Tell young people they might die from gun violence, and the message gets lost in the hopelessness of impoverished neighborhoods, where fatalism runs deep.
Tell young men that a bullet could lead to lifelong paralysis and what the pill-makers call “erectile dysfunction,” and you are more likely to have their attention.
That is the working hypothesis James Evans reached after conducting focus groups, online surveys and one-on-one interviews in his murder-plagued hometown of Baltimore. Evans, an advertising executive who has developed pitches for such clients as Timberland and CVS pharmacies, is on a quest to promote a message that might ease the spiking gun violence killing Baltimoreans at a rate of almost one a day.
His research suggests that the age-old advertising adage, sex sells, may apply when it comes to keeping people safe.
“What does an 18 year old value?” Evans said. “Eighteen- to 20- year- old men value their freedom. They value their sex, their sex drive. … They value the fact that they can play basketball or run or jump or beat someone up. They do not want to be in a wheelchair.”
Evans assembled focus groups of former drug dealers, mothers of shooting victims and people who lived in neighborhoods beset by violence, and presented them with poster-like messages. One brandished the threat of prison time: a man holding a gun and the slogan, “It Ain’t Worth The 20!”
Another featured a man in a wheelchair with the words “Gun Violence Doesn’t Always Kill.”
But the poster that resonated most powerfully portrayed scattered bullet shells on a bloody tile floor, and the message: “Saved Him, But He’ll Be Pissing In a Bag for the Rest of His Life … No Sex And No Kids!”
Evans, who is African-American, is aware that using sex as an incentive to curb inner-city violence may play to racial stereotypes. But with a dearth of research on preventing gun violence and a homicide rate spiking towards record levels in a number of big cities, he believes in desperate — or at least novel — measures.
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Evans gathered about $30,000 in foundation grants for his research and a marketing plan. He found that anti-violence messages coming from mothers were particularly effective. So were reminders of the direct and indirect impact of gun violence on children. The possibility of life in a wheelchair really weighed on the men.
And so did the mock-up ads threatening “No Sex.”
“Around here . . . that one there would catch their attention,” said one focus group member quoted in Evans’ marketing study. “ ‘..no sex, no kids,’ they would think about that for a couple of minutes. Because that’s probably all they think about is sex, money and guns.”
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Other researchers question whether sex should be part of any urban anti-violence campaign. Tolulope Sonuyi, an emergency room doctor and assistant professor at Wayne State University School of Medicine, said public service announcements based on the approach was a “very lazy, passive approach to a complex and nuanced issue.”
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“No one is saying only African American men would be caring about their prowess,” Evans responded. “It’s just that the audience happens to be mainly African American men.”
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