Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York & Los Angeles

Cancer Initiative Unites Separate Forces of Public Persuasion

Scenario: You are flipping through the channels on a Friday night and you think something is wrong with your remote as the same picture appears despite your less than ginger pressure on the channel button.  If this Friday happens to be the frist one of September 2008, don’t try to replace the batteries in your remote. Stand Up to Cancer, a fundraiser for the Cancer Cure Initiative, will be appearing on CBS, NBC,and ABC.  The collaboration is a first in television history.

The typical news that is worthy of a simulcast is exactly that—news.  The networks are hoping simultaneously broadcasting a commercial free prime time hour of the Stand Up to Cancer fundraiser will add that same urgency and attention-grabbing quality that say, the State of the Union Address evokes (the original simulcast).  The organizers of the event are positioning soft news as hard news to create awareness that starts a strong case of persuasion for the cause at hand.

Though the fundraiser doesn’t qualify under the technical definition of hard news, I do believe it is a hard piece of news to swallow when you realize each and every one of us has been touched by cancer in some way. It seems appropriate that a historic collaboration educates on a historic health epidemic.

Emphasis is being placed on the cause’s relevance and strength by bringing together many otherwise separated bold-faced names.  Proving this is a cause that transcends the existing differences between public figures that are very publicly competitors:
    -Fifteen of the top Divas across all genres of music (Carrie Underwood, Melissa Etheridge, and Mary J. Blidge, three of the features artists are from three drastically different music worlds) collaborated under two feuding producers to create a mega track called “Just Stand Up” that will have its live premiere during the event.
    -Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Charles Gibson might be used to sharing the same time slot but never the same frame.  The three network anchors will host the event together.
Star-studded PSAs have been riding the donated airwaves of the three networks for this highly anticipated fundraising extravaganza.

The event takes place within this very busy week of presidential campaigns, New York Fashion Week, the NFL kickoff, the MTV Video Music Awards, season and series premieres, Fashion Rocks,  America United: In Support of Our Troops…the list goes on!

The Olympics and the new television season squeezed Stand Up to Cancer with no other choice than the early September date.  Hopefully the blitz of premiere programming will not take away each of the production’s value—specifically the pertinent importance of funding research for the leading cause of death.