Every year at the MLB All-Star Game, 50,000 people stand together in silence, holding up the name of someone they love who has battled cancer. This year, Mastercard wanted to expand that moment and enable everyone to stand up to cancer.
With so many stories about cancer hitting our newsfeeds daily, it's easy to become desensitized. Today, cancer sits low on the list of causes people are most passionate about— surpassed by issues like mental health and poverty. So how do we incite mass public action amidst growing apathy?
There’s one thing that can inspire us to take action. When we think of our loved ones who have battled cancer — or are battling it now — it becomes impossible not to care.
The truth is: Everyone has somebody in mind when they think of cancer.
This year, we brought cancer out of the doctor’s office and into people’s hearts by shining light on everyone’s personal connection to cancer. Partnering with Stand Up To Cancer, we set out to give people everywhere a way to share their stories.
Our goal? Inspire millions of people outside of the stadium to join us in standing up: whether that be through sharing the name of a loved one, or using your Mastercard to help us reach our $5MM donation goal.
Because while cancer is a collective issue, it's also personal. It’s not a stat. It’s your best friend. It’s not a story. It’s your neighbor. It’s not a life expectancy. It’s your mom.
Our goal this year was to build on a tradition we began years ago with Major League Baseball and Stand Up To Cancer. We leveraged Stand Up To Cancer’s paper placards, where people could write-in the names of their loved ones battling cancer. From there, we built digital versions of the placard where people could share their stories on TikTok and Instagram. To kick off the movement, we enlisted influencers and celebrities to use the filter and share the names of the people they stood up for.
While we focused a great deal of our efforts on asking the nation who THEY stand up for, we also took a moment to reflect on ourselves. As we looked around at the team behind this campaign, we realized the truth of our core insight: everyone has someone in mind when they think of cancer. Our social media director was a caretaker for her mother. Our TVC director was undergoing precancerous treatments, having lost his aunt to the disease. Our executive producer is currently battling stage 4 colorectal cancer.
Inspired by the notion that every person has a story to tell, we decided to break the fourth wall and hero these experiences through a short-form, documentary-style content series.
Our task was straightforward: we aimed to convey that everyone involved in the creative process—from the copywriter to the video editor to the marketing vice president—has been impacted by cancer in some way. Behind the scenes at our Stand Up To Cancer TVC shoot, we captured the raw, emotional stories of the cast and crew. Once the TVC entered post-production, we sat down with the sound designer and editing team to complete our final two episodes. Our team shared personal stories of pain, hope, and even moments of laughter, reflecting on how cancer had touched their lives or those of their loved ones.
The footage was transformed into a two-minute documentary, along with seven distinct individual episodes, each of which powerfully showcases the deep connection everyone had to the campaign and its cause.
Mastercard's commitment to cancer awareness and furthering research didn't stop there. For every transaction at qualifying grocery stores and restaurants made with a Mastercard, we donated 1 cent to Stand Up To Cancer, allowing the donation to hit $5MM over the course of the campaign.
We Stand Up For garnered significant visibility and engagement, with over 210MM+ impressions across campaign assets, and 40MM+ views on TikTok and Instagram. Over five-thousand people shared stories using our social filters. The sentiment was overwhelmingly positive, with TikTok representatives touting, “Mastercard has united the platform like we have never seen before.”
By driving transactions in two core categories (grocery and dining), we were able to reach our $5MM dollar donation goal 4 weeks faster than projected.
We turned a singular moment in a stadium, into a movement across the country. From 50,000 people standing up at the All Star Game last year, to 2.5 million people standing up nationwide this year.
Standing up for the people we love: priceless
