Just a week ago, the National League won its first Major League Baseball All-Star game since 1996.  But much like a tree falling in the forest without anyone around to hear, the contest didn’t make much of a sound.  The national television ratings were the lowest ever for the mid-Summer classic.

This is not a new concern.  It took a near economic depression to put a dent in attendance, but the All-Star game was broadcast on free TV.  Neither is it a new insight that the sport has a marketing problem.  The list of “how-come’s” has become nearly etched in stone, among them that there has been a drop in the number of African-American players, performance enhancing drug use has tainted results and reputation, the games are too long and there are too many of them broadcast.

What is less certain is the best list of “what to do’s.”  Those that exist fall short by ignoring two essential qualities of Major League Baseball.  First, it is a regional game.  And, second, connection requires continuity.

It was another special game — Old Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium — that made this point very well.  Writing in the New York Times, columnist William C. Rhoden cast his vote for the marketing power of continuity:

“Despite the team’s seeming narcissism, Major League Baseball could learn something from the annual showcase of Old-Timers’ Day.  The Yankees are the only team that annually holds one, but it is something that baseball should encourage every team to do periodically. Old-Timers’ Day is the celebration of continuity and reunion. Few teams have the Yankees’ history, but every team has former players”

It will be far harder to resuscitate the regional game.  Whether it was the Dodgers and Giants moving west, the advent of the airplane, the ubiquity of cable television, free agency or inter-league play, a set of events has conspired to erase the lines that used to separate the ivy walls of Wrigley, the wind of San Francisco and the bright lights of New York.

When each fan knows as much about the opposition as his or her own team, hope is replaced by calculation.  Rotisserie Baseball (forerunner of the Fantasy variety) is exhibit A. In the always-on, 24-hour-a-day, up-to-the-second, Internet-driven media world, the attractive power of mystery is eliminated.  It makes it hard to be a fan of a team in what use to be called the “second division” when you know just how hard it really will be to “get ‘em next year.”

But all hope is not yet lost with regard to creating and strengthening a fan’s commitment to the continuity of the game.  So rather than suggest games be set to a clock or a shorter season or longer play-offs, Major League Baseball could do some things that reinforce the continuity of the game.  From the time it is played by children to the time those kids as adults take their own families to the ballpark.

Here are three suggestions:

1.  Underwrite the use of wooden bats in college games

It is hard to reconcile the “ping” of a college game with the “crack” heard in major league stadia as being of the same game.  Questions of safety alone should prompt MLB to divert some of its resources to the cause.

2.  Play more during the day

The game is best viewed in day light.  For the last 20 years, only once did attendance at Cub’s games — played predominantly during the day — fall below the league average.  Television contracts and good ratings for compelling post-season games will make this a difficult task, but balanced against an eroding trend line of participation and interest ought to make it a no-brainer.

3.  Make the path to the major leagues more visible

For every Stephen Strausberg who goes from college to the major leagues in months, there are 50 Jesus Feliciano’s who spend years in the minor leagues.   MLB can make their path — whether from Rookie ball, A, Penn League or the Arizona Fall League — a point of pride and anticipation.

Whether every team ought to have an Old Timers’ Day is every team question.  But that, too, seems an easy answer.  Invest in continuity and reap commitment.

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The recent snowstorms in Washington, D.C. led to more than closed schools, postponed events and shovel-sore muscles. The unusually cool atmospherics became a hot metaphor in the argument against climate change. After all, how could the climate be warming and there be all this snow?

The back-and-forth was captured in a story on Fox News:

The battle between science and politics also was the subject of a recent NPR  “On the Media” story on the now-debunked link between a measles vaccine and autism.  Here is what Dr. Richard Horton, editor of the British medical journal, The Lancet, had to say:

“We used to think that we could publish speculative research which advanced interesting new ideas which may be wrong, but which were important to provoke debate and discussion. We don’t think that now.  What we don’t seem able to do is we don’t seem able to have a rational conversation in a public space about difficult, controversial issues, without people drawing a conclusion which could be very, very adverse.”

The most disturbing part of what Dr. Horton said, because it seems to be true, is “we don’t seem able to have a rational conversation.”  For communications professionals this is at best a caution, at worst, a call to arms.  Most of our work is focused on adding context to the actions of our clients.

But context — be it scientific, medical or financial — requires an ability to see in three-dimensions.  How can we succeed when our public discourse is locked in black-and-white?  It demands we be more precise.

When the LA Times took another look at the D.C. snowstorm it did just that:

“Increased snowfall fits a pattern suggested by many climate models, in which rising temperatures warm the world’s bodies of water, leading to more evaporation.  Climate scientists say the amount of atmospheric moisture has increased, which they predict will bring more rain in warmer conditions and more snow in freezing temperatures.

‘All you need is cold air and moisture to meet each other’ to make snow, said Jay Gulledge, senior scientist for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. ‘And with global warming, the opportunities to do that should be more frequent.’”

The misunderstanding and misuse of the word “warming” in the “global warming” warning undercuts its value as context.  Perhaps “change” as in “climate change” is more effective, but, based on Mr. Michaels said to Fox News, that may be lost, too.

The  most effective argument at a time when science is so willingly dismissed may not yet have been made.  But just because the task of adding depth and perspective to political, social and commercial conversations has gotten difficult doesn’t mean it cannot be fought and won.

