Kid ‘Experts’ Create Boston Anti-Gang Ads : Crime: Agency invites 100 members of boys and girls clubs to put messages on radio, TV, billboards because ‘they know how to reach’ people their age.

One public service billboard features a body with a morgue identification tag and the headline: “Join a gang and chill.” A TV spot against racism says the only times to separate colors are when sorting laundry and distinguishing lights on a traffic signal.

The messages are part of a citywide campaign against gangs and other social ills. And they were created by children, not advertising executives.

“Kids are the experts because they know how to reach other kids,” said Mary Stibal, a vice president at Bronner Slosberg Humphrey, a Boston advertising agency.

At the firm’s invitation, more than 100 members of Boston’s Boys & Girls Clubs dreamed up advertisements warning children about the dangers of the street.

This month, the winning entries are appearing on radio, television, billboards, in newspapers and on dozens of buses and subway cars in Boston.

“It’s better done by kids because if it’s someone their own age, they might listen,” said 11-year-old Tiana Brown, a member of the Roxbury Boys & Girls Club.

Brown’s club, which won the competition with its “Stay in School-Stay out of Gangs” theme, based its ads on street talk, life at school and the daily threat of gang violence.

“It was a subject that we knew lots about, something that wasn’t hard to talk about because we know what’s going on,” said team member Chanel Owens, 12. She said she recently witnessed a gang fight outside the club.

Violence among youths, much of it blamed on gangs, has increased so much in Boston and other cities that some community leaders worry a generation of kids is growing numb to death.

Nationwide, the number of youths under age 18 who were murdered almost doubled between 1985 and 1990, from 580 to 1,077, according to FBI statistics.

“A sign that says, ‘Just Say No,’ that’s not going to do it,” said Richard Ward, director of the Roxbury club. “The things that these kids came up with, they’re pretty graphic. They’ve taken this to another level.”

The Roxbury group’s radio spot pairs a teacher’s droning lecture with the monotonous reading of a gang member’s Miranda Rights warning.

Its television commercial begins with close-ups of what could be a car tire and the narration, “Join a gang and get yo’self a fresh set o’ wheels.”

Then the camera pulls back to reveal that the tire is really a wheel on a morgue stretcher.

The ads will run for at least a month in Boston and may serve as the model for a national ad competition among kids, Stibal said.

About 60 Bronner workers volunteered to help the kids design the advertisements, encouraging the children to discuss problems in their neighborhoods.

“It wasn’t to teach kids advertising, it was to teach them how to communicate with other kids,” Stibal said. “They would tell us what they wanted to say and then we would professionally produce it.”

Bill Previdi, an art director at Bronner, said more than half the Roxbury club kids he worked with had been approached by gang members looking for recruits.

“Each one had a story to tell,” he said. “They all knew someone who was killed or who was caught in the cross-fire. They all seemed to know gang members.”

It is too early to gauge the impact of the kids’ ads. But they display an immediacy that could only be captured by those who know gang violence best, Stibal said.

“Most public service advertising is developed by big agencies with plush offices,” she said. “Those people are pretty far removed.”