Despite the ongoing rise in mass shooting numbers, America still lacks commonsense gun laws. This is an issue hard to touch inside Congress, mainly because each state has its own laws.

Because the U.S. government was not acting on the subject, we directly attacked a trait Americans are most known for: their pride for their land. Change the Ref created the Shamecards, a postcard collection designed to demand gun law reform from Congress. Subverting the traditional greeting cards, which depict each city's landmarks, ours show what cities are becoming known for: mass shootings.

With no budget, we gathered artists across the world to illustrate more than 50 postcards, at least one for each state, making this a national campaign, and we made them available at shamecards.org. With a few clicks, they were sent directly to lawmakers’ mailboxes. Within seven days, thousands of postcards were sent.

As a brand, Change the Ref has been demanding gun law reform since 2018. For this national effort, the organization focused on communities affected by gun violence, and we designed at least one postcard for each state, covering the whole country. Through extensive research, we were able to find stories across America to depict events from coast to coast.

Shamecards are more than just pieces of graphic art. Starting February 4, 2021, anyone could visit shamecards.org and send a postcard directly to lawmakers’ mailboxes to ask for gun law reform.

Within the first week of the campaign, more than 4,000 postcards were sent. We got 1.5 billion impressions and $14 million in earned media, and U.S. Representatives Katherine Clark and Ted Deutch joined the effort, generating social media content for us. On the Parkland anniversary, President Biden released a statement about the Parkland shooting, demanding commonsense gun laws from Congress.

America is now known for gun violence. Every day since the Parkland massacre, at least three American kids have been fatally shot. We haven’t learned anything from our mistakes—not because we don’t realize these shootings are happening, but because we don’t want to face them. But the Shamecards were designed to force us to face them head on.

The campaign’s overarching goal was to generate blanketed press coverage for the Shamecards project while continuously dialing back to Change the Ref’s overarching goals of raising awareness for mass shootings and advocating for gun law reform. Our target audience was everyone who could listen, understand our perspective, and join us in our fight to enact change. And while UMV/AVE was high for the campaign, we mapped our success by how many people, in turn, actually talked about the project.

The Shamecards were created to demand gun law reform directly from Congress. Subverting the traditional greeting card, which depicts each city’s landmark and memorable places, we created a new collection focused on what cities are becoming known for: mass shootings.

With more than 50 postcards illustrated by 30 artists worldwide, we set up the website, shamecards.org, to be a simple and intuitive experience. With a few clicks, the user had their postcard sent to the representative they had selected. After they clicked the send button, Change the Ref got the order and, with an original mailing set up, the postcards were sent directly to lawmakers’ mailboxes asking for gun law reform.

The Shamecards became more than just a collection of postcards. It became a powerful tool for change. In the first seven days, with no paid media, we garnered over 1.5 billion media impressions and a total earned media value of over $14 million.

The postcards created a thought-provoking conversation and, more than that, a movement for change in outdated gun laws. By putting pressure on lawmakers, the Shamecards managed to move congress people in favor of our cause and got voters and future voters supporting commonsense gun laws.

The reach was noticed from coast to coast, impacting culture by rethinking an American icon as the postcard is usually seen. And on the Parkland anniversary, President Biden released a statement about the Parkland shooting, demanding commonsense gun laws from Congress.