Across the state of North Carolina, there is an urgent need for firearm owners to safely store their firearms. According to a 2021 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, 42% of North Carolina adults have a firearm in or around their home, and over half of firearms that are stored loaded are also unlocked. A 2019 study in JAMA Pediatrics estimated that up to 32% of youth firearm deaths by suicide and unintentional firearm injury could be prevented through safe storage of firearms in homes with youths. Gun theft — particularly from vehicles—is also on the rise across the state.
The North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) recognized a need to educate North Carolinians about this issue in order to reduce child access to firearms and reduce theft of firearms across the state. NCDPS brought in Reingold to develop a campaign from the ground up that would, through a variety of communication channels, raise awareness of the need for safe storage, educate North Carolinians about what constitutes safe storage, and encourage gun owners to secure their firearms.
Once Reingold was awarded this work, we were off to the races to develop and launch the entire brand and campaign in just under four months. Timing was one of the main challenges in the first year of the campaign. The client hoped to host the campaign’s first “Week of Action” in early June, so not only did we need to develop the branding, materials, website, and more, but we also needed to have these materials completed early enough to build partnerships and plan a series of events that would take place during the first week of June.
To meet our communications goals for the campaign, we knew we needed an integrated strategy to reach our diverse target audience. Before we could get to the execution portion of the campaign, we knew we needed a thoughtful, relatable brand, logo, and message to serve as the foundation of the campaign. This would be instrumental in getting our target audience to be open to our messaging and willing to adopt best practices.
To accomplish all of this work in such a tight timeframe, Reingold focused on the following strategies:
To overcome the challenge of the time crunch, Reingold brought together experts in a variety of disciplines — strategy, writing, digital marketing, video, design, digital experience, and more — to build a plan for messaging and branding development while simultaneously planning and building the execution portion of the campaign. For example, the layout and functionality of the website was built before the brand existed, which is certainly not common practice.
In just over three months, the Reingold team developed the campaign name, all branding elements, educational materials (in English and Spanish), three toolkits (also in English and Spanish), a website, PSAs, a paid advertising campaign and creative, and social media channels. All of this launched in mid-May in order to finalize partnerships and plan a series of events for the NC S.A.F.E. Week of Action, which took place the first week in June 2023.
Despite the fast-paced nature of the project, in just under four months, Reingold achieved the following:
