Creative advertising students work on youth violence prevention campaign

Students in the bachelor of creative advertising program are working on an ad campaign to raise awareness about youth and gun violence in Toronto. Toronto is seeing a rise of gun violence, with 126 more shootings compared to last year according to Toronto Police Service (TPS) data portal.

Doug Thomson is a professor of criminal justice and has been working with Humber for 15 years. For the past eight years, he has been involved in research for the TPS Neighborhood Community Officer Program.

“Toronto is a relatively safe city in terms of North America or the world but gang violence and youth violence has been rising for the past five years or so. This is a result of higher unemployment, weaker economy, the effect of COVID and the impact of social media. Youth gangs are going online and challenging other gangs which result in violence,” says Thomson.

The head of the officer program, Sgt. Zenon Costa-Correia asked Thomson for help creating a city-wide program they can put across the city to change people‘s minds about youth violence. By doing the advertising campaign, the officer program is planning to reach not just people engaged in the violence, but also the community.

“In sociology and psychology, what you’re trying to do is change what is considered normal or good by targeting everyone around the person you’re trying to target. By saying “this is no longer acceptable behavior” and hopefully the person in the middle changes their behavior.  The great thing about working with Marilyin and her students is that she is an expert in marketing and advertising,” says Thomson.

Thomson works with Marilyn Cresswell, who teaches in the creative advertising degree program. Creswell’s class is working on an ad campaign aimed at reducing and raising awareness of youth violence. There are six student groups working on different aspects of reducing youth violence. They have to follow Humber’s Research Ethics Board guidelines, details about the ad campaign assignment can’t be shared until the end of the semester when the project concludes.

Cresswell says in an email that live client opportunities is one of the best things about taking a degree in BoCA.  Cresswell also says students looking for a challenging and applied degree would love the work being done.

Toronto has had several shootings in the past several month involving youth. As of July, youth arrested with firearms are up this year with 114 arrests compared to 65 last July according to TPS data portal. In June, a 14-year-old teen was charged with two counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder for a shooting at a Scarborough plaza parking lot near Ellesmere Road and Midland Avenue.

On Sept. 2, 15-year-old Mario Giddings was gunned down across the street from TPS 12 division near Black Creek and Trethewey drive. On Oct. 7, 26 year-old student Marvlin Baah was shot in the stairwell of 83 Clearview Heights and Trethewey Drive and later died. On Nov. 11, 23 people were arrested for a gun fight of 100 shots, in front of a Queen and Dufferin music studio. Fortunately, no one was injured

Thomson says he believes messaging and advertising is just one piece to the solution. His answer to solving youth violence is investment in housing, jobs and community programs. It’s important to get youth prepared for the job market to help keep them busy in the summer. “That’s the best way of solving this long term, it’s not about more police. It’s about building the community and making people feel belonged within the community,” Thomson says.