Brady, one of America’s oldest gun safety groups, and the Ad Council launched the End Family Fire program in 2018 to save lives through education regarding safe gun storage. In 2020, they put specific emphasis on promoting gun suicide prevention through safer gun storage.

Many gun owners believe homicides are the #1 cause of gun deaths. But 60% of gun deaths are suicides. And having a gun in the house triples the risk of suicide. We had to shift gun owners from seeing guns as protection to seeing a loaded, unlocked gun in their home as the true threat. As an extra challenge, we had to do it without ever showing a gun.

U.S. gun sales are soaring. So are rates of gun suicide. And attitudes about gun ownership have never been more polarized. We had to connect with gun owners about the danger in a way that would make them pay attention but wouldn’t make them defensive.

Gun owners say the reason they keep locked, unloaded guns in their home is to protect their family from bad guys. And they believe that most gun deaths are homicides. We created “No Extra Life” to show them that the weapon they are keeping to protect their family from danger is the very thing that puts them at risk. All of the executions in the “No Extra Life” campaign play on the disconnect between people’s perceptions of danger and the actual threat.

Through research and interviews with current gun owners, we found the largest segment could be referred to as having “moderate / mixed safety protocols,” so we made this our priority audience.

While most of their guns are for hunting and target practice, they also keep at least one gun loaded, unlocked and close at hand for protection — thereby increasing the risk for gun suicide.

Most of this audience believes that suicide is something that happens to other people. And they tend to believe guns are just one method of suicide, all methods are equal, and those who want to die will find a way with or without a gun. The reality is that nearly 90% of people who use a gun to commit suicide die. We needed to prove the significant link between access to improperly stored guns and gun suicide.

Since gun owners keep guns for protection from bad guys, we put them in that mind state with a film in the style of a first-person shooter video game. But then we flipped the script. As the film unfolds, viewers realize they’re actually watching a man try to reach a loved one who has gotten access to his gun. The film was built completely in Unreal Engine, the same platform used by many premier video game titles.

In print and OOH, we used images of 63 spent shell casings to symbolize the number of American lives lost to gun suicide every day. And in radio, we shared real stories of the friends and family of loved ones lost to gun suicide, highlighting the daily loss of life, and the power that safe gun storage has to change that.

All efforts led to EndFamilyFire.org for resources on safe gun storage.

Our work reached millions of gun owners and received a flood of positive feedback. One of the most chilling responses was a letter from a mother who wrote to thank us for saving her son’s life. After seeing the PSA, she and her husband purchased a gun safe that very day. Unbeknownst to these parents, their son was dealing with mental health issues. When the teenager tried to kill himself, he was thwarted by the gun safe.

Six months after launch — with no paid media — we’ve achieved nearly 100 million impressions. And 70% of people aware of the campaign agree that storing ALL guns reduces the risk of death by gun suicide, while 51% talked to friends and family to encourage safe gun storage.