Everyday PR

While many of us saw our favorite NFL teams crash and burn over the weekend, our eyes were treated to a lovely shade of pink on everything from lanyards to linemen.  The pink splashes of color are part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a worthy cause that doesn’t distinguish between leagues or teams, coaches or players.  

Wearing pink doesn't bother Julius Peppers of the Bears.

When you can get large, strong and sometimes scary, testosterone-laden men to wear pink, you’re affecting change.  When you can influence male commentators to talk about breast cancer like they were talking about rushing yardage, you’re breaking down barriers.  When you can get people to bid on “gently used” pink items, you’re raising funds in a refreshingly simple way – who wouldn’t want Manning’s QB towel or Hester’s custom cleats or anything touched by Polamalu?

While the definition of public relations is often ambiguous, always evolving and even insulting, old-school thinkers like me believe its bottom line purpose is to influence behavior. Case in point are the American Cancer Society, the NFL and other like-minded organizations that continue to prove the power of public relations by visibly pushing the boundaries on a topic some still consider inappropriate for the dinner table.  Wouldn’t it be great if all advocates of life-threatening illnesses and issues understood that power and could use it to positively affect change?