• by Les Luchter , March 10, 2025

Kids deserve to be kids, and teddy bears deserve to be their companions -- rather than becoming offerings at shrines and memorials following school shootings.

That’s the poignant story conveyed by Sandy Hook Promise’s latest PSA, titled “A Teddy Bear’s Dream,” which premiered this morning on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“School shootings are preventable,” declares the spot, marking a new message from the gun violence prevention nonprofit, which was formed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings 13 years ago. Following that disaster, some 60,000 teddy bears were sent to the Newtown, Connecticut community from around the world

The new spot’s call to action: “Learn the signs of gun violence at SandyHookPromise.org.”

Once there, viewers can learn how the nonprofit has actually helped prevent school shootings.

Since their inception in 2013 and 2018 respectively, the nonprofit’s “Know the Signs” programs and “Say Something” anonymous reporting system “have played a critical role in stopping at least 18 credible planned school shooting attacks to date, as well as countless other acts of violence, self-harm, and youth suicide,” Sandy Hook Promise co-CEO/co-founder Nicole Hockley tells Marketing Daily. That figure includestwo averted school shootings so far this year.

The new PSA, from BBDO New York, shows what appears to be the close relationship between a girl and her teddy bear. But then the true purpose of her getting the bear is revealed when the girl places the stuffed animal at a school shooting memorial. Graphics read, “This isn’t the childhood we imagine. But too often it’s the reality.” The spot then features multiple real-life images of teddy bears placed at shrines from past school shootings, including Sandy Hook.

The girl’s story is set to the tune, “Best of Friends,” as sung by Pearl Bailey in the classic Disney film “The Fox & The Hound.” “The song captures the essence of childhood companionship and offers the perfect narrative to the story,” Hockley says.

The spot is available to media in :90, :60, :30, :15 and :06 versions, in both English and Spanish. All of them can be found here. There are also :15 and :30 audio-only cuts for radio (girl’s voice: “A teddy bear dreams of a best friend who they grow up with. What they don’t dream of is being left alone in a shrine for school shooting victims who could have been their best friends”), and static image components for print and digital use that show a teddy bear at a shrine, and direct viewers to SandyHookPromise.org/TeddyBear.

That site is also selling a limited-edition “Hope Bear” for $34.99, with 100% of proceeds going directly “to educating and empowering people to recognize the warning signs of violence, act immediately, and ‘say something.’”  Sandy Hook Promise says this bear has been shared with key influencers, media and policymakers “as a symbol of the cultural change SHP is working to create – because a teddy bear designed for school shooting shrines is a product that should never exist.”

Sandy Hook Promise points to an urgency for media running the new campaign.

“According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, there were more than 320 incidents where a gun was brandished or fired on school grounds in 2024,” the group says. “This is the second highest year for gun violence at schools ever recorded.”

Also in 2024, “for the first time, ‘planned school attack’ was one of the top five tip types received by  Say Something ‘s National Crisis Center.”

Last month, Sandy Hook Promise conducted a survey with KRC Research  of 1,000 parents with kids up to 17 years old  and found:

“School violence is changing childhood: “A staggering 80% of parents feel that the ongoing threat of school violence has moderately or greatly impacted the childhood experience in America.

“There is frequent fear among parents: 39% of parents think about the possibility of a school shooting or safety threat at their child’s school on a weekly or even daily basis, with almost half (49%) considering it monthly. This highlights the pervasive anxiety school violence creates in families.” 

Sandy Hook Promise’s “Know the Signs” program is also one of the resources in the Ad Council’s new “Agree to Agree” gun violence campaign from GUT Miami.

BBDO New York teamed with Smuggler Production and director Henry-Alex Rubin for “A Teddy Bear’s Dream.” The trio previously worked on Sandy Hook Promise’s Emmy-Award winning “Teenage Dream” and “Back to School Essentials,” as well as “Evan.”