Hasta La Creative!

You might not associate a sex toy battle with gun safety, but McCann New York ties the two together in a new 30-second video entitled “Playthings” that (finally) takes a different approach to the familiar gun safety PSA, created for gun responsibility organization Evolve.

In the spot, a woman goes to pick up her son at a friend’s house and finds him locked in heated sex toy battle with his friend. The friend’s mother, of course, looks horrified, and just when you thought things couldn’t get any more awkward one of the kids turns on the vibration feature. Around this time the voiceover intones the message, “If they find it, they’ll play with it. So always lock up your guns.”

The humorous approach is a welcome departure from the typical gun safety PSAs — which we see a lot of. “Playthings” is a lot more memorable than those efforts, and a lot harder to ignore, which makes it more likely to effectively communicate its message and even reach people who might just tune out the more serious, stern warnings of other gun safety PSAs. Of course, some of those people will just find the suggestive humor packed on “liberal propaganda” that much more offensive. But then McCann and Evolve didn’t really have any hope of reaching them anyway. While this isn’t the first time Evolve has employed humor in its PSAs — Saatchi & Saatchi New York’s February effort “The Bill of Rights for Dumbasses” took a similarly lighthearted approach — it is definitely the most effective. “Playthings” has already generated a fair share of buzz, approaching one million views since being released Wednesday and eliciting mentions in myriad media outlets.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.