Kim Kelleher knows that media can help drive real change. As president and chief commercial officer at AMC Networks and a member of the Ad Council’s Board of Directors, she’s been a passionate advocate for using storytelling and scale to tackle some of the country’s most urgent challenges.
She has played a pivotal role in building and activating our Youth Firearm Injury Prevention broadcast coalition—bringing partners together around our “Agree to Agree” campaign and helping expand its reach across screens nationwide. In our conversation, Kim shares her perspective on leadership, collaboration and why this work matters now more than ever.
Courtney Jacobs: What inspired AMC Networks to get involved with the Ad Council’s Youth Firearm Injury Prevention campaign?
Kim Kelleher: Ramon Soto, the head of marketing and communications at Northwell Health, spoke at an Ad Council board meeting in 2023. He was there to report that death by gunshot was now the leading cause of death for children in our country. That shook me to my core. I took this unfathomable fact and the other materials Ramon shared back to a working group we have at AMC Networks, and we all felt strongly that we needed to do something.
CJ: How did your team approach creating custom creative for such an important and sensitive topic?
KK: Katherine Dore, our vice president of creative, felt this really troubling development would resonate just as strongly with talent from our shows and films, especially those who are parents. She was correct. Harry Hamlin, one of the stars of Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, immediately responded to the call and even helped to write the spot we produced with him.
CJ: What role do you think entertainment platforms like AMC Networks play in driving social impact?
KK: Like any broad reach platform, AMC has an opportunity to present factual and informative public service messaging to large audiences. With the “Agree to Agree” campaign, we felt it was important to stick to the facts and only contextualize the creative through the show-related talent messaging with Harry. Our approach was to cut out the partisan nature of the gun safety debate and stay focused on the main objective of creating a safer environment for our children.
CJ: Were there any unique challenges or opportunities in integrating this campaign into AMC’s programming and donated media inventory?
KK: We went into the project earnestly and of the single mind to raise awareness around the positives of safely storing guns. Importantly, partisanship was never in the equation.
CJ: What feedback or reactions have you seen from audiences or internal teams since the campaign launched?
KK: Internally, we’re just proud to promote this truly life-or-death message to parents and help it spread as widely as possible. We hope we’ve made a difference that’s contributed to preventing further tragedy.
CJ: On a personal level, why is this cause meaningful to you and AMC Networks?
KK: As a parent, I cannot imagine the devastation of losing your child to a preventable accident or a mis-stored firearm. I’m so proud the team wanted to take this on and proud of the work and message we have put out into the world.
CJ: Looking ahead, how do you see AMC Networks continuing to champion social impact initiatives in the future?
KK: Like so many of our counterparts in the industry, AMC has a long history of working with Ad Council and using our reach and scale to raise awareness of important fact-based information, as we did in this effort. It has been a great and ongoing partnership that continues.