Unload Your 401k
States United To Prevent Gun Violence
Issue 32 | September 2014
Agency
Grey New York
Creative Team
Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Tor Myhren Deputy Worldwide Chief Creative Officer Per Pedersen Executive Creative Directors Rob Perillo Rob Lenois Creative Directors Jordan Buntain Tyronne Schaffer Design Director Han Lin Designer Andree Liutica UX Designer Jess Stango
Production Team
Agency Producer Angela Ong Directors Floyd Russ Cameron Fertitta DOP Igor Kropotov
Other Credits
Account Director Elizabeth Gilchrist Account Supervisor Katie Stirn Account Executive Katherine Chan Director Of Technology Fred Gerantabee Digital Producer Christopher Izzo
Date
May 2014
Background
A 401k was a retirement savings plan, named for the section of the tax code that governed them. Most plans offered a spread of stocks, bonds and money market investments.
Some 51 million Americans had pensions in which some of their funds had been invested in one of three large gun companies.
Most did not know this. States United wanted to raise awareness and show Americans at www.unloadyour401k.com how they could get their money out.
Idea
Many Americans felt powerless against the gun violence problem in their country and the gun companies had been fuelling gun lobbyists to such an extent that even common sense laws were halted.
However, a way to apply pressure was found in one of the most unlikely places. The retirement plans of most American citizens.
The idea was to offer a real solution to all those who believed there should be some form of gun control – a way to divest if they did not want their funds in guns.
The website showed owners of a 401k retirement plan how to find out where their money was invested and how to take it out if any of it was invested in a gun company.
Unlike the massive PR efforts of the gun lobby, Unload Your 401k was a grassroots initiative fuelled by more than 20 activist organizations.
Results
National coverage in The Huffington Post, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, and 200+ other outlets.
In one week, over 10,000 people took the first steps towards divestment.
Our Thoughts
This strategy was used in South Africa in the era of apartheid to get people in Europe and the USA to pull their investments out of South African companies. It worked then but it will be a lot harder to pull off this time round, I suspect.
To drive traffic to the website, an installation was created. A wall of remembrance of those who had been shot and killed, including the victims of Columbine, the Aurora Theater killings and Sandy Hook School, where 20 children died.
Parents and friends were filmed at the wall, wondering why gun laws in America remain unchanged.
This campaign could do with some real money behind it. It is a smart idea asphyxiating for lack of investment. Sadly ironic, really.