American Cancer Society
Relay for Life: PAL®
Scenario
The American Cancer Society Relay For Life is a life-changing event that gives everyone in communities across the globe a chance to celebrate the lives of people who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against the disease. At Relay, teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events up to 24 hours in length.
Relay began in 1985 when Dr. Gordy Klatt, a colorectal surgeon in Tacoma, Washington, ran and walked around a track for 24 hours to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Since then, Relay has grown from a single man's passion to fight cancer into the world's largest movement to end the disease. Each year, more than 3.5 million people in 5,000 communities in the United States, along with additional communities in 20 other countries, gather to take part in this global phenomenon and raise much-needed funds and awareness to save lives from cancer. Thanks to Relay participants, the American Cancer Society continues to save lives.
The Relay for Life approached Piehead to expand its online presence, engage volunteers and inform their entire community through an easily accessible desktop application.
Piehead is an agency that offers PAL®, a desktop application that aggregates, analyzes and engages social media, and other online solutions.
Strategy
The Piehead and American Cancer Society's Relay for Life teams met to determine best steps for integrating PAL® into a strategic marketing plan. The team established that the primary goal was to use PAL® to support and expand a vibrant volunteer community in a timely, accessible and interactive manner. With a customized PAL®, Relay for Life would be able to reach volunteers and organizers with real-time messages via multiple social media platforms. Whereas in the past, Relay relied upon word-of-mouth to spread news and ideas, PAL® created an accessible, nationwide network.
An additional goal was to use PAL® as a to tool to provide Relay's passionate volunteers with cohesive and timely information, expanding both awareness and brand affinity. The strategy included using PAL® quite literally to keep Relay for Life on the radar without flooding inboxes or overwhelming volunteers. Moreover, volunteers and fans could share news, comments and suggestions with one another and the organization virally and in real-time.
We feel that PAL® is already a step ahead of its own time, and the more the general public starts to learn and use integrated tools like this, PAL® will continue to emerge as a leading pioneer of integrated social networking.
Solution
Piehead created a customized PAL® for Relay that enabled the organization to easily and readily aggregate and engage their volunteers and fans all in one spot. The PAL® increased the ability to reach a global community in a very timely manner. Since making the "Relay PAL®" available on their website, Relay for Life has seen over 1,000 hits to their PAL® download page. Through the customized PAL®, Relay's volunteers have instant access to all blogs and stories posted to Relay For Life, the Twitter account, and Facebook page — all in one convenient location. According to the American Cancer Society, users have stated that they are pleased that in addition to the Relay For Life "package" of feeds, they can add their own Facebook, Twitter, and RSS feeds, allowing them to combine their personal social networking with their passion for Relay For Life social networking without having to bounce back and forth from site to site or account to account.
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The Relay for Life approached Piehead to expand its online presence, engage volunteers and inform their entire community through an easily accessible desktop application.
