths a year, America is facing a crisis of massive gun violence—and surprisingly—massive apathy. The challenge in a sharply divided political climate, was how to break through stat-fatigue and political posturing to create new and meaningful dialogue about gun safety legislation.

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The Enemy—Inconvenience

As mass shootings and death tolls have become page 3 news, our collective shrug in the face of preventable tragedy has become the greatest obstacle to meaningful change. We needed to focus on an issue Americans would stand up against without the same old politicized emotional triggers—our enemy became—ridiculous inconvenience.

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Supercharge the Good

Let’s present a positively ridiculous solution to the gun violence problem

So inconvenient that people see just how strange our lives are becoming. Truth is, the most unreasonable thing we’re doing is learning to live with gun violence. Given the choice, will we really keep changing school designs, putting our kids through countless hours of active shooter drills, avoiding public spaces, walking through metal detectors, even dressing differently rather than passing meaningful legislation?

Pedestrians walk past a wall covered with yellow posters depicting black vests labeled 'NEW LIFE VEST' alongside text questions about keys, wallet, vest, business casual, and grades.
Instagram post from newlifevest showing a black tactical vest on a yellow background with text: 'Keys? Check. Wallet? Check. Vest?'
Instagram post by newlifevest showing a black bulletproof vest against a yellow background with the text 'THOUGHT AND PRAYER CATCHER.'
Black tactical vests labeled 'The New Life Vest' hanging on metal hangers inside a yellow-walled storage rack.
Man and woman standing on a bridge wearing black vests labeled 'NEW LIFE VEST' in front of a yellow display with more vests.
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Score the Wins

Our integrated campaign delivered Good Wins:

"Our country is facing a critical epidemic of gun violence, and if the near-daily mass shootings aren’t enough of a wake-up call, then it’s time we all start wearing a bulletproof vest to try to stay alive."

-
Manuel Oliver
,
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