St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude, are returning to the Super Bowl this weekend with a 30-second spot meant to help the organization propel its mission in childhood cancer treatment.

This weekend’s 30-second spot will emphasize a principal pillar of unison and working together for a common cause: elevating access to children’s cancer treatment and research. The theme plays off of last year’s 30-second spot, “We’re All on One Team,” highlighting collective efforts among donors and researchers to fight pediatric cancer.

This year, however, St. Jude and ALSAC — which stands for American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities and was founded in 1957 to raise the funds to build St. Jude — are especially focused on international expansion, clarifying the mission and connecting with new audiences, said Samantha Maltin, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at ALSAC.

Martin spoke with Chief Marketer about this year’s objectives for the St. Jude brand — and how the Big Game is helping the nonprofit achieve its goals.

Chief Marketer: What is St. Jude’s mission? And why does that need clarification?

Samantha Maltin, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at ALSAC: Our mission is advancing cures for childhood cancer. Since St. Jude opened in 1962, we’ve helped advance pediatric cancer cure rates from 20% to over 80% in the U.S. Sadly, that is not the case internationally. Which is why we are now really focused on global expansion.

As we expand our presence globally, we also want to make sure our message and business model are clear. No family at St. Jude pays for treatment, housing, travel or food so they can simply focus on letting their child get better.

Additionally, we recognize that, while many people have heard of St. Jude, they think of St. Jude as a hospital. St. Jude is actually a world-class research institution, and we’re also a degree-granting medical institution. We share research freely with hundreds of organizations around the world.

But now, our goal is to share not just research but physical medicine as well. And we’re partnering with UNICEF and the World Health Organization to distribute those medicines. We’re in about six countries now, and expect that number to reach 50 by 2030.

CM: How does St. Jude expect the Super Bowl to help bolster this mission?

SM: The St. Jude brand has high levels of trust, both within and beyond the nonprofit sector. So what we’re focused on now is expanding that emotional connection with St. Jude. We have devoted donors for whom St. Jude is part of their everyday lives, and they’ve been giving for generations.

Now, we need to inspire new audiences to give. And what better opportunity is there to elevate that message than taking part in a cultural touchstone as significant as the Super Bowl?

CM: How will St. Jude’s campaign show up during the game?

SM: Beyond the 30-second spot, our campaign is running on just about all digital channels, including online video and social.

We’re also pairing the spot with some on-site activations, too. For example, during the draft, athletes will be wearing a “One Team” hat. Extending our campaign into the NFL draft is a great way to reinforce our message.

CM: How does this campaign tie into how the org is pursuing its mission overall?

SM: This is a transformational year for us we diversify our storytelling approach to help us expand our audience. Our Super Bowl campaign this year is just one example of how we’re doing this. More generally speaking, a core principle in our messaging is to underscore the human elements behind breakthrough research, scientific discovery and other emerging technologies.

One example is a recent campaign we launched earlier this year called “The Art of Hope,” which showcases how artificial intelligence helps us bring children’s artwork to life by generating animated iterations of their drawings. Our objective is to express the joy and hopefulness that families feel having gained more moments together as a result of making tremendous strides throughout their care journey.

Another way that we elevate the humanity behind our mission is deeply involving ourselves in local communities, but at a broad scale. For instance, we have an experiential division that does a lot of work with sororities and fraternities, including Tri Delta, as well as with various sporting events, dinners, galas, partners and sponsors. By becoming involved with people in their everyday lives, we hope to make St. Jude a part of their families’ traditions, too.

All these investments are scalable in the sense that not only can they reach a massive amount of people, but they have the power to resonate with and inspire a wide breadth of audiences with different experiences across all walks of life.

This is a movement — and something that everyone can be a part of.

This interview has been edited and condensed. Featured image credit: St. Jude.

Alyssa Boyle is Senior Editor, Convergent TV, at AdExchanger and Cynopsis.