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MediaPost “Online Spin” columnist and President of Social Vibe Joe Marchese had this to say about the bright year ahead for mobile marketing:

“This is it.  2010 will be the year mobile marketing begins to realize the promise marketers have imagined for so long.  What’s different in 2010?  The phones are smarter, the networks are faster, an open development ecosystem is leading to faster innovation, and specialty mobile agencies have built up a solid knowledge base of what works.”

He is right that the tools for making mobile marketing real are in mass production.  You can count me as voting in favor of mobile in 2010, but the platform’s capabilities will shine a light on features that could be a drag on marketing — privacy and permission.  Just because someone downloaded an app doesn’t mean they knew all it did and weeks or months down the road they will likely remember even less.  Just look at the recent Sears settlement.

And being aware that our devices know where we are is not the same as permission to tell people.  I mean, we grant Google the right to read our email, but getting an ad tied too tightly to the conversation we are having at the moment can be creepy.  The reign of “notice and choice” has given online consumers little of either.  Advertisers are looking at notice in context and choice at the point of real decision.

Even the most zealous pro-mobile-advocates appreciate the concern/problem/speed bump.

A MobileMarketer column looking at the major trends for mobile in 2010 adds this to the list of those you have heard before:

“Mobile will be called to task on privacy in 2010. Reputable mobile ad networks will follow guidelines set by industry trade associations and standard bodies.  Offering opt-out capabilities to protect personal identification information will be an imperative and will propel the roll-out of more contextual and behavioral consumer ad targeting via mobile.”

Opt-in and opt-out, though, are so desktop.  There is a chance, though, in 2010 for this last hurdle to be cleared is new ways.  Our “persistent contact” with our smart phones, the speed of their browsers and advertisers use of short codes and 2-D barcodes stand to remake privacy and permission in real-time.

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When I saw this bit — “One of the most important lessons I’ve experienced over the years, though, is to build something worth noticing: A product that is the first to simplify a big problem or entertain a user’s important passion.” – in a VentureBeat post by Venrock entrepreneur-in-residence Sean O’Malley, I thought: that is a pretty good high concept for innovation.

O’Malley takes aim at building the only kind of products worth building — “remarkable” ones.  In marketing and public relations, we’ve always sought to exploit the ability our products had to solve big problems.  In fact, the bigger the problems a company solves, the easier it is to get the world (media included) to pay attention.

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The current “noise” about whether President Obama was really born in the United States may seem a view from the lunatic fringe, but we have long been captive to various urban myths, like the Satanic symbolism in a corporate logo or spider eggs in bubble gum.  It makes one wonder, how come?

In an interview this month on NPR, Princeton neuroscience professor Sam Wang, co-author of  “Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life,” offered three reasons why we might believe things that just aren’t true.

According to Professor Wang, we know things — like the capital of Wisconsin — but we don’t always remember where we first heard it.  “As we recall things,” he said,”it’s currently believed that we rewrite them a little bit so that we gradually separate a fact from context.”  He called it “source amnesia.”

And when we begin not with fact — Madison! — but with fiction, things can roll down hill even faster.  There is “biased assimilation” which causes us to accept statements, true or not, that align with beliefs and “we tend to question or be more critical or even reject statements that don’t fit with our beliefs.”

Getting people — as voters, consumers or parents — to act differently may not only be about the facts they are given, but the way they get them and how those facts are reinforced.

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The flurry of comment and attention this week to Matthew Robson’s “How Teenagers Consume Media” reminded me of a scene in a movie I once saw.

It was the Beatles 1964 film, “A Hard Day’s Night.” And the scene includes a line of dialog that could be said of Mr. Robson.  It is spoken by the assistant to the marketing director for a line of clothing aimed at teenagers.  The pair mistook George Harrison for a model sent by an agency and asked him his opinion of some shirts.

“They’re grotty,” George says.  “Grotty?”  “Yeah, grotesque.”  The marketing director takes offense and sends Harrison packing, then, in a moment of self-doubt asks, “You don’t think he’s a new phenomenon, do you?”  The assistant replies, “You mean an early clue to the new direction”?

I do not mean to discount the discounting of Twitter in Robson’s analysis and I hope that Matthew has a career as long and successful as Harrison and his mates.  But noting that teenagers will swap new stuff for newer, cooler stuff and that they are reluctant to spend money for the privilege doesn’t feel like new information.

The attention given the report is likely powered more by the uncertainty faced by the companies courting those teenagers.  But our time might be better spent focusing on what has not changed about teens in the last 45 years — the contradictions that drive adoption.

Now, as then, teenagers are anxious to stake out their own territory and belong to a group; they are keen to know first what’s new, but willing to share it fast in their circle; and no matter how bleak the rest of us can make the future seem, they intend to be around long into it.

The companies whose products support, aid and encourage these qualities will do well.  Those that don’t will have to rely on the rest of us to get by.  Ultimately,what Matthew Robson may have captured in his analysis is not so much a snapshot as much it is a frame from a film — building on previous images but moving the story toward an end not yet written.

This is no epitaph, but an opportunity.  As Timbuk3 so eloquently put it at the mid-way point between Harrison and Robson, my future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.”

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The current business environment has put a premium on peoples’ networks.  Sure, “it’s not what you know, but who you know” may be a bit cynical, but who better to help you through a trying time than a friend?  But these times are so trying that networking only among friends won’t likely get the job done.

This puts pressure on us all, but mostly on we who are, er, shy.  We have to overcome our own reluctance, not just a contact’s skepticism.

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