NTI’s award-winning campaign reminded people that “Oppenheimer” was history, but nuclear weapons are not.

When the biggest movie of the year is about the biggest problem facing humanity … you launch a campaign to remind Hollywood that we can make nukes history.

NTI did just that in the lead-up to the 2024 Academy Awards, and we are proud that our bold “Make Nukes History” campaign won two prestigious Anthem Awards: a bronze award for best strategy and a silver award for best guerilla marketing. The Anthems are the largest and most comprehensive social impact awards out there, and NTI was chosen from among more than 2,300 submissions from 34 countries.

Confession: I saw Oppenheimer three times—mostly because of the film’s overlap with my job but also because the Oscars are my personal super bowl. My first viewing was with the entire NTI team on opening night. Sitting in my seat that July evening, I remember hoping (praying?) that the film would leave audiences with a better understanding of the inhumanity and riskiness inherent with nuclear weapons. For those who have seen the film, the gym scene and the final exchange between Einstein and Oppenheimer (followed immediately with images of today’s nuclear weapons to close out the film) did the trick. But as Oppenheimer gained Oscar buzz, it became clear: Everyone was talking about the movie, but no one was talking about nuclear weapons.

NTI set out to change that, and in the lead-up to the Oscars, my colleague Ravi Garla and I were plotting a small effort to do some sidewalk message chalking in high-traffic areas of Los Angeles. But when a generous, anonymous donor challenged us to scale up our ambition, we rose to the challenge—designing and bringing to life a bold, multichannel campaign in just six weeks.

With our partners TaskForce, we landed on a campaign concept that highlighted the duality of the film and reality: Oppenheimer had 13 Oscar nominations; the world coincidentally had 13,000 nukes. Oppenheimer was a story about history, but nuclear weapons are still with us. And most importantly, J. Robert Oppenheimer started the nuclear age, BUT it’s up to us—Hollywood and us mere mortals—to end it.

Over the course of six weeks, NTI and TaskForce pulled off the following:

• We put up three billboards along prominent routes to the Oscars—in the hopes of reaching Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, and the other nominees with our message. More than four million people saw those billboards, and while we’re not sure if Cillian Murphy saw them, he gave a nod to today’s nuclear reality, declaring, “We’re all living in Oppenheimer’s world,” and dedicated his Best Actor award to “the peacemakers.”
• We reached the industry with our message, blanketing LA with more than 1,000 posters and two billboard trucks.
• We stood up an installation that said “Make Nukes History” at the entrance to the Original Farmer’s Market at the Grove. Over the course of Oscar weekend, we had hundreds of conversations with people of all ages about nuclear weapons and the need to reduce and eventually eliminate them.
• We organized an open letter signed by Hollywood icons and a diverse array of leaders from the creative community that we published Oscar weekend in The Los Angeles Times.
• We worked with TikTok creators to connect the film with today’s nuclear risks, reminding more than five million people across the world that we can end what Oppenheimer started.
• Our campaign earned national and international coverage in print and on television, with nearly 300 syndicated broadcasts across CBS, ABC, and NBC.

It was gratifying for all of us at NTI and a powerful reminder that artists and storytellers have great power to shift narratives and influence audience beliefs.

Since March, NTI has been building a new initiative to engage culture-makers and storytellers to build on the legacy of Oppenheimer, The Day After, Dr. Strangelove, and more to show audiences the absurdity of relying on nuclear weapons to keep us safe and underscore that it’s up to us to end nukes before they end us.

Together, we can make nukes history.