It’s baseball’s biggest stage. These games mean it all. It’s the dream of every kid who’s ever swung at a baseball in his back yard. And yet, at this pinnacle moment in a millionaire player’s career they are willing to stop the game in order to hold a cheap handwritten cardboard sign.

What in the name of Abner Doubleday is going on here?

“Major League Baseball, Stand Up To Cancer and MasterCard conducted a special in-game moment, with players, umpires, coaches and fans all pausing to hold up placards with the names of loved ones affected by cancer.”

MLB.com

If we view it through the filter of what does this have to do with baseball it makes no sense. But if we view it through the filter of who we are as a community – as a family, we see that it is more important than just a game. That’s Brand Value Pyramid stuff don’tcha know.

This campaign’s viral marketing taps into beliefs and values that just so happens to be at the heart of your radio station, too: celebrating family and friends, and reaching out to help others. Beliefs and Values is not about sounding religious, it’s about connecting to things that really matter. But let me warn you; that requires that you think of your station as more than just clocks, deejays, songs and liners.

The Astros’ Trey Mancini recalls watching the World Series a few years ago when someone was holding up a placard with his name on it, as he was battling stage three colon cancer. He’s now a cancer survivor and infielder for the World Champion Houston Astros.

While the other radio stations are talking about what matters to them, maybe we can be talking about what matters to our listeners.

“There’s singing at people,
There’s singing to people,
There’s singing about how you feel…
Then, there’s singing about how THEY feel”

Tim McGraw