TOMS

Putting pen to purpose for the original One for One company.

BRAND CAMPAIGN, #ENDGUNVIOLENCETOGETHER

Role: Copywriter

CD: Meghan DeRoma, ACD: Dan Hall

Following a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks, CA in 2018, TOMS decided to take a stand against gun violence.

We began with a pledge to donate $5 million to organizations committed to ending gun violence. As for our team, we had fewer than three weeks to develop and launch a nationwide integrated campaign.

We decided to anchor our campaign into one of the few things that over 90% of Americans can agree on—support for universal background checks. Shortly after, we converted our homepage into a dedicated resource that anybody could use to send a postcard to Congress calling for action—one we’d mail for free. The world watched as Jimmy Fallon created the first postcard during an interview with our founder on The Tonight Show. Overnight, our site crashed with 40,000+ unique visitors.

Shortly after the episode aired, 500,000+ people had created postcards through toms.com, including celebrities like Snoop Dogg, who were quick to voice their support. Media outlets like HuffPost and Fortune picked up the story and ran with it while our team worked hard to create compelling, educational, and inclusive content designed to help Americans better understand the complexities of gun violence, and to amplify the voices of those who had been impacted. In typical TOMS fashion, 80+ murals inspired by #endgunviolencetogether cropped up worldwide.

During the campaign, HR8 was introduced to Congress—a bipartisan bill that would require background checks on all gun sales. That’s when we decided to hand-deliver the 730,000+ postcards we’d gathered, kicking off a cross-country road trip with co-hosted events in 5 cities. Artists, musicians, activists, and even MLK’s family attended an event at TOMS HQ in a show of support. Once in D.C., a team of TOMS employees, volunteers, and partners facilitated the delivery of each and every postcard to elected officials.

Once again, TOMS shoes became a symbol of action, community, and the greater good. And, on February 27, 2019, HR8 passed.