Harrowing 'How tos' from Sandy Hook Promise

Being a teenager is hard enough at 'normal' times, but throw in a global pandemic, heightened political tensions and strict regulations on external contact and you're faced with a mental health crisis.

Indeed, according to the CDC, levels of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide amongst youngsters have skyrocketed, with the proportion of mental health-related Emergency Department visits for children aged 5–11 and 12–17 years, compared with 2019, increasing approximately 24% and 31%, respectively.

In reaction, leading gun violence prevention organization Sandy Hook Promise and agency BBDO New York are following up 2019's exceptional Back To School Essentials with a trio of spots that identify the triggers and anxieties that build to create a 'powder keg' that has the potential to give rise to various forms of violence: not just shootings, but suicide, self-harm, and depression. 

Presented in a familiar 'How to' format, each of the three films builds specific stressors with a kino fist montage style that invokes in the audience a quick sample of the anxiety felt by a generation.

Provocatively titled: How to Make a Homemade Bomb, How to Overload a Circuit, and How to Perform a Disappearing Act; the campaigns aim to shock and inform is expertly brought to reality by Sweetshop's Jakob Marky, displaying control over chaos for maximum effectiveness.