McCann's Repeating Promo Aims to Break Cycle of Gun Violence

With 96 gun-related deaths every day, it feels as though the USA is trapped in a never-ending cycle of gun violence - and the only way to break that cycle is to vote for politicians who support common sense gun legislation.

Young people can make a difference to that vote, however, according to recent polls, only 28% of people under 29 plan to vote in America's upcoming midterm election.

To encourage young people to get out and vote on Tuesday November 6 2018, March for Our Lives activists have teamed up pop singer Kesha and her younger brother Sage, Mill+ director Ben Smith and McCann New York to create a hard-hitting music video with a simple conceit: just like gun violence in America, the promo repeats over and over again.

Featuring a track, Safe, penned by Sage (a high school student at the time) the day after the Parkland, Florida shooting in February 2018 - and performed by him alongside Kesha and up-and-coming rapper Chika - The Most Vicious Cycle dramatises the cycle of gun violence and reminds young people that voting is the only way to end it. 

Opening in the corridor of a school, the video sees students and teachers scattering in terror as bullets fire in slow-motion from a gun. They trigger a Rube Goldberg machine which leads the viewer to a memorial scene, honouring victims of gun violence from notorious incidents such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting  and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, as well as everyday gun violence in different parts of Chicago.

The stylised segments are intercut with real-life footage supplied by Parkland survivor David Hogg, filmed inside his classroom on the day of the shooting, to remind viewers of the personal nature of the gun violence epidemic. The film ends with a janitor sweeping up the debris, as a message urging people to #VoteForOurLives on 11 November flashes up on screen - 'or this happens again'. The promo then repeats twice more.

To find out more about March for Our Lives, click here.