Even though gun-related crime has soared 42 percent in Canada since 2013, citizens tend to feel removed from violence unless it happens close to home. So for the nonprofit Coalition for Gun Control, agency Zulu Alpha Kilo’s created a campaign, “Dodge the Bullet,” that made gun violence personal and startled Toronto citizens into the realization that they’ve been living with a false sense of security.

See all of the 2020 Ad Age Small Agency Awards winners.

The agency built a web and mobile app that pulls information from the Public Safety Data Portal, a tool used by law enforcement officials, to instantly calculate for users the distance they are to the nearest incident of gun violence. A message appears to the user saying, for example, “You dodged a bullet by 152 meters.” 

Wendy Cukier, president of the Coalition for Gun Control, says the campaign “reenergized the movement” her nonprofit has been working to raise awareness of for the past 30 years.

— Lindsay Rittenhouse