PLAY -- Promoting a Lifetime of Activity for Youth
Challenge
In 2007 PBATS grew the PLAY campaign from three events to fifteen events. There was a need to boost PR efforts, garner attention and manage media for each event for PBATS and PLAY in those markets. For each event there was also additional assistance needed to work with the community relations and public relations departments from each MLB team to manage the events at their ballparks.
Strategy and Results
In the first two years, Maroon PR focused largely on inviting health reporters at local television stations and print outlets in each city to attend PLAY events. This led to nearly every event having at least two or three media outlets covering them, and the exposure led to an increase of participating teams and MLB players each year. Maroon PR has worked with media in every MLB market and has secured coverage in various outlets across the country leading to millions of impressions.
In 2009, Maroon PR continued this approach, but also began pitching multimedia editors at various newspapers and websites. Since PLAY is a very visual story, the firm would contact each newspaper, find out if they had a multimedia staff, and contact the person who was in charge of taking video. This led to many newspapers sending videographers to the event, including The Houston Chronicle, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and more. Maroon PR made a big focus in securing stories on MLB.com, which led to numerous stories on various team blogs on the website. Also in 2009, Maroon PR implemented a social media element, creating a Twitter account and utilizing Photobucket.com to add event photos and to drive followers to both sites. PLAY events took place in 27 ballparks last season, and Maroon PR garnered over 15 million impressions with a publicity value over $1 million for PBATS.
Video from Chron.com (Houston Chronicle)
Future
In 2010, PLAY is expected to reach all 30 ballparks and Maroon PR will once again serve as the PR managers for the campaign. This will include more social media marketing, utilizing such platforms as Facebook, YouTube and contributing to blogs. Maroon PR will continue to foster relationships made with media members in contacts made since 2006, to generate television, print and radio exposure as well.
Background
The mission of the Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers Society (PBATS) is to serve as an educational resource for the Major League and Minor League Baseball athletic trainers. It is also their mission to serve as a health expert and resource within their team’s city. In 2004, PBATS developed a campaign called PLAY, which stands for Promoting a Lifetime of Activity for Youth. The purpose of the campaign is to spread awareness to young people across the United States about the importance of living an active and healthy life. Through educational fitness events hosted by the athletic trainers within their home ballpark, PLAY has reached thousands of youngsters with positive and viral messages about the importance of developing a habit for being active and healthy at an early age.
In six years since the campaign began, PBATS has teamed up with various respected organizations to spread their message including The American Diabetes Association (ADA), The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), The Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation, The Boys & Girls Club, Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) The Taylor Hooton Foundation and Major League Baseball.
With the help of Maroon PR, the PLAY campaign has received tremendous media attention over the past three years. They have been a great addition to our team. We look forward to working with them to continue building PLAY and generating exposure for the work being done by all Professional Baseball Athletic Trainers.
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